Dinosaurs - The bestselling guide product reviews

It is not very often you find a series of books quite as comprehensive, yet still accessible to a wide range of ages and interests. Personally, I am not too interested in fossils themselves, but I am fascinated by the history they imply, and the methods by which they become fossilised.

This book covers everything one could wish to know about dinosaurs. From giving a quick, but detailed run-down on how different layers of rock can date, and give context to, the fossils, through how a living animal becomes a stone fossil over the course of millions of years, through identifying and classifying the fossils, to biographies of the early fossil hunters.

This book manages to cram into it's 250 or so pages a staggering wealth of information, including summaries of the various geological epochs, theories on what event(s) caused the mass extinction of the dinosaurs, and even a section of the modern decendent of the surviving dinosaurs. And all of this, and more, in just the first 100 pages! Then we get into the really good bits... an encyclopedia of nearly a hundred dinosaurs, grouped by type and similarities.After that, we get a run-down on 18 of the high-point locations of the dino fossil world, be they locations where fossiles are found, or displayed.

Overall, a stunning addition to any reference library, and I was most impressed that this book even covered the ethics of fossil hunting and collecting. In today's world, ethical behaviour is becoming rarer, and thus far more important to pass on and enhance our future generations. I was also highly impressed with the artists' impressions of the various 'saurs... even though there is little chance we will ever be 100% sure how accurate they are.