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Walking with Dinosaurs: A Natural History
Accompanying the television series, this is an illustrated history of dinosaurs, from their first appearance in the middle of the Triassic period to their sudden demise, 160 million years later, at the end of the Cretaceous era.
288 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1999
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
August 13, 2020
Wonderful book, full of images detailing the lives of the prehistorian reptiles everyone loves. Perfect for children and adults alike. Fully recommended.
July 28, 2014
When I was about seven, I was quite obsessed with dinosaurs. Why was this the case? I remember making a conscious decision to be so. The word 'dinosaur', after all, begins with a D. Moreover, my first name begins with a D. Therefore, it was entirely logical that I should be obsessed with dinosaurs.
OK, so maybe logic wasn't my strong point. Give me a break, I was seven. Not many seven-year-olds want to be palaeontologists when they grow up.
Anyway, this is relevant, for at about this time, some trailers started appearing between programs on the BBC - you know in the days before iPlayer, or even digital, when you had to watch things like that. Some of these trailers featured dinosaurs, and, naturally, my attention was piqued. The world seemed to be capitulating to my dearest wish: Walking with Dinosaurs, a quite special documentary (drama?) about dinosaurs.
And then the series came out. The CGI was breathtaking, the music was epic. Not that I understood much of this at the time: I just liked the dinosaurs. But with the help of my family, I recorded the entire series on to VHS, and watched them over and over again. I still enjoy them and get something new out of them every time.
But this is meant to be a book review. Bear with me.
A few months after the series came out I was with my father in our nearest town's bookshop, and there, mounted with pride of place, bestriding the mere novels and trash beneath it, in view immediately past the entrance was this hardback colossus, complete with those giant, peaceful diplodoci and that magical word guaranteed to have my (by then) eight-year-old neck spinning on my shoulders: Dinosaurs. Walking with them, no less.
Naturally I inspected. My heart fell at the price tag: £49.99, far outside the bounds of my usual pocket money.
Fortunately for me, I had a loving and generous (but now sadly deceased) grandmother, who bought it for me. When I got it, I was hooked on it almost instantly: so much detail, so much information, so many potential hours of reading! Those beautiful pictures! Those... oh, I can't remember now.
Do I come across as a little nostalgic? I sometimes wish I could still retain that childish devotion to the cause. I am naturally inclined to be obsessive, but the more I have learnt, the more I realise how little I know, and these days I try to be obsessed with everything at once, which has a somewhat tragic diluting effect.
But when I look back, after many years, I am and always will be glad of the colour of this book decorating my shelf. It is a testament to the monumental human effort that went into it: the quantity, both broad and deep of scientific discovery behind it and the extraordinary achievement of the TV series' production team. I hope I have contributed something to saluting them.
OK, so maybe logic wasn't my strong point. Give me a break, I was seven. Not many seven-year-olds want to be palaeontologists when they grow up.
Anyway, this is relevant, for at about this time, some trailers started appearing between programs on the BBC - you know in the days before iPlayer, or even digital, when you had to watch things like that. Some of these trailers featured dinosaurs, and, naturally, my attention was piqued. The world seemed to be capitulating to my dearest wish: Walking with Dinosaurs, a quite special documentary (drama?) about dinosaurs.
And then the series came out. The CGI was breathtaking, the music was epic. Not that I understood much of this at the time: I just liked the dinosaurs. But with the help of my family, I recorded the entire series on to VHS, and watched them over and over again. I still enjoy them and get something new out of them every time.
But this is meant to be a book review. Bear with me.
A few months after the series came out I was with my father in our nearest town's bookshop, and there, mounted with pride of place, bestriding the mere novels and trash beneath it, in view immediately past the entrance was this hardback colossus, complete with those giant, peaceful diplodoci and that magical word guaranteed to have my (by then) eight-year-old neck spinning on my shoulders: Dinosaurs. Walking with them, no less.
Naturally I inspected. My heart fell at the price tag: £49.99, far outside the bounds of my usual pocket money.
Fortunately for me, I had a loving and generous (but now sadly deceased) grandmother, who bought it for me. When I got it, I was hooked on it almost instantly: so much detail, so much information, so many potential hours of reading! Those beautiful pictures! Those... oh, I can't remember now.
Do I come across as a little nostalgic? I sometimes wish I could still retain that childish devotion to the cause. I am naturally inclined to be obsessive, but the more I have learnt, the more I realise how little I know, and these days I try to be obsessed with everything at once, which has a somewhat tragic diluting effect.
But when I look back, after many years, I am and always will be glad of the colour of this book decorating my shelf. It is a testament to the monumental human effort that went into it: the quantity, both broad and deep of scientific discovery behind it and the extraordinary achievement of the TV series' production team. I hope I have contributed something to saluting them.
February 9, 2019
I percorsi dell'infanzia
L'improbabile collaborazione BBC-Mediaset (così recitava la pubblicità di Rete Quattro per promuovere il programma di divulgazione condotto da Cecchi Paone, stando alle cronache) restituisce uno dei documentari più completi e all'avanguardia - per mezzi tecnici e budget - che la televisione ricordi.
Accantonati per un attimo gli sberleffi, sempre doverosi, per una triade di canali dal palinsesto terribile e le ancora più gravi colpe dal punto di vista culturale, "Nel mondo dei dinosauri" è stato, lo è ancora adesso, un esperimento felice capace di coniugare l'attendibilità scientifica con delle storie d'intrattenimento.
Il libro in questione è la disamina messa per iscritto delle sei puntate, arricchita da immagini del documentario e box di approfondimento mirati su argomenti cardine di ogni sezione.
L'improbabile collaborazione BBC-Mediaset (così recitava la pubblicità di Rete Quattro per promuovere il programma di divulgazione condotto da Cecchi Paone, stando alle cronache) restituisce uno dei documentari più completi e all'avanguardia - per mezzi tecnici e budget - che la televisione ricordi.
Accantonati per un attimo gli sberleffi, sempre doverosi, per una triade di canali dal palinsesto terribile e le ancora più gravi colpe dal punto di vista culturale, "Nel mondo dei dinosauri" è stato, lo è ancora adesso, un esperimento felice capace di coniugare l'attendibilità scientifica con delle storie d'intrattenimento.
Il libro in questione è la disamina messa per iscritto delle sei puntate, arricchita da immagini del documentario e box di approfondimento mirati su argomenti cardine di ogni sezione.
June 20, 2017
The book to accompany the wildly popular BBC series of the same name. I've adored this television series since I was a child and it was a core component of my childhood. It really spawned a lifelong fascination with prehistory that is still going strong to this day and I have no qualms giving it credit for that. That being said, though, the book version is a little less fantastic. It is by no means a bad book, quite the contrary, but compared to the television series it is based on, it becomes obvious just how much of the brilliance of the television series that hinges on the realistic pictures. The book version, while containing beautiful stills from the series and additional fact boxes that really helps bring the scientific aspect of paleontology to the front, just can't fully compare. All in all, though, the book is a wonderful addition to the television series and while the biographical stories of the animals are a bit repetitive if you, like me, have watched the television series around a hundred times, the fact boxes and the sheer amount of detail put into the book still provides a wonderfully intense, yet never unscientific look into the times of the dinosaurs.
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August 25, 2024this was the only book I owned at ages 7-12 and I was too poor for a TV or toys so the only thing I could do besides pretending to be a dog outside was read this book over and over again
Had dinosaur facts stored in my brain like it mattered. Turns out no one cared about things that died millions of years ago and I was left to my boredom and my dinosaur knowledge
Had dinosaur facts stored in my brain like it mattered. Turns out no one cared about things that died millions of years ago and I was left to my boredom and my dinosaur knowledge
September 18, 2020
The book gives you an insight in how these prehistoric animals lived based on all the evidence from fossils. The story is told as if you are there.
October 2, 2025
Great illustrations and stories. An amazing testament to the brilliance and hard work of paleontologist.
August 20, 2025
Walking with Dinosaurs was my childhood. I had the series on VHS tape (get off my lawn) and watched it over and over, obsessing particularly over the making-of which went into the background of research, production and filming of the series.
This is the companion book to the series, written by series producer Tim Haines. It takes the format of the series, going episode by episode with very similar plotlines, but with additional background information about the planet at the time, why we know what we know, and more information of the species included.
10 year old me would have DEVOURED this. Its a big glossy coffee-table sort of tome in full colour with some full-page images, lots of interesting tidbits of info. My only critisism (and it pains me to critisise this at all) is that it's from 1999, and therefore a fair bit of the science is out-dated. We know lioplurodon wasn't as large as depicted; utahraptors actually have feathers; diplodocus necks might not be horizontal, etc etc etc. But I loved being back in that world, and will treasure this book.
This is the companion book to the series, written by series producer Tim Haines. It takes the format of the series, going episode by episode with very similar plotlines, but with additional background information about the planet at the time, why we know what we know, and more information of the species included.
10 year old me would have DEVOURED this. Its a big glossy coffee-table sort of tome in full colour with some full-page images, lots of interesting tidbits of info. My only critisism (and it pains me to critisise this at all) is that it's from 1999, and therefore a fair bit of the science is out-dated. We know lioplurodon wasn't as large as depicted; utahraptors actually have feathers; diplodocus necks might not be horizontal, etc etc etc. But I loved being back in that world, and will treasure this book.
February 20, 2018
A dull pre-dawn light spreads across the horizon, illuminating a landscape covered in forest. Rivers trace silvery lines through the dense vegetation, and along their banks icy puddles are melting. It is the beginning of spring at the South Pole.
Take a trip into another world, a world perfectly alien yet somehow familiar -- a world like Earth, but without ice caps, with a surface covered by massive ferns and an endless variety of strangely beautiful and terrifying creatures, the dinosaurs. For 160 million years these great beasts were the dominant species, as ubiquitous as we mammals are today -- but 65 million years ago, their time on Earth came to a terrifying end. Tim Haines walks us through their lives, from the appearance of the first small dinos (220 MYA) to their end. As they rose to rule, the Earth changed beneath their feet, Pangaea giving way to the familiar arrangements of continents we know today. The result is a fascinating and visually stunning work reminiscent of David Attenborough's The Lives of series.
After a short introduction in which Haines makes general observations about dinosaur evolution and the problems inherent in attempting to piece together their behavior, our tour of the past is divided into six sections, spanning from the Triassic (dawn of the dinosaurs) to the late Cretaceous, which is home to familiar beasties like the Tyrannosaurus Rex and the Triceratops. In between, nearly every species of dinosaur familiar to pop culture is mentioned, with the odd exception of velocioraptors, who became so popular after the release of Jurassic Park. Each setting focuses on a local ecosystem, and begins by introducing the climate and our players. We then follow the various species of dinosaurs through a year, season , or even an entire lifecycle.
Most of the text is presented as a documentary -- based partly in fact, partly in inference, and partly on reasonable guesses. The author mentions that one species of flying dinosaurs spent most of its life riding on the backs of a larger species: in the introduction, he points out that this is completely speculative, as barring time-travel it's not as though we could witness such an event, nor are fossil records likely to comment on interspecies relations. Set off in large blocks throughout the chapters are sections which are strictly scientific, explaining the contributions of a particular geological formation, or commenting on the evolution of birds. Visually, Walking with Dinosaurs is stunning -- a marvel. The quality is astounding for a work done in 1999: the pictures look like photographs, and the creatures aren't merely flat inserts in a background. Somehow they have been modeled in such a way as to appear real, as though they were looking the reader in the eye as he gazes in wonder at their size, their form, their coloration -- such savage power and grace! Haines and the visual artists have truly made the world of the Mesozoic come alive with incredible detail, and I'd recommend this easily to anyone interested in dinosaurs -- especially readers who have children.
Take a trip into another world, a world perfectly alien yet somehow familiar -- a world like Earth, but without ice caps, with a surface covered by massive ferns and an endless variety of strangely beautiful and terrifying creatures, the dinosaurs. For 160 million years these great beasts were the dominant species, as ubiquitous as we mammals are today -- but 65 million years ago, their time on Earth came to a terrifying end. Tim Haines walks us through their lives, from the appearance of the first small dinos (220 MYA) to their end. As they rose to rule, the Earth changed beneath their feet, Pangaea giving way to the familiar arrangements of continents we know today. The result is a fascinating and visually stunning work reminiscent of David Attenborough's The Lives of series.
After a short introduction in which Haines makes general observations about dinosaur evolution and the problems inherent in attempting to piece together their behavior, our tour of the past is divided into six sections, spanning from the Triassic (dawn of the dinosaurs) to the late Cretaceous, which is home to familiar beasties like the Tyrannosaurus Rex and the Triceratops. In between, nearly every species of dinosaur familiar to pop culture is mentioned, with the odd exception of velocioraptors, who became so popular after the release of Jurassic Park. Each setting focuses on a local ecosystem, and begins by introducing the climate and our players. We then follow the various species of dinosaurs through a year, season , or even an entire lifecycle.
Most of the text is presented as a documentary -- based partly in fact, partly in inference, and partly on reasonable guesses. The author mentions that one species of flying dinosaurs spent most of its life riding on the backs of a larger species: in the introduction, he points out that this is completely speculative, as barring time-travel it's not as though we could witness such an event, nor are fossil records likely to comment on interspecies relations. Set off in large blocks throughout the chapters are sections which are strictly scientific, explaining the contributions of a particular geological formation, or commenting on the evolution of birds. Visually, Walking with Dinosaurs is stunning -- a marvel. The quality is astounding for a work done in 1999: the pictures look like photographs, and the creatures aren't merely flat inserts in a background. Somehow they have been modeled in such a way as to appear real, as though they were looking the reader in the eye as he gazes in wonder at their size, their form, their coloration -- such savage power and grace! Haines and the visual artists have truly made the world of the Mesozoic come alive with incredible detail, and I'd recommend this easily to anyone interested in dinosaurs -- especially readers who have children.
June 24, 2011
I'm giving this five stars mostly based on one thing: nostalgia. I regret nothing. So here's my tale of nostalgia, under a spoiler tag so you won't have to bother with it.
So that's the reason this book is more than a little special to me. On a more book-related note, I put it under art, because this is so lovely to just browse through. I didn't read it until I was a little older, but just seeing all these caps from the series was great on its own. (And I really want to see the series again now.) I did read the whole book once or twice, and I remember it being pretty factual at points, though still a narrative like the series. I still really enjoyed it, especially the fact tid bits here and there, and of course the illustrations.
So that's the reason this book is more than a little special to me. On a more book-related note, I put it under art, because this is so lovely to just browse through. I didn't read it until I was a little older, but just seeing all these caps from the series was great on its own. (And I really want to see the series again now.) I did read the whole book once or twice, and I remember it being pretty factual at points, though still a narrative like the series. I still really enjoyed it, especially the fact tid bits here and there, and of course the illustrations.
August 28, 2009
I was so hyped to give this book a 5 star. Though I've read through several times since I got it at Sam's Club - or was it Costco, I couldn't read it enough. This book is rather like a huge picture story for adults. The illustrations are computer generated and so alive, it's as if Iain Byrne was there accompanying T-Rex in the wetlands of Utah or swimming underwater with Ichyosaurus himself. Even the landscape and the foliage bears the name of tens of millions of years past.
This is a coffee table book, a fantastic reference book, a children's book, an adult fantasy book, a science book, and an all around conversation book. Don't forget to read the words around the pictures, easy to do since the pictures are so mesmerizing.
This is a coffee table book, a fantastic reference book, a children's book, an adult fantasy book, a science book, and an all around conversation book. Don't forget to read the words around the pictures, easy to do since the pictures are so mesmerizing.
August 4, 2011
Arranged into chapters to match the various episodes from the acclaimed series, and with handy fact boxes for the more paleontologically minded, plus beautiful pictures shot on location! A must for any dino-enthusiast! "Life will never again, be this big!"
July 8, 2015
One of my favorite books from childhood.
Still have the hardcover, complete with all my dinosaur drawings in the blank pages.
Pure nostalgia value which keeps bringing a smile to my face.
Also, the main theme is brilliant.
Still have the hardcover, complete with all my dinosaur drawings in the blank pages.
Pure nostalgia value which keeps bringing a smile to my face.
Also, the main theme is brilliant.
June 7, 2009
Cool pictures, charts, etc.
The information was so-so.
The information was so-so.
August 13, 2012
AWESOME! I loved these DVD's and the book was just as informative
May 20, 2015
I own this book and still today it's one of my favourites. Intense prose, breathtaking pictures, beautiful (and sometimes tragic) stories... It's perfect!
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews