A review by chukg
A New History of Life: The Radical New Discoveries about the Origins and Evolution of Life on Earth by Joe Kirschvink, Peter Ward

4.0

This is a good overview of recent discoveries in prehistoric evolution. Lots of detail about possible extinction mechanisms and quite up to date, the two authors have been researching in the field for decades. It is not quite at the dry textbook level but it is not quite like a pop science book either. There are occasional personal asides and commentary or anecdotes, but mostly it reports recent findings, usually with plenty of background detail. Lots of footnotes for references to hundreds of journal articles and books, this could be a good starting point if you wanted to do more in-depth research on any of the topics. (E.g. Tiktaalik, which was just recently repatriated.)