The Bone Museum: Travels in the Lost Worlds of Dinosaurs and Birds

by Wayne Grady

From China to Patagonia, award-winning science writer Wayne Grady accompanies a team of paleontologists on several digs. Following the work of Phil Currie, a leading vertebrate paleontologist, the author traces the evolutionary link between dinosaurs and birds. Living in tents and experiencing fieldwork as well as the thrill of discovery firsthand, Grady recounts his journey with a storyteller’s sense of narrative.

Genres: Nonfiction, Science, Palaeontology, History, Natural History, Animals, Travel

304 pages, Paperback

First published October 11, 2001

About the author

Wayne Grady is the award-winning author of Emancipation Day, a novel of denial and identity. He has also written such works of science and nature as The Bone Museum, Bringing Back the Dodo, The Quiet Limit of the World, and The Great Lakes, which won a National Outdoor Book Award in the U.S. With his wife, novelist Merilyn Simonds, he co-authored Breakfast at the Exit Café: Travels Through America. And with David Suzuki he co-wrote the international bestseller Tree: A Life Story.

He has also translated fourteen works of fiction from the French, by such authors as Antonine Maillet, Yves Beauchemin, and Danny Laferrière. In 1989, he won the Governor General’s Award for his translation of Maillet’s On the Eighth Day. His most recent translation is of Louis Hamelin’s October 1970, published by House of Anansi Press in 2013.

Grady teaches creative writing in the optional-residency MFA program at the University of British Columbia. He and Merilyn Simonds live in the country north of Kingston, Ontario.

Reviews

[Matt]

Can't give it a proper rating, since I didn't finish. I lost interest when the author started giving me information on the history of the tango, because that's what he was watching on TV while waiting to meet paleontologists. Gettin' paid by the word, there, pal?

[Karen · Rating 2 out of 5]

An interesting read, going on a dig is certainly a challenge and an adventure.

[Kris · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you're looking for a book with factual information on dinosaurs keep going, but if you want a book about what it's like to be on a dig, to be a paleontologist or the connection between birds and dinosaurs without a lot of jargon, this is the book for you.

Wayne Grady is an avid birder and much of the book is really about birds not dinosaurs. But it's an enjoyable slice of life type of read about the joys of being in the field (rain flooded tent and everything else) of the kinds of things paleontologists do to get money to fund their digs and what happens after the bones get back to the lab.

[Alexis · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was talking to Wayne Grady about his travels in Mongolia this summer. He told me he had written a dinosaur book. It turns out this is the dinosaur book where he goes to Drumheller and Patagonia. I learned a bit about palentology and dinosaurs and the Dino/bird theory. This book was well written, but ultimately not what I expected.

[Brandi · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great book if you dig dinosaurs and evolution :) I have been reading it on the side for a litte while.