#t rex and the crater of doom

[starswallowingsea]

conjure up everything you have cause I want to know if you have any book recommendations (any genre will do)

BOY DO I. I ended up going off on all of these but know that I love all of these books deeply.

So first off I have to mention Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein. I read this book for the first time when I was 16 and it changed who I am as a person. Also I picked two of my names from this book. It starts off as a kind of journal/diary/confession of our main character (Queenie) about her time in a Nazi prison in France after being caught while trying to infiltrate the country. They tell her to tell them everything she knows about the Allied war effort, specifically looking at aerial assaults, which gives Queenie an excuse to talk about how she met her best friend. The buys her time for a while, as she does sprinkle in what looks like useful information into her narrative but eventually her time runs out. Make no mistake, this book is a tragedy and will tear your heart out in more ways than one. It's very slow going but I promise it'll be worth it if you can get into it.

In the same vein, I also recently finished the Paris Orphan by Natasha Lester. This book follows a model turned journalist named Jessica May (based on the actual photographer Lee Miller) as she deals with sexism and misogyny during the war effort in trying to do what she wants to do, which is reporting on the war front. Jess meets a soldier named Dan who she instantly connects with while trying not to die in a trench because the field hospital she was supposed to be stationed at turned out to be under fire, and he introduces her to a child he has been looking after since his brother was killed (it's not his brother's child, she's the child of two French citizens who were trying to flee the country and couldn't take a child with them, but she takes to Jess and Dan as her parental figures very quickly). This one is also a bit heavier and includes suicide and rape, but it is still very very good.

Next I'll jump briefly to non-fiction and recommend the book T. Rex and the Crater of Doom by Walter Alvarez. It's written by one of the lead scientists trying to figure out what killed the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. While it is about geology and physics, it's not too dense and written in a way most people will understand what's going on, and explanations are provided for anything that wouldn't be comprehensible to the average lay person. Absolutely fascinating read.

Then we have an Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir. I found this one on youtube and it sounded interesting and boy was it. It's a fantasy novel set in the Middle East/Western Asia and incorporates the culture into the story very well. It follows two main characters, the son of the overbearing military leader who just wants to run away and live a quiet life and the daughter of two scholars who wants to see her people free to live their lives without fear of being enslaved. Laia, the scholar girl, watches her only remaining family killed and imprisoned before her very eyes, barely managing to escape herself and looks for help in the resistance. Elias, the military leader's son, is planning on running away to the South before he is nominated to take part in a series of trials to become the next Emperor and decides to stay. While I wasn't the biggest fan of the romance in this book, it's not overbearing. Content warnings for violence, death, rape, and slavery for this one.

And finally, Cain by Jose Saramago. This one was recommended to me by one of my professors last semester and it's a relatively quick read at like 160 pages. It's a bible retelling focusing on Cain, where he is cursed by God to wander the world for the rest of his days. He finds himself traveling through time (or in the words of the book, different presents) and interrupting different bible stories to spite God. The writing style takes a little bit to get used to as it's just very long sentences with dialogue only indicated by the usage of capital letters starting new dialogue tags, but it doesn't take very long to get used to it. As for content warnings, if you'd find it in the bible you'll find it here (death, rape, incest mentions).

[mindfulwrath]

Books of 2023

"You Look Like a Thing and I Love You" by Janelle Shane - AI is even weirder when you know how it works. Interesting read. Recommended.

"The Spare Man" by Mary Robinette Kowal - Cozy mystery, IN SPACE! Good mystery, fun characters, ACAB. Recommended.

"Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation, Vol. 4" by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu - Oh they FUCKIN. Recommended.

"Meddling Kids" by Edgar Cantero - Scooby-Doo meets Lovecraft. Scarier than I expected. Recommended.

"Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days" vols. 1-5 by Shiro Amano - Break my heart all over again why don't you. Surprisingly humorous. Recommended.

"Every Heart a Doorway" by Seanan McGuire - Boarding school/group therapy for young adults who have just returned from portal fantasies. "Piranesi" vibes. Recommended.

"Down Among the Sticks and Bones" by Seanan McGuire - Prequel "A" to 'Every Heart a Doorway.' Vampires, mad scientists, and the greatest horror: suburbia. Recommended.

"Beneath the Sugar Sky" by Seanan McGuire - Sequel "A" to 'Every Heart a Doorway.' A group of portal-fantasy survivors quest to resurrect a friend. Recommended.

"In an Absent Dream" by Seanan McGuire - Prequel "B" to 'Every Heart a Doorway.' Fae bargains and the consequences of brinksmanship. Recommended.

"Peter Pan" by James Barry - Charmingly written, alarming subtext. At times appallingly racist. An interesting read.

"Come Tumbling Down" by Seanan McGuire - Sequel "B" to 'Every Heart a Doorway.' A portal-fantasy survivor seeks aid to unswap her body. Recommended.

"The Roman Empire" by Don Nardo - Nice overview of the time period, accessible, with good references. At times gratingly Christianity-positive.

"Your Guide to Not Getting Murdered in a Quaint English Village" by Maureen Johnson and Jay Cooper - What it says on the tin. Amusing.

"Across the Green Grass Fields" by Seanan McGuire - Prequel "C" to 'Every Heart a Doorway.' Horse girl goes to horse world. Frankly, missable.

"Everyday Life in Ancient Rome" by Lionel Casson - Fascinating, and has my favorite quality in a historian: petty snark. Recommended.

"Where the Drowned Girls Go" by Seanan McGuire - Sequel "C" to 'Every Heart a Doorway.' Portal Fantasy survivor escapes institutionalization. Recommended.

"T. Rex and the Crater of Doom" by Walter Alvarez - How we figured out what killed the dinosaurs. Recommended.

"Autobiography of a Transgender Scientist" by Ben Barres - Life, science, and activism from a trans neuroscientist. Recommended if you like neuro jargon.

"The Eternal Darkness" by Robert Ballard - A brief history of deep-sea exploration told by someone who's been there. Recommended.

"Lost in the Moment and Found" by Seanan McGuire - Prequel "D" to 'Every Heart a Doorway.' Abused child escapes to a cosmic Lost & Found. Recommended.

"The Writing in the Stone" by Irving Finkel - A mysterious stone drives a Babylonian exorcist to a killing spree. Cool concept, unpleasant execution.

"The Pillars of the Earth" by Ken Follett - Docu-drama about the building of a cathedral. Like if Game of Thrones loved its characters. Recommended.

"The Secret History of Moscow" by Ekaterina Sedia - People are turning into birds and folktale creatures live underground. Not my cup of tea, but Gaiman fans will like it.

"Wild" by Cheryl Strayed - A woman hikes the Pacific Crest Trail alone to grieve her mother's death. An interesting read.

"House of Leaves" by Mark Z. Danielewski - An imaginary film ruins a guy's life. Disturbing. Recommended.

"The Devil in the White City" by Erik Larson - The true story of the 1893 World's Fair and the serial killer who hunted there. Fair bits way more interesting than killer bits. Recommended.

"Piranesi" by Susanna Clark (reread) - The Beauty of the House is immeasurable; its Kindness infinite. Recommended.

[wanderingnork]

This book I’m listening to (The Dragon Seekers, about early fossil hunters in England) has this hilarious habit of putting its nose in the air about how far we’ve come and how illogical old science was, and how we’re really at a pinnacle of scientific knowledge. Then it turns around and reminds us that it was published in 2009 and that science has come A LONG WAY since then, and is still advancing.

Specifically, there’s a bit where it’s talking about prominent paleontologist/geologist William Buckland and how Buckland tried to reconcile his belief in Anglican Christian religious doctrine with the very concrete facts of earth history he had in front of him. He cherry-picked facts, forced new science to fit into preconceived notions, and put his head down to ignore anything that contradicted his religious beliefs. It really gets uppity about how illogical and unscientific he was. We know better than to do THAT, of course!

Then, half a chapter later, it starts discussing the principles of catastrophism (that earth’s history is punctuated by catastrophes that force great change) and uniformitarianism (that earth has been shaped by the same continuous forces of geology throughout its entire history and we can look at what is happening today to understand the past). At this point, the book informs us that, yes, it does appear that the end-Cretaceous extinction was due to a great catastrophe, an asteroid. BUT, it hastens to assure us, this is still perfectly in line with the uniformitarian thought that was dominant at the time (and had been for most of the 1900s). After all, catastrophes like this take place roughly every 40 million years. So that’s just a cycle, of course, and does nothing at all to damage uniformitarianism.

Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.

That’s some Buckland logic, right there.

Anyway, next up on my reading list is “T Rex and the Crater of Doom,” a book by Walter Alvarez, one of the people who discovered the Chicxulub impact site and successfully made the argument that a catastrophe ended the dinosaurs.

[beauzos]

i finished Winter in the Blood. i didn't really. entirely understand it i'm ngl but i thought it was pretty great, and i loved the episodic nature of this man who is so deeply disconnected from everyone in his life as he tries to keep going through the motions. i think it's kind of brilliant. you don't even know his name, and i think that adds to the disconnect. he's barely even a person, barely part of life by this point. it's kinda great.

anyways, i have no idea what to read now. i ordered some books at work but they haven't come in yet, and i'm hoping they come tomorrow so i almost don't want to start a new book in case i get them-- i ordered Dragon Teeth by Michael Crichton and T Rex and the Crater of Doom by some guy who i don't feel like looking up the name of right now. i'm really into dinos and paleontology still, waa... but i don't have any more of those types of books currently.

[yellowjavkets]

anyway. T Rex and the crater of doom is some fantastic paleontological nonfiction. it's like a day and a half read and openlibrary has it

[itmightrain]

My Favorite Books I Read This Year

[tolkien-feels]

Rules: Tag 9 people you would like to know/catch up with.

Tagged by: @erynalasse

Last song: 海底 by 一支榴莲 (Haidi by Yizhi Liulian) which I've randomly found out about just this week and I can't seem to stop listening to it, please send help

Last TV show: I literally can't remember, it's been a while since I've had the attention span to watch anything serialized. The last anything I watched was the stream of Finrod-zong and the Lay of Leithian that happened a while ago

Currently watching: Nothing, see above

Currently reading: The Silmarillion and the Return of the King by JRR Tolkien, The Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu, 詩經 (The Classic of Poetry, but it's known by other names), T. rex and the Crater of Doom by Walter Alvarez, and I'm just wrapping up Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer (I highly recommend it!), at which point I'll probably begin the Romance of the Three Kingdoms by Luo Guanzhong

Tagging: anyone who feels like doing it and, if they want to, @ma3dhros @valar-did-me-wrong @cuarthol @outofangband @coopsgirl @carlandrea @leandrafalconwing @warrioreowynofrohan @theleakypen

[billy-bumblr]

When I was a kid I had this little tiny dinosaur play set that was contained inside of a T. rex head. The jaw was hinged and the mouth could be snapped securely closed and when you pried open the jaws and laid the head out flat there was a tiny perfect little world. One side, the top part of the head, was lush with tiny sculpted dinosaur nests. There were little trees made out of rubber so that they were pliable, there were rock overhangs and little cliffs and a textured water feature. The play set came with some dinosaurs, of course. There were a few hadrosaurs, and some ornithomimids, two raptors, and a few extra eggs.

The other side of the head, the bottom jaw, was a blighted wasteland, with tiny sculpted craters and little boulders. There was also a tar pit, it was textured and pliable and was scored all the way through so you could push tiny dinosaurs through the tar to their death, and they would fall out the bottom of the jaw.

It wasn’t very big, I was only four but I could carry it pretty comfortably. It was like Polly pocket for dinosaurs and I LOVED that thing. A lot of toys from when I was little left behind mostly just memories of how they made me feel, but that one? That one I remember so well, I remember how it felt in my hand and what the trees looked like.

There’s also something very funny about a toy dinosaur head that you expect small children to pry apart the jaws of like King Kong so that they can shove tiny dinosaurs into a tar pit to their eternal doom.

Isn’t it weird the stuff that you never stop missing?

[animorphologycast]

Episode 18.5: No Comet, No Comment

Megamorphs 2: In the Time of Dinosaurs

In this episode:

Dinosaurs!

Gray has been confidently mispronouncing “deinonychus” for years

Is this the best Rachel book?

Revisiting the Band of Five roles

More time travel philosophy

Outer space provided broccoli and ants

K.A. Applegate keeps up with scientific theories

A song about Deinonychus

Other references:

T. Rex and the Crater of Doom by Walter Alvarez

The Deinonychus song

[sophia-sol]

T. rex and the Crater of Doom, by Walter Alvarez

I AM SO IN LOVE WITH THIS BOOK.

Walter Alvarez, the author, was one of the central people in the development of the theory that a cataclysmic impact caused the major extinction event at the KT boundary - which included everything from foraminifera to dinosaurs. And this book is about how they figured this out. It is clearly aimed at a general audience and it is immensely readable and delightful.

My inner preteen self is so happy right now. I was an enormous dinosaur nerd as a kid and wanted to be a paleontologist when I grew up. And actually one of the most surprising things about reading this book was how much of the content I knew already - not the more detailed scientific processes, but the overarching story and arguments, all of that I knew very well indeed. And indeed some parts of the story (eg the stuff about the Deccan Traps) I actually know in more detail than is covered in the book. I have no idea what I was reading as a kid but I clearly wasn't just screwing around. But then I've always been the sort of person to get very intense about areas of interest!

It was disconcerting to realize the timeline of the KT extinction discoveries, though; it was only in the early 90's that the Chicxulub crater was finally discovered. As in, WITHIN MY LIFETIME, and only shortly before my burgeoning interest in dinosaurs really flowered. What I remember from my readings as a kid was that there was no agreement at all about the death of the dinosaurs - whether it'd been a slow extinction or a sudden event, and what the cause was. Because all of this was BREAKING SCIENCE and there'd not yet been any scholarly consensus trickling down to kiddie dinosaur books! So I'd read about the Chicxulub crater, of course, but I hadn't realized before reading this book just how clear the evidence is that the Chicxulub impact had caused a major extinction event, whether it was definitively what caused the end of the dinosaurs in particular or not.

Also I was fascinated by the way a lot of the story was framed as a push-pull between uniformitarianism and catastrophism as frameworks of looking at Earth's history, and the eventual realization that there's actually some of BOTH. Because this isn't something I've ever heard talked about before! The comparison between the discovery of plate tectonics and the realization that catastrophic impacts are a thing that happen was really interesting.

One of the things that makes me happiest about this book, though, is its commitment to and joy in the scientific process. The author is just so genuinely and clearly delighted to have been able to collaborate with so many awesome people and to have so much interdisciplinary work going on; and he always talks in terms of the greatest respect even for the people who disagree(d) with him utterly. He talks about how the vociferous debates and disagreements fostered additional efforts to figure things out and get things right. And about how science is of course full of wrong turns and mistakes but if you just keep working away you will figure more and more things out!

It gave me a lot of science feels, is the conclusion of the preceding paragraph. SCIENTISTS DOING SCIENCE! SCIENTISTS BEING FRIENDS! SCIENTISTS WORKING TOGETHER! SCIENCE!!!!

I very nearly chose to study geology and/or geography in university and reading this book reminds me why: it's really cool. I was genuinely fascinated by the various geological details that were discussed, and kept wishing that the photographs of rock outcroppings were larger and higher quality. And I would have been happy if the author had gotten even more technical about various details!

For the last...idk, YEARS, probably, I've been ending up too much on the arts side of the arts-science divide and have started to think of myself as more of an artsy sort of person. But reading this book reminded me how much I love science too. SCIENCE IS GREAT.

[beauzos]

well after four and a half months i've reached the first book i've decided to not finish this year. i tried reading T Rex and the Crater of Doom but it's too technical and dry for me. i'm so sad, it's a short book and i heard it was good but i am not motivated to finish. DNF at 60 pages. dang 😭

[tolkien-feels]

@ma3dhros tagged me to share 6 books I want to read this year. I'm making no promises that any of them will get actually read, and I'm not counting re-reads or books I'm currently reading.

The Nature of Middle-earth by J. R. R. Tolkien (courtesy of the awesome warrioreowynofrohan sharing interesting thoughts about it and making me curious about a book I'd decided not to buy already 😅)

Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao

Persuasion by Jane Austen (it's the one book by her I haven't read yet and it's long overdue!)

The Romance of the Three Kingdoms by Luo Guanzhong, specifically the unabridged translation by Moss Roberts. I've read the abridged version and been dying to read the unabridged but the translation I wanted was Expensive™️.... but luckily I've been able to find a set at a used bookstore! Does this count as re-reading?

The Romance of Tristan and Iseult by Joseph Bédier

T. Rex and the Crater of Doom by Walter Alvarez

I'm tagging anyone who wants to do this and needs an excuse, and also the first 6 people I see on my notes both for this blog and for @cqlfeels but no pressure if you don't feel like doing it

@frodo-with-glasses @outofangband @theleakypen @is-it-mungojerry-or-rumpelteazer @cuarthol @warrioreowynofrohan

@natandacat @courtesyname @layzeal @madtomedgar @liesweliveby @esmeraldablazingsky

[mado-science]

Birds Are Today's Dinosaurs Actually, I'm giving this book 4 1/2 stars. One thing I learned from this book is that paleontologists are party animals. Steve Brusatte, one of the top young dinosaur hunters in the world, has written a marvelous book that is part autobiography, part natural history, and part fossil hunting how-to. During the autobiographical parts, he gives us some humorous descriptions of how fossil hunters relax after a day in the rubble. Spoiler alert: Alcohol is consumed. Another thing I liked about this book is the further you read, the better the book gets. When I was about halfway through it, I wished he would tell readers a story of dinosaur encounters told by the fossils in a certain place—and darned if he didn’t do exactly that! And of course, like in plays and works of fiction, this book has a climax: the impact of the Chicxulub asteroid that ended the Cretaceous Era and the Age of Dinosaurs. But it also has a denouement, a tying together of all loose ends: the dinosaurs are still with us in the form of birds. My only criticism of the book is that in the early parts there are mentions of dozens and dozens of dinosaur species that do not have illustrations, so the book drags a little, but Brusatte picks up the pace and the story becomes fascinating. This is the best dinosaur book I’ve ever read; it’s even better than Walter Alvarez’s T. rex and the Crater of Doom (1997). Go to Amazon

An awesome journey through time, with amazing animals and stunning landscapes poured out in easily accessible terms I have both the audiobook  Go to Amazon

Brusatte has written a wonderful book, easy to read and very informative Dr. Brusatte has written a wonderful book, easy to read and very informative. It's the story of the origin and demise of the most intriguing class of animals the world has ever seen. He tells of how at the end of the Permian Period around 250 million years ago, the beginning of the Triassic, the small, nearly insignificant dinosauromorphs began to evolve into what we now call dinosaurs. They were to rule the animal world for the next 150 million years. Dr. Brusatte includes descriptions of paleo sites he visited in Europe, China, South America, Africa and North America, meeting with local Paleontologists, discovering clues to the growth and diversity of the dinosaurs. A number of sections reveal details of the most famous dinosaurs of the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods plus those that evolved into today's birds. And finally, the sudden death of all the dinosaurs at the end of the Cretaceous Period 66 million years ago - except their evolved offspring... birds. Go to Amazon

and this book is a great resource for anyone interested in dinosaurs but intimidated by ... I am a professor of geology who occasionally teaches about dinosaurs, and this book is a great resource for anyone interested in dinosaurs but intimidated by the complexities of paleontology and geology. The book is detail-packed without being overwhelming for the non-obsessive dinosaur enthusiast, and Brusatte's narrative style really guides the reader through the landscapes of the Mesozoic while providing personal details that help the reader buy into the excitement of the science. This book is a valuable addition to the growing canon of enjoyable scientific non-fiction. Go to Amazon

Personal and informative. A great read! Fantastic read! This book is informative, with a personality that reflects the passion of the author. While learning about the material, I’m also learning about Steve Brusatte’s journey as a paleontologist. Very well written and a very connecting read! Go to Amazon

Worth Reading Author does excellent job of presenting scientific research in a fashion understandable by the layman. Table of contents (chapters) presents the evidence in a logical fashion beginning with the dawn of the dinosaurs, their rise, dominance and termination. The chapter on dinosaurs and drifting continents was of special interest. Go to Amazon

A Real Dinosaur Adventure! I thoroughly enjoyed this book! Well written and entertaining, one can easily feel the author’s passion for his subject, Dinosaurs! My only criticism is that I wish there more photos in the discussions. Go to Amazon

Amazing Creatures, Superb Reading Steve Brusatte's book was a thoroughly enjoyable read and I learned a great deal from reading it. It answered many questions about those fantastic creatures the dinosaurs and those that preceded them and came after their horrific demise. Anyone interested in dinosaurs and the history of life in earth should read this book. Go to Amazon

Great read! Rise & Fall of Dinosaurs Is a new history of Dinosaur Amazing read! A must have for anyone who has ... Somehow he makes it all mske sense. More Illustrations Needed Best dinosaur audio book and book ever! I'd recommend the audio version to kids crazy about real dinosaurs. A superb one-volume history of incredible animals Five Stars I wouldn’t hesitate to pre-order his next book A wonderful book about the origins of dinosaurs and why they are still with us.