NonFiction Book Club
Gorgon
by Peter D. Ward
Buy book: $18.74

This is the tale of the true Lost World. In the prehistory of the dinosaurs, Therapsids roamed the earth. The most terrifying of these was the gorgon. "Gorgon" is the first book to examine the gorgon and its contemporaries, the ancestors of the turtle, to ask what they were like, how they lived, and, most importantly, how they died.

I've never heard of these creatures before. Looking forward to learning more this week!

I really tried to read this, but i really couldn't get into it. However, reading the excerpt from "the fred factor", now thats a book worth reading and quite frankly should be a required college or high school reading.

I love this: finding a fascinating new/old research topic amidst the turmoil of the end of apartheid South Africa. That the Permian extinction was something that had not been re-examined in light of the K/T revolution makes this quite intriguing.

This is a wonderful mystery story. I can't wait to read the book in it's entirety. I also like the way Peter Ward writes.

...I've found myself--a science-challenged English major--caught-up by Peter Ward's account, and by his vivid impressions of both the ancient and exotic subjects of his research, and of the contemporary and exotic S. African locales in which he finds himself unraveling their mysteries. [His description of a "tablecloth" of billowing wet clouds, flowing over Capetown like "dry-ice vapor," would alone have been worth the read.] It's the kind of narrative that makes me dream of more than just the vicarious adventures that sustain most of us professional librarians."

I'm enjoying this one. The information about South Africa at the end of apartheid is particularly interesting. The science and nature selections we've had recently, Love at Goon Park (which I'm currently reading) and The Horses of Proud Spirit, are good examples of books that I'm finding I really enjoy reading but probably wouldn't have chosen on my own.

This book reminds me of John McPhee's collected geological essays in 'Annals of the Former World,' which you will love if you are enjoying the Peter Ward book. I also have a question: Why is the date 1834 in quotation marks in today's (Friday's) portion?

could not get n2 the bk, never heard of a lot of animals.