Taking Flight: How Animals Learned to Fly and Transformed Life on Earth

by Lev Parikian

This is the miracle of flight as you’ve never seen it before: the evolutionary story of life on the wing.
A bird flits overhead. It’s an everyday occurrence, repeated hundreds, thousands, millions of times daily by creatures across the world. It’s something so normal, so entirely taken for granted, that sometimes we forget how extraordinary it is. But take that in for a moment. This animal flies. It. Flies. The miracle of flight has evolved in hugely diverse ways, with countless variations of flapping and gliding, hovering and diving, murmurating and migrating.
Conjuring lost worlds, ancient species and ever-shifting ecologies, this exhilarating new book is a mesmerising encounter with fourteen flying species: from the first fluttering insect of 300 million years ago to the crested pterosaurs of the Mesozoic Era, from hummingbirds that co-evolved with rainforest flowers to the wonders of dragonfly, albatross, pipistrelle and monarch butterfly with which we share the planet today.
Taking Flight is a mind-expanding feat of the imagination, a close encounter with flight in its myriad forms, urging us to look up and drink in the spectacle of these gravity-defying marvels that continue to shape life on Earth.

Genres: Nonfiction, Science, Nature, Animals, Birds, Natural History, Evolution

304 pages, Paperback

First published May 4, 2023

Reviews

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

Parikian’s accessible account of the animal kingdom’s development of flight exhibits a layman’s enthusiasm for an everyday wonder. He explicates the range of flying strategies and the structural adaptations that made them possible. The archaeopteryx section, chronicling the transition between dinosaurs and birds, is a highlight. Though the most science-heavy of the author’s six works, this, perhaps ironically, has fewer footnotes. His usual wit is on display: he describes the feral pigeon as “the Volkswagen Golf of birds” and penguins as “piebald blubber tubes”. This makes it a pleasure to tag along on a journey through evolutionary time, one sure to engage even history- and science-phobes.

(Full review in the May 19th issue of the Times Literary Supplement.)

[ancientreader · Rating 4 out of 5]

So, so close to 5 stars.

I'm not sure I can detail the many fascinations of Taking Flight without turning them into a dry-seeming list, but here goes, anyway.

-- the mechanics of flight: wing shapes and sizes; bone structure; feathers vs membrane; dynamic soaring vs riding on thermals vs flapping vs being a hummingbird & thus able to hover

-- hypotheses about the evolution of flight in insects, pterosaurs, birds, and bats; what we can deduce from the fossil record and what we can't, and why

-- how the varieties of flight patterns serve, or may serve, their users ("Toxic butterflies tend to have smoother flight patterns than non-toxic ones, which suggests that the scattery nature of flight is at least in part a predator evasion tactic"; "When in full hunting mode, [marsh harriers] work their way methodically over the wide expanse of reeds -- quartering ... -- scanning for small mammals")

-- migration! I knew about Monarch butterfly migration, but not about the multi-generational!!! migration pattern of Painted Lady butterflies, from the UK to Spain to northern Africa to as far south as Ghana. Nor was I familiar with some pre-scientific speculations about Where All Those Birds Go in the Wintertime (to the moon, perhaps? But Bar-headed Geese overfly the Himalayas, which strikes me as almost equally preposterous yet it happens).

-- so many delicious tidbits just dropped in passing: insects owe their quick reaction times to their shorter neural lengths; ants are "descended from a lineage of stinging wasps"; pterosaur juveniles are called "flaplings"; and more more more, so much more

So, lots of good stuff here. But three factors led me to ding a star.

-- In a few places I found myself thinking that an explanation was missing a step. How penguins shoot themselves out of the water, for example: They head for the surface, where they preen, which reinstates the air bubbles that deep-water pressure has forced out of their plumage, and the bubbles "are released as the penguin plunges upwards toward the surface," which somehow reduces drag so their speed increases enough to launch them out onto the ice -- but why don't the air bubbles make the penguin's profile bigger and thereby slow it down? The answer may be obvious to someone who knows more about aero[aqua]dynamics than I do, but it's not obvious to me.

-- A number of UK-specific references are going to be lost on almost all US readers (e.g., Magnum Ice Cream varieties; Quetzalcoatlus northropi had a wingspan "half a cricket pitch" or "one-fifth of Nelson's Column" long ... uh, okay). This isn't a criticism of the book, exactly, but it would be helpful to translate some of these, or even just to add another referent to clarify matters for a US audience. Perhaps it's not too late? One of these might represent a safety issue, by the way. I was startled by the mention of how lucky it would be to have a bat fly into one's house. I like bats very much but I would not be pleased to have one in my living room, as I am not up-to-date with my rabies shots; the UK, however, is free of rabies.

-- The dumb jokes. Some of them, I have to admit, made me smile -- the late allusion to Monty Python's Spanish Inquisition sketch, for instance, which unfortunately I forgot to flag. But a few dumb jokes go a long way. In particular, I wearied of the bro-ey habit of mapping (certain forms of) human male courtship behavior onto nonhuman animals, which Parikian does over and over. Overall the dumb jokiness got to seem almost compulsive, and Parikian did his smart book a big disservice here.

Still, I have to recommend Taking Flight warmly. As much as a few issues made me want to kick the wall, I spent most of my reading time entranced and delighted.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

[Jason · Rating 5 out of 5]

Parikian's enthusiasm for whatever he is talking/writing about is so contagious, I so easily get caught up in his whimsical daydreams about travelling in time to witness the ancestor of a dragonfly, that I kept forgetting I was reading a book and had to go back a page to see what I had missed. Mixing this enthusiasm with his silly sense of humour made this rather in-depth look into wings an easy read, creating new types of measurements, using known things like cricket pitches and varieties of a particular brand of ice cream makes it easy to see the point he was trying to make...just imagine where I'd be now if he had been my teacher at school...well, I'd still be reading this book but I may have created a time machine between chapters.

Included in this book is an impressive amount of flying creatures, ya got it all, insects, birds, dinosaurs, more birds and even bats (surprisingly the flying ones and not the wooden ones) I was very impressed with how many he included, I kept saying "what about the..." and a few pages later there it was. Each chapter focuses on one type of species, using some writerly sense Parikian starts at the beginning, investigating the earliest known versions via fossils and knowledge gained from Jurassic Park, he shows how the animals evolved to become expert flyers and then brings us to present day and describes how the animal fits in to the world (i.e. stealing chips at the beach). You can tell from the writing he has his favourites, the eternal battle between the Peregrine Falcon and Pigeon contains some of his best writing. As you would expect in a book focused on wings there is a lot of science, and with some superb writing Parikian somehow manages to bring it all down to a level any reader could understand. I have learnt a huge amount of interesting facts from reading this and have spent quite a bit of time boring those around me with what I have learnt.

The book does have one fault though, a distinct lack of photographs, I have never seen a Pterosaur and it would have been great if the author had included a few photos of ones he had found in the wild. The book is good fun, full of interesting little titbits and very well written, I think it's about time Parikian gets his own documentary series.

Blog review: https://felcherman.wordpress.com/2023...

[Dr. des. Siobhán · Rating 4 out of 5]

*I received an ARC via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Thanks for the free book!*

"Taking Flight" introduces readers to various types of birds and the evolution of wings. I particularly enjoyed the chapters about birds that I personally adore, like puffins, but all the chapters were interesting. I wouldn't recommend reading more than one chapter at once though, otherwise it's just too much information to process. I also could not read this book if I was not feeling calm and relaxed, otherwise I'd feel the need to just skim read not so interesting passages. But that's a me problem. Overall well written and entertaining albeit a bit long (but again, that might be me).

3.5 stars

[Hannah Buschert · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lev Parikian's "Taking Flight" is a fascinating and well-researched look into the evolution, purpose, and diversity of flight. As a birder, I didn't think I would be interested in the non-bird material, however it was all engaging and educational. Parikian is obviously an astute student and communicator who weaves in ample imagery to explore flight in a variety of species. This is a great book for science-interested readers of all disciplines.

Thank you, Netgalley, for providing this ARC.

[Brooke · Rating 5 out of 5]

Taking Flight was a delightful reading experience. I enjoy accessible, popular science books, and this one hit the mark. My favorite part of the book was the authors range of research from the prehistoric fossil record to the current day. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC. I had a great time reading it and would absolutely recommend it to friends.

[Mark Jeffs · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very entertaining and informative book about the natural history of flight. Parikian comes across as an engaged and passionate learner who wants to pass on that enthusiasm and knowledge to the reader. The book follows the diverse groups of flying animals with a focus on insects, dragonflies, birds, pterosaurs and bats. It's very enjoyable, full of quirky anecdotes and ocassional colourful language. This book should be commended for making this complex subject so digestible and awe inspiring. They fly!

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you NetGalley for providing a free Advanced Reader's Copy in exchange for an honest review. And happy Publication Day!

I really enjoy good humor, especially when it's used to make a scientific topic more approachable to non-experts. From the beginning, Lev Parikian did a wonderful job in drawing me in: combining awe and comedy to explain why he wrote a book about flight in the natural world. The opening chapter immediately reminded me of the joy I feel when taking a cable-car, watching the scenery roll below me. Or the awe of watching a city's details grow as my plane approaches for landing. That's until the landing-turbulences hit and I am reminded, as the author astutely puts it, that I am very afraid of going from flying to non-flying in a matter of seconds. It was fascinating to learn about the various way wings and bodies are built in animals that are able to fly, and the wildly different methods used to create propulsion through the air. What I regret however is that the ARC did not include any pictures. Hopefully the final book does have images, because several of the details were not easy to visualize based on words alone. (This would also help non-British audiences identify some of the species mentioned; as we know we don't call the same animal by the same even in the same country). The humor was less impactful in the second half of the book, but I still enjoyed it. The only part where I felt the book dragged were some of the chapters on birds, where the author decided to leave the main-character behind and discuss other members of the family instead. I'm thinking of the chapters on penguins (I understand why we'd mention ostriches and other flightless birds, but none of the other family members could do what penguins do: swim!), albatrosses, and hummingbirds. I was especially curios about the hummingbird flight, and unfortunately half of the chapter focused on swifts, which sadly I wasn't interested in. Perhaps more and smaller chapters would have been useful to discuss more bird flight options.

I ultimately enjoyed this journey through the slow evolution and surprising specialization of flight. The afterword also expertly pulled us away from the technical details and returned the reader to the state of wonder that saturated the foreword: "From the human point of view, flight remains aspirational (...) Because we can't do it. For all our ingenuity, our mammoth brains, our legendary problem-solving skills (...) we can't do it. And while we have found ways around it, the true understanding of what it is, the sense of knowing that comes with innate ability, will always elude us." Which reminds me: if reincarnation turns out to be real, I hope I come back as a goose. Fly and swim. Because swimming is the closest I've ever felt to flying. Different fluid, different speed, but a controlled gliding above a world of wonders below me. Too bad my lungs can only hold so much air.

[Chantal Lyons · Rating 4 out of 5]

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'.

[Linda Hill · Rating 5 out of 5]

A book exploring the evolution of flight in the natural world.

What I adore about Lev Parikian is his unerring ability to take a complex issue and present it with such good natured, accessible and frequently humorous prose, that the reader learns incredible facts effortlessly. So it is with Taking Flight. From the laugh out loud introduction through the 14 selected examples of flight to the scholarly notes and bibliography, this is Lev Parikian at his best: engaging, educating and entertaining in one brilliant book.

I loved the whole structure of Taking Flight because of the wonderfully crafted hooks that link the end of one chapter to the start of the next, and because of the surprises along the way. Not only was I totally unaware of a tinamous (a bird that can fly but mostly doesn’t often bother) before reading Taking Flight, but I hadn’t expected a chapter on flightless penguins. Of course, you’ll need to read Taking Flight for yourself to see if that chapter is justified.

Taking Flight is packed with information from the first ever bird to the name of the person who came up with the term echolocation, for example, all of which is presented with a lively, conversational tone so that it never feels like an academic text, but rather an entertaining jaunt through evolution, history, the natural world, aviation and science that leaves the reader totally mesmerised and satisfied.

However, for me the greatest enjoyment in reading Taking Flight came from the brilliant observational detail Lev Parikian paints on the page of our current environment and in the insight we gain into him as a person. What the author does is to make it feel as if the reader is standing right next to him and just having a chat. It’s as if you’re there at Bempton Cliffs, or lying on the grass with childhood nursery rhymes going through your head. The effect is that Taking Flight might be teaching us a thing or two, but it feels just like having an old friend at our side. I adored this aspect.

If, like me, you’re not a frequent reader of non-fiction, I think Taking Flight could be just the book to persuade you to read more. It’s elegant as well as accessibly prosaic, it’s beguiling and colourful, and it’s filled with fun and facts. Oh, and those wretched pigeons that wake me up shouting before 5 am are now viewed in an entirely different light thanks to Taking Flight. Cracking book!

[Anne Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is charming in its bouncy enthusiasm for natural history fused with goofy British humor, and has some nicely accessible information as well. For me as an evolutionary ecologist who's taken an ornithology class, not all of the information was new, and it's more of a casual jaunt than the more scientifically delving An Immense World, for example, or the expert-authored Entangled Life. And while Parikian can turn a phrase, the anecdotes opening each section were not the most arresting writing I've read about personal encounters with birds. But it's a pleasant read and a nice introduction.

[Katy Wheatley · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.

[Bookguide · Rating 5 out of 5]

Updated review as the paperback is now out with a beautiful new cover, sadly not added to Goodreads yet. You can read my full review with short excerpts on my Market Garden Reader book blog.

Lev Parikian is an enthusiastic amateur scientist with a love of observing nature and a Douglas Adams style of humour. Packed with the sort of fascinating facts usually reserved for children's books, he investigates the power of flight in the natural world, from the usual suspects (birds and insects), to the development of flight in pterosaurs, archaeopteryx and bats. I’m not sure I followed the technical details about the way various insects’ and birds’ wings are attached and move, but I did enjoy factoids such as the fact that some geese can fly upside down, a manoeuvre called whiffling. The book has since been nominated for the 2023 Royal Society Trivedi Science Prize.

This book is a pleasure to read and people with better memories than mine could learn enough to make them an asset to any pub quiz team. I’d imagine the only reason any nature enthusiast might not enjoy it were if they were already an expert, but how many people know everything flight-related about birds and insects and bats and prehistoric flying creatures? Also people who don’t enjoy their facts with a dose of humour might be irritated, but if you’re the sort of person who enjoys QI, then I heartily recommend reading this!

This was the second time I requested Taking Flight as a digital ARC from NetGalley because when it came out in hardback last year, I didn’t quite manage to finish it. I was really disappointed I hadn’t read the chapter about bats, so when I saw they were offering the paperback for review, I jumped at the chance. The hardback cover shows the elegant tracery of a dragonfly’s wing on a black background that less than inspired me. The paperback has a much more striking and colourful cover that matches the tone of the writing. I am a fan! I’m also appreciative that the book includes a decent bibliography and an excellent index.

Disclaimer: I was lucky enough to receive an e-ARC from the publisher via NetGalley. My review reflects my unbiased opinion after reading.

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the headlong rush that is modern life these days, we rarely stop and take to time to actually look at the natural world around us. It was one of these moments at home when Lev Parikian was looking at the bird feeder in the garden when it dawned on him that the blue tit flew. It was something that he instinctively knew but had never really thought about. At all.

“The Guide says there is an art to flying”, said Ford, “or rather a knack. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.” – Douglas Adams

This ability to move through the air in defiance of the gravity that holds us in place we have overcome with the modern wonders of aeronautical engineering, but for the other creatures of this planet, some of them have been flying for at least hundreds of millions of years. This is his journey of discovery of the wonders of flight.

He begins with mayflies. These have been emerging from rivers with the sole purpose of finding a mate for the past 300 million years. Waiting for them are trout and birds who will be gorging themselves on the feast that has appeared. Even though they are primitive flying insects, they were not the first to take to the air. That is thought to be an insect that could fly around 100 million years before, but there are huge gaps in the fossil record, so this is not something anyone can categorically confirm.

From the mayflies, he explores the insect world and there are further chapters on butterflies, beetles bees and the amazing masters of the air that are dragonflies, one of the few animals that can fly backwards. Each of the chapters is stuffed full of the amazing things that he has found out during his research for the book and I found it fascinating.

The next animals that learnt how to fly are from the age of the dinosaurs. I had always thought that pterodactyls were dinosaurs too, but it turns out that I was wrong. These were the first flying vertebrates and we know a little about them but with huge gaps in the fossil record, there is a lot that is speculative. One fact that I thought was quite amusing is that the baby pterosaurs are known as flaplings. In the mass extinction event that happened 66 million years ago, these were wiped out. The dinosaurs weren’t though, these are the birds that are still with us.

This would have given them a posture, while walking, not dissimilar to a folding canvas picnic chair. Pick it up by the tail, give it a shake, and it might unfold with a click.

The final chapters are about one of his obsessions, birds. Ironically he begins with the flightless birds and penguins, and he rightly asks the question, why if you had gone to the effort of evolving to fly would you abandon it? This is one of the questions that we may never know the answer too, but the natural world is very good at filling niches.

Out of the 10,000 of so species of birds in the world, he has had to be really strict and keep it to a few, so there are chapters on geese, pigeons, albatross and the hummingbird. But he does allow some others to sneak in while we are not paying attention, and he does manage to include his beloved swifts. The final chapter is about the only other flying mammal, the bat, though it is an amusing anecdote that all mammals that have flying in their name, i.e. flying squirrel, don’t fly, but glide.

This is another really enjoyable book by Parikian. If you have read and liked his other books then you will probably like this too, I know I did. If you are hoping for a cold and clinical book about the mechanics of flight from the very first insects to the feather marvels that we see in the sky then this is probably not the book for you.

If you are looking for a book that describes the continual wonder the author has in any creature that can take to the air and fly then you may have found your gateway. Any book that quotes Douglas Adams is onto a winner in my opinion. There is a little less whimsy and humour in this compared to his other books, but that said, it is still here and it really did make me laugh as usual.

[Bill · Rating 4 out of 5]

Taking Flight: The Evolutionary Story of Life on the Wing, by Lev Parikian, is a highly accessible, highly enjoyable, and simply fun bit of popular science, as Parikian explains how the ability to fly evolved four separate times across a range of creatures (insects, pterosaurs, birds, and bats). For each of the four, Parikian, chooses a handful of representative groups to delve into some (not too much) detail, adding some personal storytelling and not a little bit of humor into the scientific mix as he does so.

In order, the 14 case study chapters cover:
• Mayflies
• Dragonflies
• Beetles
• Flies
• Bees
• Butterflies
• Pterosaurs
• Archaeopteryx
• Penguins
• Geese
• Hummingbirds
• Albatrosses
• Pigeons
• Bats

This doesn’t mean, though, that those sections cover those creatures exclusively, as Parikian makes room for a number of brief digressions into other examples, discussing for example cormorants, arctic terns, and puffins in the chapter on Albatrosses. Each chapter explains the best theories (sometimes conflicting given the dearth of fossils) for how and when the group evolved flight (or for some like penguins and ostriches, how and when they lost the ability), the differing mechanisms and physics involved in their flight, and the different anatomical structures and strategies.

The book is filled with fascinating detail. We learn, for instance, how insect wings may have evolved from gills, that mayflies are the only insects with an intermediary stage between larva and full flying adult, that “dragonflies with six-foot wingspans” are a commonly cited “fact” with no evidence behind it at all, that dragonflies have a successful kill rate of 95% when hunting and can control their wings individually, that the “sword-billed hummingbird is the only bird int eh world whose bill is longer than its body, and that flies repurposed their hindwings into “tiny organs, shaped like miniature golf clubs, called halteres, that acts like a gyroscope allowing flies to be the champion flyers they are, and much, much more. While some might think the anatomical details can be too detailed, I’d say Parikian knows just how far to take them. One’s mileage may vary on that, though certainly the book is not overwhelmingly dense or detailed.

Helping the science go down is Parikian’s winning voice, which sometimes offers up some lyrical descriptive passage, other times gives us a personal experience with one of the creatures he’s covering, and often just makes one laugh out loud. I did the last a number of times, including his description of flies’ ability to land upside down on a ceiling — “a defiant ‘f—k you’ to everything we think we know about gravity” — or when he threw in a Monty Python reference — “Their chief asset is speed. Speed and maneuverability. Speed, maneuverability and a fanatical devotion to the air.”


Taking Flight is an informative, engaging, accessible, and downright fun (and funny) work. Highly recommended.

[historic_chronicles · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's something that we all take for granted. A bird flies overhead, a bee buzzes amongst the flowers, and the flies hover around us every day. We see it all the time, and yet, it is a miracle of evolution.

When you were a child and asked your friends: "what superhero power do you wish you had?", there was often the ability to fly returned as an answer. In our childlike wonder, it was a magical, make-believe fantasy that a human could fly. Yes, we have found alternative routes around it in the form of science and technology, but we have never been able to surpass one of nature's greatest feats.

Coming from the "layman's" perspective is Lev Parikian in this almost conversational discussion about the wonders of flight. With enthusiasm so contagious that you find yourself swept away into hours of reading without even noticing, Parikian dives into his subject with undiluted passion.

While this is a very accessible account of the animal kingdom's evolution into flight, Parikian retains rich scientific research and detail, covering important topics such as the structural mechanics of flight, migration within his featured species and the purposes of flight pattern just to name a few.

As I particularly enjoy reading anything relating to dinosaurs, I especially enjoyed the section focused on the archaeopteryx, which highlighted the transition between dinosaurs to birds and was utterly fascinating.

Witty, unique, and easy to digest, Taking Flight was an absolute pleasure to read from start to finish.

Thank you to @elliottandthompson for sending me a copy to review.

[Markus Hell · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lovely and very educational book. It tells, more or less chronologically, the evolution of flight through millions of years by zooming in on a handful of animals that made leaps forward in flight. The individual chapters are always fun, insightful and the overall structure works well for getting a high level overview of what makes flight possible and how different animals have taken advantage of it.

This is largely a science-focused book, with thorough references and detailed explanations, but peppered throughout with small personal anecdotes, which I found endearing and helpful in bringing the abstract concepts to life. You can really tell how much the author loves birds and other flying animals.

In some of the chapters, their scope is a bit too broad instead of sticking to the animal in the chapter title, as when the Bee chapter dives into ants or the Hummingbird chapter into swifts - they are related, which I didn't know, so it made sense thematically but left a bit too little time for either of these fascinating animals. But these are minor nitpicks - overall I really enjoyed the book and read it very quickly while still feeling I got a thoroughly deeper appreciation of flight in all its forms.

[Rachael · Rating 5 out of 5]

Firstly thanks so much to the publisher for sending me a copy in exchange for an honest review. Elliot and Thompson continue to publish just the most wonderful nature non-fiction out there, and this one is absolutely no exception.

Except it’s exactly that… exceptional. Oh I adored it.

For anyone even remotely interested in getting into Non-Fiction I think this would be a marvellous place to start. The writing flows with such ease, and passion, and clarity. I promise you there is nothing stuffy or dull, textbook or intimidating within these pages, only a joyous reminder to experience the world around us, to notice its beauty and enjoy the little things. It is never preachy, it simply takes something happening around us every single day, that we largely ignore, and points out just how spectacular and wonderous it truly is.

Parikian’s writing is surprisingly accessible and beautifully researched. Noting with ease the fascinating evolution of the ‘miracle of flight’. I found this engaging from the first page, and ever more with each new chapter.

With writing this warm and gentle, humorous and witty, it’s difficult not to find the subject matter just utterly fascinating too.

This is the perfect book for reading outdoors, soaking up the wonder of nature. I read this on a sunny day in my garden and it couldn’t have been more perfect. To look around me and witness the magic straight from the page.

One I highly, highly recommend. For all you nature lovers out there, don’t miss out, this one is wonderful.

[Kim · Rating 4 out of 5]

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!

[Ink · Rating 5 out of 5]

Taking Flight by Lev Parikian is an absolute delight to read and as interesting as it is entertaining.

The first thing I noted down was how Parikian shares that the book was as much a journey for him to learn about the mechanics of flight to write the book and a nod to the experts who would know a lot more than he. This set me up to enjoy Lev's writing style based on a natural, easygoing narrative

The book as I said is delightful. Lev Parikian shows a real interest and excitement and this glitters through the narrative making it a very engaging read and I was utterly fascinated

An absolutely brilliant insight into natural flight and a real pleasure to read. Lev Parikian is like the fun teacher that everybody liked in school whose lessons left you smiling. I adore books about the natural world and this is an author I will be looking out for on the bookshelves

Thank you very, very much to Netgalley, Elliott and Thompson and the author, Lev PArikian for this wonderful ARC. My review is left voluntarily and all opinions are my own

[travelsalongmybookshelf · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is simply mesmerising. It is an evolutionary history of life on the wing. When you actually stop and think about it flight is mind boggling. Birds, insects, butterflies, bats; they all do it with ease, flapping and gliding, hovering and diving, murmurating and migrating. It’s a bit of a miracle really and has evolved in hugely varied ways.

Within its pages, we encounter fourteen flying species: from the first fluttering insect of 300 million years ago to the crested pterosaurs of the Mesozoic Era, from hummingbirds, to the dragonfly, albatross, pipistrelle and monarch butterfly with which we share the planet today. And my favourite, the pigeon.

This is hugely detailed, accessible and written with Parikian’s easy style that makes you smile, he is just so enthusiastic! I have been out and looking up far more at all the flying animals big and small and just glorying in the wonder of it. Flight, is amazing.

[Stephanie Carlson · Rating 5 out of 5]

**My thanks to Elliott & Thompson for providing me with an advanced reader’s copy via NetGalley**

5 stars

I’ve found myself recommending this book left and right since finishing it (and frankly even before finishing it). Essentially, this is an overview of the evolution and history of flight, written by a layman for laymen. Practically, it’s an informative, insightful, funny passion project. Reading it feels like watching a nature documentary whose narrator is as surprised and fascinated by the facts he’s imparting as you are. From prehistoric insects and pterosaurs to modern-day bugs, birds, and bats, this book covers the development, mechanics, skill, and social value of (biologically engineered) flight.

You’ll like this book if you like edutainment, nature documentaries, birdwatching, or have always secretly suspected that if you could just run fast enough with arms outstretched, you could achieve liftoff.

[Lais · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love books about animals and the scientific aspects that made them what they are today. This books talks about how animals have mastered flight, going from insects to mammals and detailing the differences between them. The insects with their colors and quitinous wings, birds that are whats left of dinosaurs, the pteresaurs and their gigantic sizes and bats the only mammal capable of flight. The autor choses some specific group of animals to explain their flight in detail, like the butterfly, the albatrosses, hummingbirds, ants and a lot more. I really liked this book, it opened my eyes for things that we take for granted, and now when I go out I look at the animals flying and admire them.

Thank you netgalley. Elliot & Thompson and Lev Parikian fot this ARC.

[Bob Hughes · Rating 5 out of 5]

This delight of a book is full of the warmth, wonder and wit that I have come to associate with Lev Parikian.

Through examining various creatures, great and small, and their relationship to flying, he constructs a small gem of a book- one that delights in the joys of the world, and how incredible it is that these creatures exist, never mind that they continue to teach us new things about the world around us.

I received an advanced copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

[Kiril Valchev · Rating 5 out of 5]

Лев Парикян - лондонски диригент, писател и страстен любител орнитолог, е сътворил истинска ода, във възхвала на полета и щастливите избраници на естествения отбор, дарени със способността да летят. Авторът се спира на 14 таксона сред четирите класа животни, развили независимо активен полет: насекоми, влечуги (птерозаври), птици и бозайници (прилепи) и проследява еволюционната им история, довела до удивителните им умения във въздуха. От всеки ред на " Taking Flight " струят възторг, ентусиазъм, любов... и щипка завист. Прекрасна книга с един-единствен, маловажен недостатък - липсата на снимки и/или илюстрации.

[Sue Chaplin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was slightly nervous to start this book as a biologist I find that non-biologists often use what I would deem to be the "wrong" vocabulary when talking about evolution and I know that Parikian is not a biologist but a conductor who has become a serious birder but I need not have worried. I found the book added to my understanding without me feeling challenged on the language front. I sometimes felt that I could have done with less footnotes.

[Andrea Wenger · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book uncovers the biological history of flight, exploring the evolution of life on the wing. From the first fluttering insect 300 million years ago to the soaring albatrosses of today, witness the incredible diversity and wonder of flying creatures. A beautiful celebration, this book is enlightening and entertaining.

Thanks, NetGalley, for the ARC I received. This is my honest and voluntary review.

[Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun "science beach read" (if that exists outside this book!) that passed the time nicely while in a winter ski condo. His enthusiasm and passion is all over the page and doesn't seem like an editor had him tone it down too much, which makes it feel more authentic. There are a lot of facts thrown at you though and the animals chosen seemed to only be loosely connect to one another.

[Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very enjoyable, accessible coverage of some complex aerodynamics and evolutionary processes. Told engagingly through the stories of particular creatures, bees, bats, petrosaurs etc. Usual great witty delivery style which I love.

[Avril Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

I must write a review when I have time. For now, I would simply urge everyone to read this absolute delight of a book. You’ll learn loads, be enthralled and won’t even notice you’re reading some science.