New Books

[tlford@ix.netcom.com (Tracy Ford )]

I happened to go into a Walden Book store today (Actually I was debating 
wither or not to go a local mall, glad I did), where I happen to find two 
new Dinosaur books.

I saw one of the first one. It's by Michael Novacek: Dinosaurs of the 
Flaming Cliffs. It's about the American Museum's trips to Mongolia. The 
art work isn't all that great, but some of it is very nice (especially 
the Cretaceous mammals). But I'm getting tried of all the new good books 
on Dinosaurs with bad art work. It would be nice if the artist would 
study the animal he's drawing. The one drawing that really jumps out as 
being totally wrong is the line drawing of the foot of Tyrannosaurus rex. 
The problem is, the AMNH Tyrannosaurus mounted skeleton has feet that 
were casted after Allosaurus. The specimen lacks the feet. So the foot 
that is drawn has unfused metatarsals. I haven't had time to read it so I 
can't say anything about that, but it's worth getting.

The second one is by Don (Does he really know anything about dinosaurs?) 
Lessem and illustrated by Dave Peters. Now the name of the book smacks of 
ridding the coat tales of Jurassic Park, and continues in pushing a 
totally wrong name for a family of small theropods. This name should 
NEVER be used in context with dinosaurs. Oh, the title: Raptors! The 
Nastiest Dinosaurs. It's worth it for the art work, but the text? I 
haven't read that either, but if it's anything like his other work, 
2/3rds of the book will be fluff.
(Humm, kind of sounds like the beginning of his talk at Dino Fest).

Now, onto on more thing. I have two copies of Gakken Mook's book done by 
Greg Paul. I'm selling them for $60 each plus $3 for postage. First ones 
saying they want the book will get them, so ask quickly. (And you won't 
have to wait 3 months to get it from Japan.

Tracy