Otherlands author Thomas Halliday: ‘Some people have insisted on reading the book backwards’

The paleobiologist and author of Foyles' nonfiction book of 2022 on Earth's deep past, the joys of the British Library, and how early four-limbed vertebrates helped him find his feet

Thomas Halliday was born in 1989 and raised in Rannoch in the Scottish Highlands. He studied zoology at Cambridge before specialising in paleobiology for his master's and PhD - winning the Linnean Society Medal for the best doctorate in biological studies. His debut book Otherlands: A World in the Making - which comes out in paperback on 2 February - was Foyles' nonfiction book of 2022, while the historian Tom Holland called it the best book on the history of life on Earth I have ever read". Halliday lives in north London with his wife and sons.

What is paleobiology?
In the late 20th century, we began to realise that we could study far more aspects of past life than simply describing the forms and defining them into taxonomies. Paleobiology encompasses everything from cell biology to genetic relationships to ecology. It's like any other part of biology, except it happens to be set in the deep past.