We’re back on the trail of the dinosaurs with Mike Benton and Graham Rosewarne, two giants of the extremely niche genre of Popular British Dino Rennaissance Books (always well-represented on these pages). Last time, we looked mostly at Rosewarne’s panoramic compositions and found ourselves maybe a bit less than extremely impressed. But Rosewarne is at his best when drawing dinosaur profiles, and fortunately, this book allows him to do plenty of that. One of Rosewarne’s most famous and well-remembered creations…
Mike Benton
Another day, another dinosaur book that is too bloody big for my scanner. Written by the ever-prolific Mike Benton and published in 1989, On The Trail Of The Dinosaurs is one in a series of three books on palaeontology and prehistoric life. There’s also separate volumes on palaeozoic and cenozoic animals. What makes this one of interest to us is that, in the life reconstructions, we recognize the steady hand of perennial LITC darling Graham Rosewarne. We mostly know Rosewarne…
It’s the triumphant return of The Giant Book of Dinosaurs, everyone’s fifth or sixth favourite children’s dinosaur book from the 1980s to be written by Mike Benton. As we’ve already examined the book’s theropods, let’s turn now to the lesser dinosaurs that pad out the rest of this irritatingly proportioned book – starting with the sauropodmorphs. As I mentioned last time, this book’s slightly too large for my scanner, so I’ve taken some photographs instead – therefore, these images might…
Given that dinosaurs are so notorious in the popular imagination for having grown Very Large far more often than they had any right to, it’s only fitting that so many dinosaur books – especially those aimed at children – have adopted a correspondingly chunky, oversized format. The appeal is obvious, even if it means that the bloody things simply refuse to squeeze under my scanner. The Giant Book of Dinosaurs is around 24.5cm wide and 34.5cm tall – big enough…