Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, December 18, 1994 TAG: 9412200003
SECTION: BOOK PAGE: G-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: REVIEWED BY LARRY SHIELD
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
By Louie Psihoyos with John Knoebber. Random House. $40.
Encyclopedia of the Horse.
By Elwyn Hartley Edwards. Dorling Kindersley. $39.95.
Mammoths.
By Adrian Lister and Paul Bahn. Macmillan. $30.
The Robot Zoo.
By John Kelly, Dr. Philip Whitfield and Obin. Turner Publishing. $19.95
If there is no place like home for the holidays, there is no place like the coffee table for oversized books with colorful drawings and photographs. In "Hunting Dinosaurs," the search for dinosaur fossils takes the reader from the heights of a 7-foot femur of Antarctosarus to the sublime daintiness of a prosauropod skeleton barely 6 inches long. In coffee-table book fashion, this entry is long on artistic pictures, somewhat shorter on scientific text, but then these are books sold on pictures which makes this one well worth buying, giving, and receiving.
In "The Encyclopedia of the Horse," beautiful pictures and informative text are more in balance. It is meant to be a true reference volume. More breeds than I ever knew existed are pictured with text describing how the individual breed looks and is used with several historical anecdotes. Unfortunately, the editors appeared to have switched the pictures and descriptions of the Clydesdale and the Shire. How accurate a reference volume could this be if a bay horse with white feathered stockings (a Clydesdale stallion) is pictured next to a description of the Shire which states "Black is the most popular color"? Well the pictures, at least, are beautiful.
In apposition to the popularity dinosaurs have acquired over the last few years, the woolly mammoth has languished in relative obscurity save one discovered during prime time on that most bizarre television show, "Northern Exposure." Weighing upwards of 10,000 pounds, these fur covered antecedents of the elephant have been depicted in art, jewelry and legend of early man. In "Mammoths," the art, jewelry, legends and even stomach contents are photographed, discussed, and collated. I don't think that mammoths will ever surpass dinosaurs in popular culture, but the mammoth is one "prehistoric" animal which early man dearly required for survival. Books such as this may give the mammoth a new place in the modern psyche.
"The Robot Zoo" is a whimsical view of how a couple of mad engineers could reproduce common (and uncommon) animals using common (and uncommon) parts and materials. Imagine a house fly built with vacuum cleaner nozzle (mouth), pivoting hinge (wing muscle), gyroscope (balance) and a microchip (nerve ganglion) to make it all work together. The longer the reader studies these assemblies, the more logical they seem. Frightening.
Larry Shield trains dogs and horses in Franklin County.
by CNB