And, yes, I realize one answer to my question is John McPhee's Annals of the Former World.
I'm looking for a book with the sort of precision and literary style of McPhee's work, but focusing not on geology but paleontology. I'd love to read the work of a science writer or journalist following the work of paleontologists; if the book occasionally reconstructs scenes of prehistoric life in action, all the better. I appreciate the way McPhee makes characters of his subjects, humanizing a scientific enterprise, but also writes about things no human being can witness with concreteness and metaphor.
by Shirebourn