I didn't finish this, but I'd still like to make some comments. Donald C. Johanson published a number of popular books on Lucy, also called Dinkinesh, or AL 288-1, Homo afariensis, and human evolution.

1981 Lucy the Beginnings of Humankind,
1986 Lucy's Child,
1990 Journey from Dawn,
1994 Ancestors, in Search of Human Origins,
1996 From Lucy to Language,
2009 Lucy's Legacy

So why is he telling us about his problems with cockroaches, mosquitos and booking hotels in the 1980s, fifteen to twenty years ago in 2009? Did someone manage to restrain him from putting all this in his previous books? He must keep very detailed diaries. This is a matter of personal preference. Another Amazon reader and I a different book indifferent reviews because we got very tired of the author's tangents and details of her life. It was her detailing a perfectly banal cup of coffee that she bought in South America that sticks in my mind. That and a lengthy account of an intense argument with her hosts about the meaning of pictographs that were not among the illustrations in the book. My but they were patient people.

Another reviewer scolded us because it is precisely these things that make the book interesting (to him.) I hate people who try to tell me that I don't know what I am thinking and feeling. That's part of gaslighting. Despite what the third reviewer thought, there is not arguing taste. But for the reader with a mind for detail, this may all be fascinating. I know someone who loves what I consider to be excruciating detail. I never read books that she recommends.

These were intermixed with very interesting sections on the science of evolution. Perhaps if I had not been somewhat pressed for time, I would have been more willing to wade through the personal minutia and flip around until I found the more interesting parts. Things change of course, no information becomes available, which makes revisiting the evidence worthwhile.

So, I hope this helps the reader decide about the book.

This is as much a personal reminescence as it is a science book; it contains equal parts of both. The science parts are very interesting, as the author details what we know about human evolution and how our knowledge has changed (evolved, if you'll pardon the pun) with the ever increasing hominid fossil record. He also details, briefly, a few of the disputes in science, which is always interesting and helps lay people understand how science is done, and that it isn't always pretty. Fortunately, he does not spend an overly abundant amount of time on the disputes, as that can often derail a book that is attempting to explain what we know and how we know it, like the tail wagging the dog (cliche alert). The weaker parts are the personal reminescences, with the exception of the initial story of how he first found Lucy. The parts about the difficulties in working in Ethiopia as a result of the tumultuous political system read well, but much of the other is simply poorly written, or poorly edited, including a great deal of trivial detail that one often finds in beginning authors before they learn how to write. He gives such boring and inessential details as his motel room number and the flight number of the airplane; these should have been ruthlessly chopped out by an editor, but unfortunately editing today has gotten extremely sloppy, and allows such silliness to mar an otherwise interesting and worthwhile piece of work. Overall, a good introduction to the topic for a beginniner, with just enough in-depth description of how species are determined to whet the appetite for a more curious reader to urge them toward further reading. ( )

I found this book to be totally engrossing, and it capitavates your imagination from page 1. If your interested in evolution, etc. this is a have gotta read. ( )