Dolnick, Edward

"In the early 1800s the world was a safe and cozy place. 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, Victorians unearthed enormous bones-bones that reached as high as a man's head. No one had ever seen such things. Outside of myths and fairy tales, no one had even imagined that creatures like three-toed giants had once lumbered across the land. And if anyone had somehow conjured up such a scene, they would never have imagined that all those animals could have vanished, hundreds of millions years ago. The thought of sudden, arbitrary disappearance from life was unnerving and forced the Victorians to rethink everything they knew about the world. Now, in Dinosaurs at the Dinner Party, celebrated storyteller and historian Edward Dolnick leads us through a compelling true adventure as the paleontologists of the first half of the 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; and moves to a brilliant, eccentric geologist named William Buckland, a kind of Doctor Doolittle on a mission to eat his way through the entire animal kingdom; and then on to Richard Owen, the most respected and the most despised scientist of his generation. 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 their place in it, and how a group of paleontologists worked to bring it back into focus again"--.

Discusses how art impersonator Han van Meegeren forged paintings and fooled Hermann Goering, a Nazi leader--and other people in the world--into believing his pieces to be the work of admired artists such as Johannes Vermeer.

"Why cracking the code of human conception took centuries of wild theories, misogynist blunders, and ludicrous mistakes. Throughout most of human history, babies were surprises. People knew the basics: men and women had sex, and sometimes babies followed. But beyond that the origins of life were a colossal mystery. The Seeds of Life is the remarkable and rollicking story of how a series of blundering geniuses and brilliant amateurs struggled for two centuries to discover where, exactly, babies come from. Taking a page from investigative thrillers, acclaimed science writer Edward Dolnick looks to these early scientists as if they were detectives hot on the trail of a bedeviling and urgent mystery. These strange searchers included an Italian surgeon using shark teeth to prove that female reproductive organs were not 'failed' male genitalia, and a Catholic priest who designed ingenious miniature pants to prove that frogs required semen to fertilize their eggs. A witty and rousing history of science, The Seeds of Life presents our greatest scientists struggling-against their perceptions, their religious beliefs, and their deep-seated prejudices-to uncover how and where we come from"--.

Describes the adventurous prospectors who traversed the United States in 1848 in response to rumors of gold in the Sacramento Valley, detailing the rough and rowdy cities that popped up, seemingly out of thin air, to accommodate the treasure-seekers.

Discusses how art impersonator Han van Meegeren forged paintings and fooled Hermann Goering, a Nazi leader--and other people in the world--into believing his pieces to be the work of admired artists such as Johannes Vermeer.

Examines how, at the end of the seventeenth century, a group of geniuses that included Isaac Newton re-imagined the field of science by find intricate and precise patterns that regulated the world and the chaos that seemed to exist in it.

In the predawn hours on a day in 1994, two thieves entered a museum in Oslo, Norway and made off with a famous painting, Edvard Munch's Scream. Norwegian police hired Charley Hill, the world's greatest art detective, to recover the painting.

Examines how, at the end of the seventeenth century, a group of geniuses that included Isaac Newton re-imagined the field of science by finding intricate and precise patterns that regulated the world and the chaos that seemed to exist in it.

Draws from diaries and journals to tell the story of the 1869 expedition led by Civil War veteran John Wesley Powell to explore the Grand Canyon.

Presents a comprehensive examination of the 1994 theft of Edvard Munch's "The Scream," a seventy-two million dollar painting stolen from the National Gallery in Oslo on the opening day of the Winter Olympics, and describes the extensive investigation led by American art detective and undercover cop, Charley Hill.