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Otherlands
- A World in the Making
- Narrated by: Adetomiwa Edun
- Length: 11 hrs and 6 mins
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Otherlands
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Summary
Brought to you by Penguin.
A dazzlingly original, lyrical and epic encounter with the Earth as it used to be.
What would it be like to visit the ancient landscapes of the past? To experience the Jurassic or Cambrian worlds, to wander among these other lands, as creatures extinct for millions of years roam? In this mesmerizing debut, award-winning palaeontologist Thomas Halliday gives us a breath-taking up-close encounter with worlds that are normally unimaginably distant.
Journeying backwards in time from the most recent Ice Age to the dawn of complex life itself, and across all seven continents, Halliday immerses us in a series of extinct ecosystems, each one rendered with a novelist's eye for detail and drama. Yet every description - whether the colour of a beetle's shell, the rhythm of pterosaurs in flight or the lingering smell of sulphur in the air - is grounded in fact. We visit the birthplace of humanity in Pliocene-era Kenya; in the Jurassic, we wander among dinosaur-inhabited islands in the Mediterranean; and we gaze at the light of an enormous moon in the Ediacaran sky, when life hasn't yet reached land.
Otherlands is a naturalist's travel guide, albeit one of lands distant in time rather than space, showing us the last 500 million years not as an endless expanse of unfathomable time, but as a series of worlds, simultaneously fantastical and familiar.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- HM
- 29-11-23
Evocative snapshots of prehistory.
Wonderfully descriptive writing brings the distant past of the earth into focus, gradually going back millions of years of life on this planet.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Simmybear
- 03-07-22
Looking through a glass darkly
Fantastic flight through time unimaginable. The author brings the deep past into context linking it seamlessly into lessons for our modern world. Narrated in a really first class fashion it kept me hooked from beginning to end.
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3 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Marie Harrison
- 05-09-22
Informative and enjoyable
An informative and enjoyable listen. The only issue I had was that, as the writer wrote the descriptions of past times in present tense, but then discussed our present day in the next sentence- it was a bit confusing at times when the "now" being discussed actually was!
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Frankie
- 20-12-22
Mind blowing!
I would make this book compulsory reading in every school. The depth of knowledge is outstanding. While it is incredibly scientific, the information is easily accessed. Beautifully written and beautifully read. I have listened to it 3 times already.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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- Anonymous User
- 19-05-22
Fab
Some strange pronunciation eg a hard 'g' in Pangea. Otherwise really informative and well put together.
Happy to recommend.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Alex DAnna
- 03-03-24
Fascinating Journey through time
Enjoyed the imaginative way in which the author moved through each epoch; chapter by chapter you learned many things and it was entertaining
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- Aidan m
- 15-05-22
Richly written
Madder than the maddest sci-fi, but this is our world! The author chooses to tell good stories rather than be sidetracked by academic debate, making the book accessible and entertaining. At the same time it’s underpinned by the authority of good research. The descriptions are as rich as Nan Shepard, which is all the more impressive as the author didn’t have the luxury of experiencing these ecosystems. Narration by Adetomiwa Edun was as good as I’ve heard, I’ll seek out more books he has narrated.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Amazon Customer
- 23-06-23
Amazing!
Engrossing and totally fascinating. I am going to listen to it many times as it is one of these books that you just want learn by heart.
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- Harry Hacker
- 09-08-23
Gripping science
A wonderfully written book with a wealth of information. Immensly informative and well narrated. I will be keeping am eye out for more books by this author.
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- patrick
- 09-04-22
Thoughtful, poetic, and extremely insightful
The author is incredibly skilful in showing the immense diversity of life throughout the past 600 million years, and the narrators touch brings a calming serenity to the scenes that the author invokes. This is a beautiful work and something I think everyone should read to get a good view on life’s permanence and impermanence.
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1 person found this helpful