The Story of Birds

THE INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES & NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER 'Steve Brusatte has a rare gift for bringing the distant past vividly and fascinatingly to life' - Bill Bryson 'One of the stars of modern palaeontology' - National Geographic 'An unqualified success from beginning to end' - New Scientist 'An enjoyable tour of evolutionary science' - Financial Times '[This] origin story of birds is exciting . . . natural history writing at its best' - Times Literary Supplement 'A delight . . . unflaggingly fascinating' - The Sunday Times 'A gifted writer . . . Brusatte makes us look anew at these feathered beasts' - The Times, Best Summer Books 'Soaringly brilliant' - Alice Roberts A New Scientist and Times most anticipated book of 2026, from the bestselling author of The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs. Billions of birds share the planet with us. With their flamboyant plumage and joyous dawn serenades, many of them are impossible to miss. But how did they get here, how did they break the bounds of Earth and begin to fly, and how does their legacy shape our world? In delightfully energetic prose, expert palaeontologist Steve Brusatte takes us through their 150-million-year history, from their origins among small carnivorous dinosaurs to the 10,000-plus species that thrive today. Along the way, we meet fantastic birds from all around the world, some known only through fossils. There are elephant birds that stand as high as a basketball hoop and lay eggs as big as watermelons; demon ducks that weigh more than cows; aeroplane-sized seabirds that soar the world's thermals; and predatory penguins the size of gorillas. Lively, majestic and full of wonder, The Story of Birds will ensure you never see birds the same way again. 'Steve Brusatte tells the amazing story of birds with enthusiasm and brio' - Henry Gee 'An eye-opening tour into the amazing world of birds' - Venki Ramakrishnan *The Story of Birds was no. 10 on the New York Times Hardcover Nonfiction best seller list for the week ending May 2, 2026.

Professor Steve Brusatte is a palaeontologist on the faculty of the School of GeoSciences at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. He grew up in the Midwestern United States and has a BSc in Geophysical Sciences from the University of Chicago, MSc in Palaeobiology from the University of Bristol, and PhD in Earth and Environmental Sciences from Columbia University in New York. Steve is widely recognized as one of the leading palaeontologists of his generation. He has written over two hundred peer-reviewed scientific papers during his twenty years of research in the field, named and described over a dozen new species of dinosaurs and mammals, and led groundbreaking studies on how dinosaurs rose to dominance and went extinct, and how birds evolved from carnivorous dinosaurs closely related to Tyrannosaurus and Velociraptor. His book The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs was a Sunday Times bestseller and has been translated into over twenty languages, and he is the science consultant for the Jurassic World film franchise and BBC's Walking With Dinosaurs., Professor Steve Brusatte is a palaeontologist on the faculty of the School of GeoSciences at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. He grew up in the Midwestern United States and has a BS in Geophysical Sciences from the University of Chicago, a MSc in Palaeobiology from the University of Bristol (UK), and PhD in Earth and Environmental Sciences from Columbia University in New York. Steve is widely recognized as one of the leading palaeontologists of his generation. He has written over 150 peer-reviewed scientific papers during his fifteen years of research in the field, named and described over a dozen new species of dinosaurs and mammals, and led ground-breaking studies on how dinosaurs rose to dominance and went extinct and how mammals replaced them afterwards. Among his particular research interests are the evolutionary transition between dinosaurs and birds and the rise of placental mammals, and he is a noted specialist on the anatomy, genealogy, and evolution of the carnivorous dinosaurs like Tyrannosaurus and Velociraptor. His book, The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs, was a Sunday Times bestseller, and he is the science consultant for Jurassic World 3, the third film in the Jurassic Park franchise.