Why am I passionate about this?
I write about those people (geologists, art historians, historians, and curators), places (museums, universities, and societies), and things (fossils, paintings, and historical artifacts) that shape our understanding of the world. I am not so much interested in the history of ideas as in the very nature of art, geology, history, and the museum. And like my recommended authors, the approach I take to my subjects is, I hope, always rather novel. In The Great Fossil Enigma, for example, I felt that the tiny, suggestive, but ultimately ambiguous, nature of the fossils permitted me to see into the scientific mind. This tends to be where extinct animals live after their demise.
Simon's book list on extinct animals
Why did Simon love this book?
In 2000, Errol Fuller published an entirely new, lavishly illustrated, edition of his 1987 book, Extinct Birds. In the years since it was first published more birds had been lost while others he had described as extinct had subsequently been rediscovered. Extinct Birds documents 85 species that have disappeared since 1600, including the Eskimo Curlew and Choiseul Crested Pigeon, as well as the more famous Passenger Pigeon, Great Auk, and Dodo. All are now dead and gone (probably!). A book of fascinating, if ultimately sad, tales, and beautiful pictures, it should encourage us to care about those species now on the edge of extinction like the Kakapo, the Kiwi, and the massively poached African Grey Parrot.
1 author picked Extinct Birds as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.
Shows and describes what is known about extinct species of waterfowl, rails, gulls, pigeons, parrots, cuckoos, owls, and perching birds
- Coming soon!