Ok this might be the first ever book review for this year. Oh wait, maybe not…I think I wrote a book review sometime back in February this year. It was the Library Book – a historical overview of public libraries in the USA revolving around the story on the LA Public Library fire, which happened in 1986.

By the way, I have read plenty of books this year – I just haven’t had the time to write reviews on them because you know 2020 was kinda weird and disruptive because of the C-virus? Hopefully, this review will get the ball rolling until the end of the year and over to 2021.

It was around the time I was doing a Reader’s Advisory course at work (we were on lockdown) that I heard this book being discussed on the radio. I was also learning about the different genres and I was trying to figure out how to slot this book into a particular label.

Mammoth is written by Chris Flynn and it’s a story about the changing environment in a historical timeline: from the Pleistocene era; to 19th century Europe and America to 2007. It is narrated by a 13,000-year-old fossilised mammoth called Mammut (other fossilised characters include a 67 million-year-old Tyrannosaurus Bataar; a 10 million-year-old penguin; an Egyptian mummy; and a pterodactyl). Mammut starts his narration from the time he was excavated to where he ended up with the other characters – in 2007 in a hired showroom in New York City prior to an auction.

I love the way Flynn has combined the issue of environmental and climate change with history into a witty and hilarious dialogue and storytelling. I really enjoyed this book and highly recommend it!