Join us as we welcome Ann B. Parson to share her latest book The Birds of Dog: An Historical Novel Based on Mostly True Events. The Birds of Dog opens in the early days of the Boston Society of Natural History and simmers with remarkable lost stories about America's emerging fields of science and its first scientists. Catharine Pickering, a curator's assistant, finds herself increasingly drawn to Nature's treasures, especially birds, and more and more opposed to the "kill-and-collect" methods of hunters. Her cousin, Charles Pickering, is off serving as chief zoologist for the Navy's first voyage of discovery to the South Seas, and her outbound letters tell of scientific findings at home and memorable encounters-with John James Audubon, Junius Brutus Booth, Charles Dickens, and other eminent visitors to Boston. When she meets James Cutting, a brilliant inventor whose discovery leads to the world's first public aquarium, she finds a kindred soul. It's plain to both that certain new technologies are on a destructive course with Nature-guns, in particular, have strayed far from their original purpose.
The Boston Society of Natural History eventually evolved into Boston's Museum of Science.

Ann is a science journalist who specializes in medicine, the environment and technology. Among her previous titles, The Proteus Effect; Stem Cells and Their Promise for Medicine was chosen for Library Journal’s annual list of best science books. Decoding Darkness; The Search for the Genetic Causes of Alzheimer's Disease, co-authored with neuroscientist Rudolph Tanzi, and a previous book on women’s health were widely hailed as leaders among comparable titles. She has written for numerous newspapers and journals, as well as taught science journalism at the graduate level. She lives in South Dartmouth. For more background, please visit www.annparson.com