Lev Parikian is such an engaging author. He always manages to enthuse me about whatever he writes about because he himself is so excited by what he is discovering. I learned so much in this book. Each chapter deals with a different flighted animal, from pterosaurs to dragonflies, from hummingbirds to flies, this is a fascinating look at the hidden complexities of flight. I love that he includes everything we do know and quite a few things we still don't understand. This is such a great, chatty book.

A fascinating, thought-provoking read on the evolution of wings in insects, dinosaurs and birds, Taking Flight is a real crowd pleaser. Most happily, as a reader I was able to absorb and understand it without having deep knowledge in the study of biology. It is very approachable and rather addictive being casually conversational and not over the top with confusing jargon. All chapters brought something new to the discussion on flight enhancing wings though I felt affronted on behalf of bees who were treated a bit shabbily. It was a quick chapter focused on stinging, fear and swarms rather than the multitudes of amazing bee-specific facts and marvels. I felt there was a lot of ground not covered, sadly. On the opposite end of the spectrum, bats garnered loads of time and coverage and I found that awe-inducing being the only winged mammal! A brilliant book for anyone with a passing interest in the evolution of flight without requiring an engineering or biology degree. Great stuff, Taking Flight is wholly informative and entertaining!

I cannot imagine the amount of research that went into this book, but truly, I can only admire Parikian's sheer ambition! For the most part, he carries it off. I have previously read a book by a scientist on how flight works in nature, and my God, I could not retain anything from it. I wasn't clever enough. Whereas 'Taking Flight' is very nicely tailored for people without proficiency in physics. The information is digestible, and each section itself is fairly brief, with no one species or group of species hogging the limelight for too long. Parikian weaves in the odd personal anecdote about his encounters with such animals, but the narrative is mostly at the level of the "informative" rather than the personal. The humour is sometimes a bit too much for me, but having read the author's previous two books, I knew what to expect from his jaunty style. And I can easily forgive it, given how many wonderful facts I've learned from 'Taking Flight'.