Books by Michael Benton
Michael Benton is a palaeontologist who has made fundamental contributions to understanding the history of life, particularly concerning how biodiversity changes through time. Michael has written engaging books for children on the theme of dinosaurs, as well as a significant number of palaeontology text books for university students. He founded the MSc in Palaeobiology at Bristol in 1996, from which more than 450 students have graduated. He has supervised more than 75 PhD students.
“There are a thousand and one dinosaur books and more are sold in the Natural History Museum than all the rest of the books put together. Kids love dinosaurs. But this is a dinosaur book by two people that really know their dinosaurs and that’s why I chose it…It’s all about the different types of dinosaur and the way they lived. It’s clear that dinosaurs did almost everything that mammals do. There were large grazers, herbivores, carnivores and small insectivores. Any kind of ‘vore’ you like to mention was being done by the dinosaurs long before the mammals invented their own different techniques for doing it. So, one of the preconceptions that this book gets rid of – you know the old expressions: we mustn’t be dinosaurs, this company must not be a dinosaur?…It’s complete nonsense. Dinosaurs were superbly well-adapted and would probably have survived and we would never have had a chance had it not been for their unfortunate, as Monty Python used to say, demise.” Read more...
The best books on Palaeontology
Richard Fortey, Biologist
Interviews with Michael Benton
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1
The Age of Alchemy: The Secret History of Chemistry from Ancient Magic to Modern Science
by Kit Chapman -
2
Bad Influence: How the Internet Hijacked Our Health
by Deborah Cohen -
3
Despite It All: A Handbook for Climate Hopefuls
by Fred Pearce -
4
Every Last Fish: A Deep Dive into the World of Fishes and Fishing
by Rose George -
5
Hidden Guests: Migrating Cells and How the New Science of Microchimerism Is Redefining Human Identity
by Lise Barnéoud, translated by Bronwyn Haslam -
6
How to Change a Memory: One Neuroscientist’s Quest to Alter the Past
by Steve Ramirez
The Best Popular Science Books of 2026: The Royal Society Book Prize, recommended by Michael Benton
The Best Popular Science Books of 2026: The Royal Society Book Prize, recommended by Michael Benton
The Royal Society celebrates the best new popular science writing every year through the prestigious Trivedi Science Book Prize. We asked Professor Michael Benton, the eminent palaeontologist and chair of the 2026 judging panel, to talk us through their six-book shortlist: from a globe-trotting history of alchemy to a fast-paced account of memory manipulation by optogenetics researchers at the cutting edge of science.
Interviews where books by Michael Benton were recommended
The best books on Palaeontology, recommended by Richard Fortey
Palaeontologist Richard Fortey says it took tiny organisms two billion years of work to oxygenate the planet sufficiently for our kind of life, including trilobites, dinosaurs and ourselves, to evolve
