Take a photo of a barcode or cover
4.04 AVERAGE
4.04 AVERAGE
hopeful
informative
reflective
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
This book has been beautifully written but I found it difficult at times to understand what was said and keep track of what was going on. This may have been better to read as a paperback instead of audio
4.5 stars rounded up to 5
Otherlands is like a documentary by the BBC Natural History team, but in book form and covering hundreds of millions of years. Author and palaeobiologist Thomas Halliday takes us on a tour starting in the Oligocene and whisks us backwards in time all the way to the Precambrian. Halliday acts as our tour guide as we hover above the Earth, watching continents shift and slide backwards in time. Stopping at occasional geological periods, he brings us down to a particular piece of land or stretch of ocean where we are introduced to various creatures that lived there at that time.
Halliday explains in the beginning of the book that he wants his readers to feel the history come alive and be able to imagine what it might be like to actually stand there in the past and watch. I think he was fairly successful. He paints vivid scenes of moving landmasses, churning oceans, scurrying creatures fighting for survival, and life destroying events. Yet, he never forgets to add context, often explaining where we are geographically (i.e. "this land will eventually be a part of Australia") and how all of these strange creatures fit into our modern understanding of biology and evolution. By the end of the book, you really start to feel the weight of these geological timescales, to the point where, when Halliday mentions an 8,000 year period of human history, you realize how incredibly short that is.
My one complaint is that this book desperately needs a heavily illustrated edition. I had to stop constantly to search the internet for images of fossils and artist renditions of some of these bizarre looking animals. As vivid as his descriptions can be, they simply can't do justice to how outlandish some of these ancient creatures appear. I mean, what this book really needs is to be a BBC Natural History documentary series with one episode per geological time period. If done properly, I think it could be utterly fascinating and very approachable.
In the epilogue of this book, Halliday relates all of this to what humans have done to change the environment around them. Of course, we are in good company--other animals have been shaping the environment to suit their needs for hundreds of millions of years. Even humans themselves have been altering the world for millions of years. He asks important questions like, if we want to return to a "natural" state, what does that mean? Pre-industrial? Pre-colonial? Pre-human? Finding a balance is difficult, and there are a lot of difficult questions like this. We are undeniably causing dramatic shifts on the planet, and they are probably not positive changes for most of its current inhabitants. However, the life on Earth has survived several mass extinctions, and it is just as likely to continue on without us if we are unwilling to change.
This is a very good overview of the natural history of the Earth. Halliday writes in a descriptive manner that allows us to picture the scenes before us. There are probably way too many creatures described in this book for the average person to ever actually remember, but I think it can act as an excellent place to jump off and dig into further research.
Otherlands is like a documentary by the BBC Natural History team, but in book form and covering hundreds of millions of years. Author and palaeobiologist Thomas Halliday takes us on a tour starting in the Oligocene and whisks us backwards in time all the way to the Precambrian. Halliday acts as our tour guide as we hover above the Earth, watching continents shift and slide backwards in time. Stopping at occasional geological periods, he brings us down to a particular piece of land or stretch of ocean where we are introduced to various creatures that lived there at that time.
Halliday explains in the beginning of the book that he wants his readers to feel the history come alive and be able to imagine what it might be like to actually stand there in the past and watch. I think he was fairly successful. He paints vivid scenes of moving landmasses, churning oceans, scurrying creatures fighting for survival, and life destroying events. Yet, he never forgets to add context, often explaining where we are geographically (i.e. "this land will eventually be a part of Australia") and how all of these strange creatures fit into our modern understanding of biology and evolution. By the end of the book, you really start to feel the weight of these geological timescales, to the point where, when Halliday mentions an 8,000 year period of human history, you realize how incredibly short that is.
My one complaint is that this book desperately needs a heavily illustrated edition. I had to stop constantly to search the internet for images of fossils and artist renditions of some of these bizarre looking animals. As vivid as his descriptions can be, they simply can't do justice to how outlandish some of these ancient creatures appear. I mean, what this book really needs is to be a BBC Natural History documentary series with one episode per geological time period. If done properly, I think it could be utterly fascinating and very approachable.
In the epilogue of this book, Halliday relates all of this to what humans have done to change the environment around them. Of course, we are in good company--other animals have been shaping the environment to suit their needs for hundreds of millions of years. Even humans themselves have been altering the world for millions of years. He asks important questions like, if we want to return to a "natural" state, what does that mean? Pre-industrial? Pre-colonial? Pre-human? Finding a balance is difficult, and there are a lot of difficult questions like this. We are undeniably causing dramatic shifts on the planet, and they are probably not positive changes for most of its current inhabitants. However, the life on Earth has survived several mass extinctions, and it is just as likely to continue on without us if we are unwilling to change.
This is a very good overview of the natural history of the Earth. Halliday writes in a descriptive manner that allows us to picture the scenes before us. There are probably way too many creatures described in this book for the average person to ever actually remember, but I think it can act as an excellent place to jump off and dig into further research.
"As far as extinction is concerned, the absolute climate is not to blame, nor is the direction of change. It is the rapidity of change that is important. Communities of organisms need time to adapt - if too much change is thrust upon them at once, devastation and loss is the common response."
(Yes, I'm one of those people that incorporate quotations into Goodreads reviews now!)
Whilst this quotation is informative, jarring and relevant, Thomas Halliday's aim in Otherlands isn't to preach about the acceleration of human-induced climate change...yet my mind kept jumping to the thought when reading it.
Instead, Halliday takes us on an exciting journey through pre-history; starting from the Ice Age 20,000 years ago and leading us back 550 million years to the Ediacaran period. Halliday divides the book into chapters of about fifteen to twenty pages which each cover a specific pre-historic period and location. This creates a pleasant pace of reading and helps to break down a somewhat dense topic.
But Halliday's book is far from dense! His lively depictions of extinct ecosystems make the book feel more animated than an ordinary, non-fiction textbook. His narrations of the weather patterns, geography and flora and fauna of these eons gone by give the book a documentary-style feel. I especially enjoyed reading about the anatomy and behaviour of extinct organisms and, admittedly, found myself sometimes scanning over sections about geography (this has more to do with my personal interests rather than Halliday's writing). If you decide to read this book, I'd recommend searching up pictures of the flora and fauna described in each chapter so that you don't miss out on cool organisms such as this one!
Hallucigenia (Source: Science Focus)
My other piece of advice to future readers of this book is to not get stuck on complicated scientific details. If there's something you don't fully understand then move on. Prioritise enjoyment! It worked well for me. Even just being able to comprehend the magnitude of time that existed before Sapiens is mind-altering. If you read this book and then follow it up with Yuval Noah Harari's Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind then you will be up to date with the timeline from life's beginnings on Earth until now - how cool!
I should also book-end my earlier comments on how this book helped contextualise my understanding of climate change. Halliday offers a great insight into current climate change issues in the epilogue of this book - it's not sensationalised, cynical or overly optimistic. Rather, it is grounded in the science of prehistory.
"Unlike past occasions when a single species or group of species has fundamentally altered the biosphere - the oxygenation of the oceans, the laying down of coal swamps - our species is in an unusual position of control over the outcome. We know that change is occurring, we know what will happen if it continues, we know that we can stop it, and we know how. The question is whether we will try."
(Shoutout to Sin for recommending and lending me this book) ♥
(Yes, I'm one of those people that incorporate quotations into Goodreads reviews now!)
Whilst this quotation is informative, jarring and relevant, Thomas Halliday's aim in Otherlands isn't to preach about the acceleration of human-induced climate change...yet my mind kept jumping to the thought when reading it.
Instead, Halliday takes us on an exciting journey through pre-history; starting from the Ice Age 20,000 years ago and leading us back 550 million years to the Ediacaran period. Halliday divides the book into chapters of about fifteen to twenty pages which each cover a specific pre-historic period and location. This creates a pleasant pace of reading and helps to break down a somewhat dense topic.
But Halliday's book is far from dense! His lively depictions of extinct ecosystems make the book feel more animated than an ordinary, non-fiction textbook. His narrations of the weather patterns, geography and flora and fauna of these eons gone by give the book a documentary-style feel. I especially enjoyed reading about the anatomy and behaviour of extinct organisms and, admittedly, found myself sometimes scanning over sections about geography (this has more to do with my personal interests rather than Halliday's writing). If you decide to read this book, I'd recommend searching up pictures of the flora and fauna described in each chapter so that you don't miss out on cool organisms such as this one!
Hallucigenia (Source: Science Focus)
My other piece of advice to future readers of this book is to not get stuck on complicated scientific details. If there's something you don't fully understand then move on. Prioritise enjoyment! It worked well for me. Even just being able to comprehend the magnitude of time that existed before Sapiens is mind-altering. If you read this book and then follow it up with Yuval Noah Harari's Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind then you will be up to date with the timeline from life's beginnings on Earth until now - how cool!
I should also book-end my earlier comments on how this book helped contextualise my understanding of climate change. Halliday offers a great insight into current climate change issues in the epilogue of this book - it's not sensationalised, cynical or overly optimistic. Rather, it is grounded in the science of prehistory.
"Unlike past occasions when a single species or group of species has fundamentally altered the biosphere - the oxygenation of the oceans, the laying down of coal swamps - our species is in an unusual position of control over the outcome. We know that change is occurring, we know what will happen if it continues, we know that we can stop it, and we know how. The question is whether we will try."
(Shoutout to Sin for recommending and lending me this book) ♥
challenging
informative
slow-paced
informative
medium-paced
Reads like a travelogue, in the best possible way as it covers extinct species and dinosaurs and various epochs - a very pleasant read.
Just not my thing! I can't see the creatures so it's really over my head.
I was really hoping it would catch my interest more, but it was so slow paced.
4 STARS
I eagerly anticipated this book ever since watching two videos of the author reacting to prehistoric (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbgWBVY0gR4&t=96s) and dinosaur movies (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJmWPPUZY1g) and being excited about the depiction of prehistoric plants and animals. It is so wholesome and educational I generally recommend those two videos to anybody who might be interested. Anyway, I saw those and knew I had to read this book.
I was surprised at how lyrical it is and to be honest, I had expected something different but loved what I found. Each chapter begins with quotes, the writing style is easily understandable and, quite frankly, beautiful and the tone of this book in general is incredibly reflective while simultaneously being engaging and interesting.
Will I remember the names of the many mammals, sponges, bacteria etc that were mentioned? Probably not. But that is not the point of the book. What stands out is the holistic approach of showing the evolution of life on earth and the various ecosystems that emerged from different relationships among lifeforms.
Contributing immensely to this is the structure of the book, in which rather than starting at the beginning and describing each era chronologically, the author decided to go back in time from the present and illustrate everything in reverse order. Factoring in the final chapter called epilogue I found this to be an ingenious decision which underlines the message of the book: we learn about the present and the future only by looking into the past but the past is in turn determined by our understanding of the present.
The final chapter really rounded the book out for me. Immediately before the era 550 million years ago (called the Ediacaran) is described and analyzed. That earth and those lifeforms have very little to do with our present day, they are very distant ancestors of contemporary animals. But with reading the epilogue, I appreciated the previous chapter and even those before that one more. It closes the cycle, it connects everything that was talked about and mentioned to the present, mentions climate change and contemporary challenges that humanity faces but doesn't paint a bleak image. Yes, climate change is bad, the world is changing and we'll have to adapt. But there is also an appeal for supporting one another and staying hopeful.
To end this off, I want to mention that I really enjoyed the author being critical of much of paleontology being (or having started as being) very euro-centric and illustrating the problematic instances for those who lack the background knowledge or implications.
The book was so very philosophical at times and to end this review, I'll just include a quote that'll probably stick with me:
I eagerly anticipated this book ever since watching two videos of the author reacting to prehistoric (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbgWBVY0gR4&t=96s) and dinosaur movies (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJmWPPUZY1g) and being excited about the depiction of prehistoric plants and animals. It is so wholesome and educational I generally recommend those two videos to anybody who might be interested. Anyway, I saw those and knew I had to read this book.
I was surprised at how lyrical it is and to be honest, I had expected something different but loved what I found. Each chapter begins with quotes, the writing style is easily understandable and, quite frankly, beautiful and the tone of this book in general is incredibly reflective while simultaneously being engaging and interesting.
Will I remember the names of the many mammals, sponges, bacteria etc that were mentioned? Probably not. But that is not the point of the book. What stands out is the holistic approach of showing the evolution of life on earth and the various ecosystems that emerged from different relationships among lifeforms.
Contributing immensely to this is the structure of the book, in which rather than starting at the beginning and describing each era chronologically, the author decided to go back in time from the present and illustrate everything in reverse order. Factoring in the final chapter called epilogue I found this to be an ingenious decision which underlines the message of the book: we learn about the present and the future only by looking into the past but the past is in turn determined by our understanding of the present.
The final chapter really rounded the book out for me. Immediately before the era 550 million years ago (called the Ediacaran) is described and analyzed. That earth and those lifeforms have very little to do with our present day, they are very distant ancestors of contemporary animals. But with reading the epilogue, I appreciated the previous chapter and even those before that one more. It closes the cycle, it connects everything that was talked about and mentioned to the present, mentions climate change and contemporary challenges that humanity faces but doesn't paint a bleak image. Yes, climate change is bad, the world is changing and we'll have to adapt. But there is also an appeal for supporting one another and staying hopeful.
To end this off, I want to mention that I really enjoyed the author being critical of much of paleontology being (or having started as being) very euro-centric and illustrating the problematic instances for those who lack the background knowledge or implications.
The book was so very philosophical at times and to end this review, I'll just include a quote that'll probably stick with me:
A commonly stated statistical fact contends that every breath you take contains atoms once breathed out by Shakespeare, or some variation on that theme. How much more satisfying to think that you continually replenish your atoms with those that, perhaps within the past year, were part of a mountain that was once an ocean floor?
Whether that's true or not, I really like the implication of this. The world is ever-changing and fluent and us humans are just a temporary condition, just a small part in the immense machinery that is the Earth and all her ecosystems.