The current featured contributor to Writers Read: Michael Novacek, Senior Vice-President and Provost of Science at the American Museum of Natural History and author of Time Traveler, Dinosaurs of the Flaming Cliffs, and the recently released Terra: Our 100-Million-Year-Old Ecosystem--and the Threats That Now Put It at Risk.Neil Shubin wrote of Novacek's new book: "Terra is one of the important books of our time—and it will change the way you think about the world around you. Novacek’s coup is that he not only brings the past to life but shows how it holds the keys to our future. The extraordinary breadth of his accomplishments as a scientist gives his book a powerful combination of authority, wit, and humanity. Reading Terra, it is hard not to feel humbled being a steward of a planet so ancient, wondrous, and fragile as our own."
One book mentioned in his entry:
I just finished reading Tim Krabbé’s novel The Rider, a spare, gut-wrenching, first-person description, meter-by-meter, of the hundred-and thirty-seven kilometer Tour de Mont Aigoul. This sinuous course through frigid mountain passes, terrifying hairpin downhills, and sun-scorched plateaus is reputedly the most grueling stage of the Tour de France. Krabbé, famous for his disturbing story of psychological horror in The Vanishing, shows he is also good for drama and suspense when comes to exhausting hill climbs, tire blowouts, cycle crashes, and the combination of relentless drive, arrogance, and race savvy it takes to win, or even finish. The pages, like the bikes, fly by. I was a good way through this 160-pager by the time my delayed flight at LaGuardia got to the head of the queue for takeoff. [read on]Read more about Terra at the publisher's website, and listen to Novacek discuss the book on NPR's Talk of the Nation.
Learn more about Michael Novacek's research and many publications.
Writers Read: Michael Novacek.
--Marshal Zeringue
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