The Dinosaur Artist: Obsession, Betrayal and the Quest for Earth’s Ultimate Trophy

Paige Williams

I have a friend who categories books such as this as “better as an article” and perhaps there is some truth to that.  Williams takes the compelling story she wrote for the New Yorker of a fossil hunter, the government of Mongolia, and a contentious dinosaur skeleton and layers on top of it Mongolian geopolitics, family drama, the history of paleontology, debates between academics and amateurs, and more to create a book that’s consistently fascinating, but a bit of a hodgepodge.

I  enjoy digressions and side stories, the odder the better, but if you prefer a straighter arrow, you might think this should have stayed a magazine article.

Recommended for the enthusiast.