dinosaurs

Book review – Mesozoic Art: Dinosaurs and Other Ancient Animals in Art

6-minute read
keywords: paleoart, paleontology

When done well, palaeoart represents one of the finest examples of science and art intersecting. As a genre, it continues to advance and reinvent itself, especially in its professionalism and scientific accuracy. Mesozoic Art might represent Bloomsbury’s entry into this market but the book has two experienced editors at the helm. Artist Steve White and palaeozoologist Darren Naish both have more than their fair share of producing and thinking about palaeoart. Featuring twenty artists, Mesozoic Art is a gorgeously produced, large-format portfolio that shows palaeoart at its current pinnacle. For lovers of dinosaur illustrations, this book is a no-brainer, and I imagine that many will have already gone ahead and purchased it. But just in case you still need convincing…

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Book review – Dinosaurs – 10 Things You Should Know: 230 Million Years for People Short on Time

4-minute read
keywords: paleontology, popular science

When it comes to popular science books, some of the books I admire most are the smallest ones. It takes great skill to capture the essence of a subject into a short book, steer clear of well-trodden ground, and contribute something novel that will educate and enthuse your reader. Palaeontologist and science communicator Dean Lomax here collects ten short essays on dinosaurs, convincingly showing that good things come in small packages.

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Book review – The Earth: A Biography of Life

6-minute read
keywords: paleontology, popular science

I have previously jokingly called the “Earth biography” a rite of passage for science writers; many authors try their hand at it at some point. Fortunately, the Earth is big and time is deep, so there are numerous ways to tell this story. Here, it is palaeontologist Elsa Panciroli’s turn. Next to many unusual examples by which to tell the story of life’s evolution, her writing stands out for correcting common misconceptions and for its inspired language.

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Book review – The Art and Science of the Crystal Palace Dinosaurs

8-minute read
keywords: geology, history of science, paleontology

The Crystal Palace Dinosaurs are probably one of London’s better-kept secrets. This unlikely collection of life-size outdoor sculptures of some 30 prehistoric creatures—including dinosaurs, marine reptiles, and extinct mammals—has survived in the city’s southeast for almost 170 years. They have been lampooned for being terribly outdated in light of what we know today. But that does them no justice. In this gorgeously illustrated book, palaeontologist and palaeoartist Mark Witton has teamed up with Ellinor Michel, an evolutionary biologist and chair and co-founder of the Friends of the Crystal Palace Dinosaurs charity. Together, they chart the full story of the inception, planning, construction, reception, and survival of the sculptures. Foremost, it shows how cutting-edge they were back then, why they still matter today, and why they need our help.

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Book review – The Last Days of the Dinosaurs: An Asteroid, Extinction, and the Beginning of Our World

7-minute read
keywords: evolution, mass extinctions, paleontology

The day an asteroid slammed into the Yucatán Peninsula some 66 million years ago is a strong contender for “the worst day in history”. The K–Pg extinction ended the long evolutionary success story of the dinosaurs and a host of other creatures, and has lodged itself firmly in our collective imagination. But what happened next? The fact that a primate is tapping away at a keyboard writing this review gives you part of the answer. The rise of mammals was not a given, though, and the details have been hard to get by. Here, science writer Riley Black examines and imagines the aftermath of the extinction at various times post-impact. The Last Days of the Dinosaurs ends up being a fine piece of narrative non-fiction with thoughtful observations on the role of evolution in ecosystem recovery.

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Book review – A Series of Fortunate Events: Chance and the Making of the Planet, Life, and You

7-minute read

Every one of us is here through a long string of happy accidents that might just as well not have happened. That is the contention behind A Series of Fortunate Events, a short and snappy book by evolutionary biologist Sean B. Carroll. Examining planetary events, evolution, and our personal lives and deaths—and introducing one remarkable French biologist—it read like an appetizer that left me wanting to explore this topic further.

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Book review – Otherlands: A World in the Making

7-minute read

Our planet has been many different worlds over its 4.5-billion-year history. Imagining what they were like is hard—with our limited lifespan, deep time eludes us by its very nature. Otherlands, the debut of Scottish palaeontologist Thomas Halliday, presents you with a series of past worlds. Though this is a non-fiction book thoroughly grounded in fact, it is the quality of the narrative that stands out. Beyond imaginative metaphors to describe extinct lifeforms, some of his reflections on deep time, taxonomy, and evolution are simply spine-tingling.

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Book review – Explorers of Deep Time: Paleontologists and the History of Life

6-minute read

When I ask you to think of a palaeontologist, what comes to mind? Admit it, you likely thought of someone digging up dinosaur fossils. And that someone was probably a white man. Grounded in the past, and endlessly repeated in the present, this is of course a very narrow picture of what palaeontology is like. In Explorers of Deep Time, Roy Plotnick, a palaeontologist and emeritus professor in earth and environmental sciences, challenges this and other stereotypes. Pardon the excruciating pun, but he leaves no rock unturned in the process of showing the many faces of modern palaeontology.

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Book review – Notes from Deep Time: A Journey Through Our Past and Future Worlds

6-minute read

Deep time is, to me, one of the most awe-inspiring concepts to come out of the earth sciences. Getting to grips with the incomprehensibly vast stretches of time over which geological processes play out is not easy. We are, in the words of geologist Marcia Bjornerud, naturally chronophobic. In Notes from Deep Time, author Helen Gordon presents a diverse and fascinating collection of essay-length chapters that give 16 different answers to the question: “What do we talk about when we talk about deep time?” This is one of those books whose title is very appropriate.

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Book review – Paleontology: An Illustrated History

6-minute read

It is no mean feat to try and tell the history of a discipline as enormous as palaeontology through images in a mere 256 pages. Yet this is exactly the challenge that David Bainbridge has taken on with this book. He has curated a striking selection of vintage and modern palaeoart, archival photos of fossils and their discoverers, and scientific diagrams through the ages. The resulting Paleontology: An Illustrated History manages to combine the old and the new with the familiar and the unfamiliar into one neatly crafted package that makes for a very nice gift.

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