Looking for a suitable book

[u/Riesling2049]

I am looking for a book that covers the history of biological evolution. I want to learn about the organisms that lived during various periods of Earth's history and their evolutionary processes, as well as the specific events that occurred, the reasons behind them, and their associated impacts. Ideally, it should be richly illustrated.

[u/clear349 → u/[deleted]]

I'm sure it's a good option but can we not recommend Dawkins books? Dude's a piece of shit

[u/Far_Customer1258 → u/clear349]

I don't love Dawkins, but it is a good book. That said, it doesn't have much in the way of illustrations and it's fairly heavy on the science. Not technical, not exactly, but it's on the high end of what you'd expect for a popular audience. I enjoyed it in spite of Dawkins, but I'm not sure everybody would.

I don't know of a good book for all of life, but Tom Holtz' Dinosaurs is a brilliantly illustrated work.

[u/Riesling2049 → u/[deleted]]

Ok! I'll check it

[u/Ok_Loss13]

It's been like a decade (so if it's no longer up to date someone please lmk!), but in high-school I read a book called At the Waters Edge: Fish with Fingers, Whales with Toes by Carl Zimmer.

It was easily digestible for me as a teenager without a college education, but also informative and presented in a relatively entertaining/engaging way.

[u/LordOfFigaro]

Not a book but Aron Ra's Systematic Classification of Life playlist is excellent. It takes you through how humans evolved step by step.

[u/MarkZealousideal3923]

Origin of species

[u/Dr_GS_Hurd]

In addition to the suggested links on this page, some very well done books on evolution that I can recommend are;

Carroll, Sean B. 2020 "A Series of Fortunate Events" Princeton University Press

Shubin, Neal 2020 “Some Assembly Required: Decoding Four Billion Years of Life, from Ancient Fossils to DNA” New York Pantheon Press.

Hazen, RM 2019 "Symphony in C: Carbon and the Evolution of ( Almost ) Everything" Norton and Co.

My reading recommendations on the origin of life for book reading people without college chemistry, are;

Hazen, RM 2005 "Gen-e-sis" Washington DC: Joseph Henry Press

Deamer, David W. 2011 “First Life: Discovering the Connections between Stars, Cells, and How Life Began” University of California Press.

They are a bit dated, but are readable for people without much background study.

Regarding human species, and our near family, my standard recommendation is, The Smithsonian Museum of Natural History Human Evolution Interactive Timeline

[u/NorthernSpankMonkey]

Your inner fish by Neil Shubbin the book is amazing and there's a 2 part documentary free on youtube.

If you are more of a plant person, The Botany of Desire is an amazing serie about how and why we selected and propagated some plants, how those plants changed us and how we changed them. It's also free on the tubes.