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Sign up todayDinosaurs at the Dinner Party
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“Dinosaurs at the Dinner Party by Edward Dolnick is as utterly entertaining as any best-selling novel. The entire time I read Dinosaurs at the Dinner Party I told everyone around me to read it. The knowledge of dinosaurs has obviously, never not been part of my life. But I had never thought about the initial discovery or urge to understand the discovery of giant bones before. The fact it wasn't until the 1800s that people began to imagine all the options about what these bones, footprints, and fossils were from is wild to me. That history is still so close to us, and it's funny to think about the fanciful ideas people thought of to explain these fossils. Many of the historical figures you meet in this book you learn about the highs and lows of their careers in a new science in its infancy. Also, women are awesome and I'm glad Mary Anning and the others are finally getting their credit and acknowledgment for their part in the discovery of dinosaurs. ”
— Rachel • Dog-Eared Books
Bookseller recommendation
“A historical adventure about Victorian pioneers who uncovered dinosaur fossils and reshaped our understanding of Earth’s history. Focusing on eccentric figures like Mary Anning, William Buckland, and Richard Owen as they transform how we view the prehistoric world, this is an entertaining look at how the discovery of ancient fossils revolutionized our understanding of the past. ”
— Erica • Author's Note
From the bestselling author of The Clockwork Universe and The Writing of the Gods, an “utterly delightful…hugely entertaining” (Air Mail) book about the eccentric Victorians who discovered dinosaur bones, leading to a whole new understanding of human history.
In the early 1800s the natural world was a safe and cozy place, or so people believed. But then a twelve-year-old farm boy in Massachusetts stumbled on a row of fossilized three-toed footprints the size of dinner plates—the first dinosaur tracks ever found. Soon, in England, scientists unearthed enormous bones that reached as high as a man’s head. Outside of myths and fairy tales, no one had even imagined that creatures like three-toed giants had once lumbered across the land—nor dreamed that they could all have vanished, hundreds of millions years ago.
In Dinosaurs at the Dinner Party, celebrated storyteller and historian Edward Dolnick leads us through a compelling true adventure as the paleontologists of the early 19th century puzzled their way through the fossil record to create the story of dinosaurs we know today. The tale begins with Mary Anning, a poor, uneducated woman who had a sixth sense for finding fossils buried deep inside cliffs; moves to William Buckland, an eccentric geologist who filled his home with specimens and famously pieced together a prehistoric scene from the fossil record inside a cave; and then on to the controversial Richard Owen, the era’s best-known scientist, and the one who coined the term “dinosaur.”
“Exuberant” (Kirkus Reviews), entertaining, erudite, and featuring an unconventional cast of characters, Dinosaurs at the Dinner Party tells the story of how the accidental discovery of prehistoric creatures upended humanity’s understanding of the world and its own place within it.
Edward Dolnick is the author of Dinosaurs at the Dinner Party, The Writing of the Gods, The Clockwork Universe, The Forger’s Spell, and the Edgar Award–winning The Rescue Artist, among other books. A former chief science writer at The Boston Globe, he has written for The Atlantic, The New York Times Magazine, and many other publications. He lives with his wife near Washington, DC.