About this Event
Local award-winning writer Miriam Horn and author Laura Krantz is joining us to share about Horn's biography on the life of George B. Schaller on Friday, October 9th at 6:00 PM at our Colfax location!
Registration includes the following options:
- A signed Hardcover copy of the book … OR
- A $5 Gift Card to Tattered Cover Book Store
This event includes an opportunity to meet the author, participate in an audience Q&A after the book talk, and get your book(s) signed and personalized. Photos with the author are welcome!
We will have a limited supply of additional books for guests to purchase in store. Only a book ticket guarantees you a copy of the book.
If you are unable to attend the event after purchasing a ticket, you are required to pick up your copy of the book (with proof of purchase from your event registration) within 7 days after the event date. If the book is not picked up by that date, you relinquish your copy to Tattered Cover Book Store.
ABOUT THE BOOK
In this riveting portrait of George B. Schaller, the world’s leading field biologist, Miriam Horn captures the seventy years he spent living among wild animals in the world’s remotest regions, forever altering how we see—and save—the natural world
In 1959, though just twenty-six years old and a graduate student, George B. Schaller shrugged off warnings of mortal danger and set off for the Belgian Congo to do what no other scientist had dared: study mountain gorillas, the real King Kong, by living alongside them. Boldly refusing arms and retinue, Schaller and his wife, Kay, established a home in the jungle and came to share the apes’ rhythms and rules. After more than two years of immersive research—a groundbreaking methodology he would spend his life honing—Schaller transformed how the world viewed gorillas; they were not murderous brutes but tender creatures, and more like humans than any twentieth-century scientist had recognized. His mission to revolutionize our perceptions of wild animals would propel him across four continents and inspire generations of scientists.
In Homesick for a World Unknown, Miriam Horn draws on thousands of pages from Schaller’s journals and letters, globe-spanning interviews, and two journeys into the field with the legendary scientist himself to trace his emergence as the founding father of modern wildlife conservation. She probes what drives him to know Earth’s wildest places and most fearsome creatures, beginning with a childhood upended by displacement and atrocity. Born in Berlin in 1933 to an American socialite married to a German diplomat during the Nazi era, the young Schaller was moved from one occupied country to another before finally arriving with his mother in the U.S. in 1947, as an enemy alien. It was in the Missouri woods that teenage George found a place of respite and at the University of Alaska that he found both his calling and a lifelong partner in Kay.
In the decades following his work in the Congo, Schaller went on to conduct the earliest studies of Indian tigers, Serengeti lions, Brazilian jaguars, Chinese pandas, and Tibetan brown bears, meticulously cataloging their private lives. He navigated acute danger, violent conflict, and treacherous politics in pursuit of empathy for and preservation of creatures big and small. It was Schaller who first guided Jane Goodall on her chimp study in Tanzania and led Peter Matthiessen into Nepal in search of the snow leopard. And while remaking wildlife science, his impact went further still: he spurred the creation of vast national parks and partnered with local communities to protect the homes they share with these animals. A vivid and captivating account of the adventurous life of George B. Schaller, here is the definitive portrait of the man who dared to challenge us to rethink our place in the natural world.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Miriam Horn is a bestselling author, environmental advocate, journalist, and filmmaker. Her previous books include Rebels in White Gloves, Earth: The Sequel (coauthor), and Rancher, Farmer, Fisherman. She produced two as documentary films, with one premiering at Sundance. Before turning to books, Horn worked at the Environmental Defense Fund and the US Forest Service, and wrote for magazines and newspapers, including The New York Times. She lives in Colorado, in the South San Juan Mountains.
ABOUT THE CONVERSATION PARTNER
Laura Krantz is a journalist, editor and producer, in both audio and print, and co-founder of Foxtopus Ink. Her podcast, , has received critical acclaim from Scientific American, Rolling Stone, and The Atlantic, which named it one of the best 50 podcasts in 2018 and 2020. Wild Thing is also the inspiration for a series of non-fiction, middle-grade books from ABRAMS Kids, including , , and . In addition to Wild Thing, her recent work includes reporting, writing, editing and producing on Master Plan (The Lever), Blood Vines (Foxtopus), The Syndicate (Imperative Entertainment/Foxtopus), Side Door (Smithsonian), Air/Space (Smithsonian), and others. Laura's prior experience includes a decade of editing and producing at NPR in Washington, DC, and at KPCC in Los Angeles. Her writing has appeared in Popular Science, Smithsonian Magazine, Outside, High Country News, Newsweek and, her personal favorite, the . She currently lives in Denver.
Event venue & nearby stays
Tattered Cover Colfax, 2526 East Colfax Avenue, Denver, United States
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