Geologist L. Greer Price worked for the National Park Service for ten years, mainly in Grand Canyon National Park, and his experience in explaining the geology of the canyon to the parks visitors is evident on every page of his brief (64-page) introduction, enlivened with dozens of photographs. Basic geological principles, including plate tectonics, structural features and their significance, and the role of erosion, are introduced and emphasized throughout; a glossary and a full index enhance the book's usefulness. Proceeds from the sale of the book benefit the educational programs of Grand Canyon National Park.

Whereas The Age of the Earth was aimed at the general scientific public, Ancient Earth, Ancient Skies is aimed at the common reader, and it succeeds magnificently in clearly explaining the methods and results used by scientists in ascertaining the age of the earth and of the universe. Writing in RNCSE (2005 Jan–Apr; 25 [1–2]: 45–46), Timothy Heaton described Ancient Earth, Ancient Skies as "a much-needed contribution to scientific education ... [that] takes a pivotal and complex topic and makes it very easy to understand by non-scientists. ... This book deserves a place in every school and public library."

Assembled together in Annals of the Former World are no fewer than four of John McPhee's acclaimed popular books about North American geology — Basin and Range, In Suspect Terrain, Rising from the Plains, Assembling California — as well as the previously unpublished Crossing the Craton. Writing in The New York Review of Books, Stephen Jay Gould praised McPhee's "ability to capture the essence of a complex issue ... in a well-turned phrase." McPhee, a staff writer for The New Yorker since 1965, won the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for Nonfiction for Annals of the Former World.

As its title suggests, Atlas of the Prehistoric World contains a collection of dazzlingly detailed paleogeographic maps, tracking shifts in land masses and climates from the Vendian Period to the present. In addition, Douglas Palmer, who teaches Earth and Natural Sciences at Cambridge University, narrates the story of life's evolution over the course of the last four billion years and provides a sparkling history of and guide to earth science. Accompanied by over 250 full-color photographs and illustrations, Atlas of the Prehistoric World is a wonderful reference for the student, the teacher, and the enthusiast alike.

From the publisher: "Highlighting a discovery that radically altered existing perceptions of a human's place in the universe as much as the theories of Copernicus, Darwin, and Freud did, Bursting the Limits of Time is a herculean effort by one of the world's foremost experts on the history of geology and paleontology to sketch this historicization of the natural world in the age of revolution. Addressing this intellectual revolution for the first time, Rudwick examines the ideas and practices of earth scientists throughout the Western world to show how the story of what we now call 'deep time' was pieced together."

From the publisher: "Cruisin' the Fossil Freeway follows the zany travels of a paleontologist and an artist as they drive across the American West in search of fossils. Throughout their journey, they encounter 'paleonerds' like themselves, men and women dedicated to finding everything from suburban T. rexes to killer Eocene pigs to ancient fossilized forests. Much of their travels are spent in remote places few people visit, where they discover small-town museums packed with paleontological treasures, rock quarries that have yielded hundreds of fossilized bones, and the remains of ancient seashores tracked with the footprints of dinosaurs. What soon becomes evident is that fossils are everywhere; it only takes knowing what to look for to find them — even at 65 miles per hour."

Jack Horner is well known as the model for the iconoclastic Jurassic Park paleontologist, but the real story of his discovery of the stupendous 10,000-specimen Maiosaur site, complete with nests, eggs, and hatchlings, is even more impressive than the movie. His collaborator, science writer James Gorman, keeps the prose moving in a conversational style. Well-illustrated.

Is the 250-million-year career of a rock a suitable subject for a picture book aimed at kindergarteners through third-graders? Yes! Writes the reviewer for The Children's Bookwatch, "Marianne Wallace's artwork is nothing short of spectacular. Diane Spickert's narrative text is absolutely faithful to the geology and paleontology of the Earth's record as recorded by fossils. Earthsteps is a 'must' for personal, school and community library children's science books and non-fiction picturebook collections." Complemented with a geological time scale (from the Permian to the Holocene) and a glossary of geological terms.

Compiled by two of the world's foremost dinosaur experts, with almost 900 pages by 275 authors and 35 color plates, Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs was hailed as the most valuable and up-to-date reference work on dinosaurs when it was published in 1997. NCSE's executive director Eugenie C. Scott applauded, "I know I'm going to get a lot of use out of this book, and so would any teacher or parent with a dinosaur-nutty kid." Editor (and contributor) Kevin Padian, a paleontologist at the University of California, Berkeley, is president of NCSE's board of directors; he also testified in Kitzmiller v. Dover.

Subtitled "A study in the relations of scientific thought, natural theology, and social opinion in Great Britain, 1790–1850," Genesis and Geology "proposed to give an account of the immediate background of the pattern of scientific disagreement which culminated in disputes about Darwin's book and to attempt to analyze the causes of that disagreement." Originally published in 1951, Genesis and Geology was reprinted by Harvard University Press in 1996, with a new introduction by the historian of geology Nicolaas Rupke reevaluating the book in light of the subsequent forty-five years of historical scholarship.

From the publisher: "This second edition of the leading book on Grand Canyon geology contains the most recent discoveries and interpretations of the origin and history of the canyon. It includes two entirely new chapters: one on debris flow in the Canyon and one on Holocene deposits in the canyon. All chapters have been updated where necessary and all photographs have been replaced or re-screened for better resolution. Written by acknowledged experts in stratigraphy, paleontology, structural geology, geomorphology, volcanism, and seismology, this book offers a wealth of information for students, geologists, and general readers interested in acquiring an understanding of the geological history of this great natural wonder."

From the publisher: "Vast and majestic, the Grand Canyon represents one of science's most challenging puzzles: How did this massive canyon come to be? This is the story of the search for the answers, and the first account of the consensus geologists have reached in the last few years. A scientific detective tale packed with colorful characters, Grand Canyon follows the explorers, adventurers, and geologists whose efforts led to the understanding of the canyon's mysteries. ... An eloquent, breathtaking narrative, Grand Canyon is a fascinating true story that is as epic as its subject." Powell is also the author of The Mysteries of Terra Firma: Exploring the Age and Evolution of the World.

From the publisher: "a widely acclaimed account of the most celebrated controversies in the history of geology — a book that covers many of the most important ideas that have emerged since the birth of the science. Among the great debates described here are those involving catastrophe theory, uniformitarianism, the discovery of the Ice Age, speculation concerning the age of the earth, and the advent of new ideas on plate tectonics and continental drift. In presenting these key topics, the author opens the fascinating history of geology to a wide audience. Frequently citing original sources, the author gives readers a sense of the colorful and at times immensely entertaining language of scientific discourse."

For the Hiking Geology series of The Mountaineers Books, Lon Abbott and Terri Cook have produced a hiker's guide to the Grand Canyon that explains the geology in loving expert detail, literally step by step. Eighteen excursions are detailed, ranging — as the publisher writes — "from the most popular rim-to-river trails (Havasu Canyon Trail) to gentle, half-day rim walks (Red Butte Trail) to rugged and remote multi-day backpack trips (Lava Falls Route)" and including useful information on permits, lodging and camping, and mule rides. The authors both teach at Prescott College, where they lead hiking trips to study geology in the field.

From the publisher: "Exploring more than four hundred years of human contact with the Grand Canyon, Stephen J. Pyne chronicles the creation of one of Americas greatest icons. The Canyon was discovered in 1540 by Spanish explorers, but dismissed as worthless and immediately forgotten; three centuries passed before it came to be recognized by Westerners for the natural wonder that it is. Merging environmental, social, intellectual, and political history, Pyne takes us on a wondrous journey of discovery. He recounts the achievements of explorers, geologists, artists, and writers, from John Wesley Powell to Wallace Stenger, who transformed the Canyon from a natural phenomenon into a symbol of America."

In In Search of Deep TIme, Henry Gee, Chief Science Writer at Nature, presents a painless and compelling introduction to cladistics, the approach to analyzing evolutionary relationships that revolutionized systematic biology. NCSE President Kevin Padian says, "This is a subversive book. Read it only if you want to know how scientists actually do their work, as opposed to the mythology of textbooks and documentaries. In it, you will discovery how and why the beloved Linnean system of taxonomy — the one that gave us classes and orders and families, oh my! — is being replaced by a wholly evolutionary way of looking at nature."

Ranging from the Triassic to the Cretaceous, Colagrande presents a veritable menagerie of Dinosauria. With one hundred full-color plates by the acclaimed illustrator Larry Felder, In the Presence of Dinosaurs is a lively and well-researched exploration of the habitat and behavior of these magnificent creatures, drawing both on the fossil record and on the living descendants of the dinosaurs. Jack Horner, author of numerous dinosaur books and Curator of Paleontology at the Museum of the Rockies, contributes the foreword.

From the origin of life to the Cambrian explosion, Knoll draws not only on paleontology but also on the latest insights from molecular biology, ecology, and the earth sciences to produce a broad understanding of the emergence of biological diversity. Sean Carroll (the author of Endless Forms Most Beautiful) writes, "This is a truly great book. It is a remarkably readable synthesis of many diverse ideas selected from a breathaking array of disciplines. The narrative is engaging and entertaining — a travelogue through time that incorporates amusing and informative anecdotes from Knoll's travels to many far-off places." Knoll is Fisher Professor of Natural History at Harvard University.

Reviewing Martin's Missing Links for Reports of the NCSE, Kenneth D. Angielczyk described it as "an easy-to-read introduction to the science of paleontology ... Martin's examples span many scales of evolutionary transition, from subtle tooth morphology in voles to the origins of birds, mammals, and tetrapods ... any attentive reader will come away from the book with questions and wanting to learn more about evolution."

With the aid of 75 illustrations, including 20 color plates, the distinguished medieval historian Norman Cohn explores the origins, development, and variety of interpretations of the familiar tale of the Noachian deluge. Writing in Nature, the historian of geology Martin Rudwick described Noah's Flood as "[a]n attractive brief survey of the fortunes and uses of the Flood story, ranging from ancient Mesopotamia to the equally alien territory of twentieth-century American creationism ..." and commended it to "anyone with an interest in the historical roots of modern scientific study of the Earth." The author is the Astor-Wolfson Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Sussex.

Suitable for budding geologists in fifth through ninth grades, Pioneers of Geology engagingly presents the history of geology by concentrating on the life and works of six important geologists: James Hutton, Charles Lyell, G. K. Gilbert, Alfred Wegener, Harry Hess, and Gene Shoemaker (who not only discovered the comet Shoemaker–Levy 9, but also is widely considered the father of planetary geology). With black-and-white illustrations and photographs; a geological time scale and a diagram of the age and structure of the earth appear in appendices, along with a helpful glossary and a bibliography including references to internet resources.

In The Rejection of Continental Drift: Theory and Method in American Earth Science, Naomi Oreskes traced the reception of continental drift in American geology from its initial rejection to its eventual acceptance. Now, in Plate Tectonics, she compiled the definitive history of the theory, told by the very scientists who developed and assembled evidence for it. Sections include The Historical Background, The Early Work: From Paleomagnetism to Sea Floor Spreading, Heat Flow and Seismology, The Plate Models, From the Oceans to the Continents, and Continents Really Do Move. Oreskes is Associate Professor of History at the University of California, San Diego.

An exciting recounting of the 19th-century discovery of the dinosaurs, featuring such characters as Mary Anning, William Buckland, Georges Cuvier, Richard Owen, Gideon Mantell, and Charles Lyell. Carl Zimmer writes, "Cadbury ... turns what could have been just a string of anecdotes into high drama. Much of her success comes from her depth of research: she has scoured diaries, letters and newspaper archives and can tell her story in the words of the people who lived it."

The Age of the Earth begins with a plain answer: "Four and one-half billion years." But keep reading! Dalrymple's comprehensive, authoritative, and altogether magisterial account of the methods used to determine the age of the earth is, according to the reviewer for The Quarterly Review of Biology, "an enormously important book written by an expert for the general scientific public. It is must reading for all interested in the antiquity of nature." Dalrymple, a Supporter of NCSE and a recipient of the National Medal for Science, is Professor Emeritus in the College of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences at Oregon State University.

In The Chronologers' Quest, Patrick Wyse Jackson recounts the fascinating story of attempts to ascertain the age of the earth, starting with prescientific mythology and sacred chronology, continuing through the rise of scientific geology in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries, and culminating with the advent of radioisotope dating methods, which show that the earth is about 4.5 billion years old. The reviewer for Sky and Telescope comments, "Jackson lays out the information clearly and chronologically, making it an excellent resource for researchers"; a useful annotated bibliography is included. Jackson is a lecturer in geology and curator of the Geological Museum in Trinity College, Dublin.

NCSE President Kevin Padian promises on the cover, "If you're feeling inferior because your kids are geniuses about dinosaurs, then this book is for you." Full color illustrations and up-to-date, non-technical descriptions of dinosaurs' physical characteristics and behavior as well as likely reasons for their disappearance.

"It is perhaps a little indelicate to ask of our mother Earth her age, but Science acknowledges no shame." So quipped Arthur Holmes, one of the major figures in the history of attempts to determine the age of the earth, and the subject of Cherry Lewis's lively biography, The Dating Game. The reviewer for Earth Sciences History writes, "it is always a pleasure — and alas, not a common pleasure — to read a really well-written geological biography. Cherry Lewis is to be congratulated not only in producing one such biography, but also in setting forth with commendable lucidity the evolving scientific concepts by which the Earth's dating was achieved."

In The Map that Changed the World, Simon Winchester tells the practically Dickensian story of William Smith and his struggle to create what was arguably the first true geological map. Winchester writes, "Geology, it seems almost redundant to say, underlies and underpins everything: the site of every city, every gold mine, every field, every island is determined purely by geology — and humanity's condition is more directly influenced by geology than by any other aspect of the natural world. But until William Smith we could only surmise what that geology was, and what it would and could be elsewhere. We had no map."

Perhaps the most up-to-date and comprehensive treatment of dinosaur evolution currently available, The Mistaken Extinction discusses both the origin of birds and the supposed extinction of the dinosaurs in detail, offering a very accessible discussion of modern taxonomy and cladistics en route. Writing in The New York Times Book Review, John Noble Wilford comments, "If their richly illustrated book is perhaps too comprehensive for cover-to-cover reading, it is well organized to be used for years as a reference work on all kinds of dinosaur and bird lore."

In The Mysteries of Terra Firma, Powell — the author of Night Comes to the Cretaceous and Grand Canyon: Solving Earth's Grandest Puzzle, as well as the former president and director of the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History — describes the development of our understanding of the history of the earth by focusing on three themes: Time, Drift, and Chance. For a lucid explanation of the dating techniques used to establish the age of the earth, the revolution wrought by Wegener's theory of continental drift, and the role played by chance asteroid impacts in the history of the earth, look no further. "An accessible, lively account of the biggest questions in earth history," writes the reviewer for Booklist.

A new book about Niels Stensen (1638-86) — Nicolaus Stenonius in Latin, or Steno for short — the Danish anatomist-turned-geologist who was arguably the founder of the science of geology. Writing in The New York Times, NCSE President Kevin Padian praised Cutler "for making one think about what qualifies as an explanation, and for exploring the endless debates that mix strands of partial knowledge with the need to reconcile religious testaments."

An unmatched reference work distinguished by its erudition and beauty, The Simon & Schuster Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs and Prehistoric Creatures is an illustrated who's who of prehistoric life, a Baedeker of more than 500 million years of evolution on Earth.

In Time's Arrow/Time's Cycle, Stephen Jay Gould reconsiders the discovery of deep time by focusing on "the three cardinal actors on the British geological stage — the primary villain and the two standard heroes", that is, Thomas Burnet, James Hutton, and Charles Lyell. Challenging textbook orthodoxies and Whiggish triumphalism in the history of geology, Time's Arrow/Time's Cycle was praised by the reviewer for the Times Higher Education Supplement as carrying "an enthusiasm, intelligence and sense of purpose that render it a worthy follower to Gould's earlier work." Gould was a supporter of NCSE until his death in 2002.

In his lively, ambitious, and engaging study, Pleins — Professor of Religious Studies at Santa Clara University — investigates the cultural significance of the story of Noah's flood, discussing the connections and conflicts among geology, archeology, myth, literature, the Bible, and popular culture. (A chapter is devoted to "Fundamentalist literalism and 'creation science'.") Michael Ruse writes, "This fascinating book opens up a completely new light on a topic about which we all think we know something and about which we learn we knew very little. One of the great myths of Western culture is seen in a completely fresh light, thanks to the labors of J. David Pleins."

Lavishly illustrated, Wildlife of Gondwana describes the past diversity of life on Gondwana, the supercontinent that later dispersed into Antarctica, India, Australia, Africa, and South America. As Patricia Vickers-Rich writes on its Amazon.com page, "Tom and I very much enjoyed writing this book over a period of eight years originally — then spent another two years revising [it]. We were able to see and record infomation about so many new Gondwana fossils, and it led us into many new research projects and introduced us to many new people we never knew before. It was a fantastic journey for us — across Gondwana today and in the past."