Otherlands

Brought to you by Penguin. A dazzlingly original, lyrical and epic encounter with the Earth as it used to beWhat 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, the 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.(c) Thomas Halliday 2022 (P) Penguin Audio 2022

FOYLES NON-FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR A SUNDAY TIMES TOP TEN BESTSELLER THE WAINWRIGHT PRIZE FOR NATURE WRITING - HIGHLY COMMENDED LONGLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR IN THE SUNDAY TIMES, TELEGRAPH, PROSPECT, THE NEW YORKER AND BBC HISTORY WATERSTONES NON-FICTION BOOK OF THE MONTH 'The best book on the history of life on Earth I have ever read' Tom Holland 'Epically cinematic... A book of almost unimaginable riches' Sunday Times This is the past as we've never seen it before. Otherlands is an epic, exhilarating journey into deep time, showing us the Earth as it used to exist, and the worlds that were here before ours. Award-winning young palaeobiologist Thomas Halliday immerses us in a series of ancient landscapes, from the mammoth steppe in Ice Age Alaska to the lush rainforests of Eocene Antarctica, with its colonies of giant penguins, to Ediacaran Australia, where the moon is far brighter than ours today. We visit the birthplace of humanity; we hear the crashing of the highest waterfall the Earth has ever known; and we watch as life emerges again after the asteroid hits, and the age of the mammal dawns. Otherlands is a staggering imaginative feat: an emotional narrative that underscores the tenacity of life - yet also the fragility of seemingly permanent ecosystems, including our own. To read it is to see the last 500 million years not as an endless expanse of unfathomable time, but as a series of worlds, simultaneously fabulous and familiar. Sunday Times bestseller, March 2023

FOYLES NON-FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR A SUNDAY TIMES TOP TEN BESTSELLER THE WAINWRIGHT PRIZE FOR NATURE WRITING - HIGHLY COMMENDED LONGLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR IN THE SUNDAY TIMES, TELEGRAPH, PROSPECT, THE NEW YORKER AND BBC HISTORY WATERSTONES NON-FICTION BOOK OF THE MONTH 'The best book on the history of life on Earth I have ever read' Tom Holland 'Epically cinematic... A book of almost unimaginable riches' Sunday Times This is the past as we've never seen it before. Otherlands is an epic, exhilarating journey into deep time, showing us the Earth as it used to exist, and the worlds that were here before ours. Award-winning young palaeobiologist Thomas Halliday immerses us in a series of ancient landscapes, from the mammoth steppe in Ice Age Alaska to the lush rainforests of Eocene Antarctica, with its colonies of giant penguins, to Ediacaran Australia, where the moon is far brighter than ours today. We visit the birthplace of humanity; we hear the crashing of the highest waterfall the Earth has ever known; and we watch as life emerges again after the asteroid hits, and the age of the mammal dawns. Otherlands is a staggering imaginative feat: an emotional narrative that underscores the tenacity of life - yet also the fragility of seemingly permanent ecosystems, including our own. To read it is to see the last 500 million years not as an endless expanse of unfathomable time, but as a series of worlds, simultaneously fabulous and familiar. Sunday Times bestseller, March 2023

* WINNER OF FOYLES CHILDREN'S BOOK OF THE YEAR* Watch thundering herds of dinosaurs crash through thick forests. Dive into a sea of glass reefs, emerging from the water to see monkeys fighting for survival on an accidental raft . . . Travel millions of years into the past, to when dinosaurs and woolly mammoths roamed the earth. Find out how plants and trees and creatures great and small shared a world very different from our own. And uncover the footprints they left behind . . . Starting with the last ice age and ending when the very first animals started to swim and hunt, this illustrated journey back through time is adapted from the bestselling Otherlands by Thomas Halliday. It is written by the author, with illustrations by Gavin Scott.

* WINNER OF FOYLES CHILDREN'S BOOK OF THE YEAR* Watch thundering herds of dinosaurs crash through thick forests. Dive into a sea of glass reefs, emerging from the water to see monkeys fighting for survival on an accidental raft . . . Travel millions of years into the past, to when dinosaurs and woolly mammoths roamed the earth. Find out how plants and trees and creatures great and small shared a world very different from our own. And uncover the footprints they left behind . . . Starting with the last ice age and ending when the very first animals started to swim and hunt, this illustrated journey back through time is adapted from the bestselling Otherlands by Thomas Halliday. It is written by the author, with illustrations by Gavin Scott.