Lucy's Legacy: The Quest for Human Origins

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 show more 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. show less

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.