Cruisin' the Fossil Freeway

"No one—not even Steven Spielberg—can explain the magic of the Jurassic as cleverly and comprehensively as America's current Master of the Mesozoic, Kirk Johnson. Now, together with the magnificently eccentric fossil-artists Ray Troll, Kirk reports on a paleontological odyssey that manages to be informative, witty, educational—and enormous fun."" —Simon Winchester, author of The Map That Changed the World, Krakatoa, and A Crack in the Edge of the World ""By the time you finish this book, you will know more about dinosaurs, trilobites, and ammonites than you ever wanted to, and you'll never even realize that you were learning all this great stuff."" —Richard Ellis, American Museum of Natural History research associate and author of The Empty Ocean ""Johnson relates the stories of the great discoveries in paleontology and peoples them with a rogues' gallery of parched academics and mercenary treasure hunters. In the end, the reader is holding the strangest, most delightful of texts—an adventure story, a memoir, a handbook, a history, a guide. And a refreshing sense that the boisterous Earth is resilient and enduring."" —Peter Heller, author of Hell or High Water and The Whale Warriors"