You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
4.05 AVERAGE
4.05 AVERAGE
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
adventurous
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
informative
My jaw is on the floor. An absolute masterpiece of science writing. If you have any interest in life sciences you will love this.
hopeful
informative
relaxing
sad
medium-paced
informative
medium-paced
This book is a history of life on Earth from 20,000 years ago to 550 million years ago. I found this book to be absolutely fascinating and incredibly readable. The writing style is brilliant and really draws you into these lost worlds. It's not overly technical and I was able to follow along pretty easily even though this is not my area of expertise. I would have liked some more illustrations throughout as the book introduced a lot of different species and some of them were hard to visualize. Would highly recommend.
If you need more books like The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs in your life–and I think we all do–then Otherlands has you covered. Part natural history, part travelogue a la Arctic Dreams, it takes the reader to different habitats in Earth's history. Halliday provides colorful descriptions based on the studies of geology, fossils, trace fossils, and more. It is a beautifully worded reminder of our context on the planet and the universe.
informative
medium-paced
informative
slow-paced
Otherlands reminds me of the recent slew of ultra HD nature documentaries—it’s beautiful, dense, and full of wonder. Halliday takes us backward in time, using specific fossil sites around the world to give us a better understanding of what the earth was like in past epochs. The prose is fantastic but also very dense. I listened to the audiobook, and while the narrator, Adetomiwa Edun does a great job, I’m not sure if audio was the best way to enjoy this; I found it hard to concentrate, and kept wishing I had a hard copy. Ultimately I think this would be a great book to listen to and follow along with a physical copy at the same time.
I will be revisiting this in the future because there is such a wealth of important information here, and I would really like to grasp as much of it as I can.
I will be revisiting this in the future because there is such a wealth of important information here, and I would really like to grasp as much of it as I can.