My Beloved Brontosaurus

On the Road with Old Bones, New Science, and Our Favorite Dinosaurs

De: Brian Switek

Narrado por: Brian Switek

Paleontology meets pop culture in a talented young author’s journey into the lives of dinosaurs.

Dinosaurs, with their awe-inspiring size, terrifying claws and teeth, and otherworldly abilities, occupy a sacred place in our childhoods. They loom over museum halls, thunder through movies, and are a fundamental part of our collective imagination. In My Beloved Brontosaurus, the dinosaur fanatic Brian Switek enriches the childlike sense of wonder these amazing creatures instill in us. Investigating the latest discoveries in paleontology, he breathes new life into old bones. Switek reunites us with these mysterious creatures as he visits desolate excavation sites and hallowed museum vaults, exploring everything from the sex life of Apatosaurus and T. rex’s feather-laden body to just why dinosaurs vanished. (And of course, on his journey, he celebrates the book’s titular hero, “Brontosaurus” - who suffered a second extinction when we learned he never existed at all - as a symbol of scientific progress.)

With infectious enthusiasm, Switek questions what we’ve long held to be true about these beasts, weaving in stories from his obsession with dinosaurs, which started when he was just knee-high to a Stegosaurus. Endearing, surprising, and essential to our understanding of our own evolution and our place on Earth, My Beloved Brontosaurus is an audiobook that dinosaur fans and anyone interested in scientific progress will cherish for years to come.

Includes a bonus interview between Brian Switek and Amanda Moon, managing editor of the Scientific American imprint at Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

©2013 Brian Switek (P)2013 Macmillan Audio

Great book, but....

A great book about dinosaurs, but sadly also a great example of why authors should NOT read their own books.

A dinosaur lovers must read

This was an awesome read. Not only did it bring back memories of my childhood love of dinosaurs but I learned new information of the life and death of those wonderful creatures. Also, the nomenclature changes and history of the science behind those long lost wonderful creatures. And yes I too wanted an Brontosaurus, sorry, Apatosaurus as a pet.

A Comprehensive and Engaging Update on the Field

The title and much of the book's content pretty much express the mixed feelings that old timers like me have trying to reconcile the old portrayal of the titanic beasts with everything researchers all over the globe have been bringing to light about peacock-like little dragons - and explains why we can't avoid the transition. Masterful work, a pleasure to read/listen.

Reminiscences of a Scientist

Remembering the fun of growing up and not out growing a boys love of exciting, enormous, extinct dinosaurs makes informative and nostalgic reading. The author takes you through the new discoveries that have changed what we know about dinosaurs. I think he must about the same age as my sons. I remember taking them to museums and to see dinosaur prints. His narration doesn’t do justice to his enthusiasm. It might be a better read than listen.

A passionate update on Dinosaurs

Ever since I left my dinomania behind, I still love dinosaurs, but don't have the time to read all the new science that has been produced in the last years about them. And it is so much new stuff. Brian Switek does exactly this, puts us up to date to what is currently known about dinos. He is a great science writer that I have followed for many years thorough the blog Laelaps and is completely qualified for this role.

Narrated by himself, you can hear how he came to love dinosaurs and kept this passion until adulthood, and how much about what we thought about dinosaurs changed. How they evolved, what colours they had, what sound they maid, how they behaved, how they grew so much, how they made sex and more. Well written, well explained and citing scientific sources, a great reading. My only complain is that it left me wanting more.

Great book. Poor performance.

I thoroughly enjoyed the content of the book but had trouble staying with it because of what seemed like an uninspired performance. I was surprised when I realized that the reader and the author are one and the same. The person reading the book just doesn't sound interested in dinosaurs or paleontology. Go figure. Being only the casual dinosaur enthusiast, I learned a lot.

Self-inflicted wounds mar otherwise very fun read

Any additional comments?

Like the author, Jurassic Park really inspired me to pay attention to dinosaurs as fascinating animals instead of stop motion monsters, and this book was generally a fun ride through a lot of dinosauria's newest discoveries. A lot of it I already was aware of based on general interest news stories, but the book covered those things in further depth, which was great.

There were two problems with the book, though. First, the author felt the need to completely unnecessarily toss in some political jabs, making him look small and closed-minded (hardly attributes you want in any scientist). I don't have any patience for Creationists, but why go out of your way to attack them, particularly in a way that comes off as an attack on all religion? That carries over to contempt for past generations of scientists who got things wrong, but were working within the paradigms and the technological limitations of their times. A failure to understand why a different scientist may have - in good faith - come to a different conclusion is again the mark of a limited imagination, which limits his own scientific credibility. Sometimes I agreed with him and sometimes I didn't, but in all instances it was distracting, and those little windows of bitterness (that's how they came off) sadly reduced what is otherwise great joy in learning new things.

Second, the author should not have read the book himself. I have no doubt he's passionate about the subject, but his affect was flat, almost bored. There is an irrepressible, child-like joy in learning about dinosaurs, and that didn't come through. There's no shame in hiring professionals to more accurately convey the emotion of one's story, and that would have been an improvement here.

Good story, bad reading!

A very interesting story,but, I became very upset as the reader goes too fast and sounds uninterested in the subject. Ruined by the wrong reader! Couldn`t finnish it.