A Good Read: Professor Ben Garrod and Lucy Jones
A high drama memoir from a scientist studying baboons in the Savannah, a vivid monologue from a new mother on the brink, and wide-ranging essays from a writer full of awe.
A PRIMATE'S MEMOIR (Love, Death and Baboons) by Robert Sapolsky, chosen by Professor Ben Garrod
SOLDIER SAILOR by Claire Kilroy, chosen by Harriett Gilbert
THE ABUNDANCE by Annie Dillard, chosen by Lucy Jones
Evolutionary biologist Ben Garrod (Professor at the University of East Anglia) chooses a book which he's read and gifted countless times, a book which inspired him to go out in the field and study chimpanzees himself: A Primate's Memoir by Robert Sapolsky. Robert is one of the leading primatologists and scientists today and this is his gripping, at times heartbreaking account of leaving the United States age twenty-one to study wild baboons in the Kenyan savannah.
Lucy Jones (author of Matrescence and Losing Eden) picks an author she has consistently loved for her child-like gift of wonder and close, detailed attention to the natural world. Lucy brings Annie Dillard's collection of essays, The Abundance, for the others to read.
And Harriett Gilbert recommends a fictional tale of early motherhood. A vivid, immersive monologue of a woman on the brink that keeps readers on the edge of their seats to the very end.
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Podcast
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Books and Authors
Open Book with Elizabeth Day and Johny Pitts and A Good Read with Harriett Gilbert
