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Douglas Preston

Author of Relic

112+ Works 76,664 Members 2,435 Reviews 177 Favorited

About the Author

Douglas Jerome Preston was born on May 20, 1956 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He received a B.A. in English literature from Pomona College in 1978. His career began at the American Museum of Natural History, where he worked as an editor and writer from 1978 to 1985. He also was a lecturer in English show more at Princeton University. He became a full-time writer of both fiction and nonfiction books in 1986. Many of his fiction works are co-written with Lincoln Child including Relic, Riptide, Thunderhead, The Wheel of Darkness, Cemetery Dance, and Gideon's Corpse. His nonfiction works include Dinosaurs in the Attic; Cities of Gold: A Journey Across the American Southwest in Pursuit of Coronado; Talking to the Ground; and The Royal Road. He has written for numerous magazines including The New Yorker; Natural History; Harper's; Smithsonian; National Geographic; and Travel and Leisure. He became a New York Times Best Selling author with his titles Two Graves and Crimson Shores which he co-wrote with Lincoln Child, and his titles White Fire, The Lost Island Blue Labyrinth and The Lost City of the Monkey God. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Disambiguation Notice:

This author is Douglas Preston. DO NOT COMBINE THIS PAGE WITH ANY JOINT PAGES OF DOUGLAS PRESTON AND LINCOLN CHILD Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child are two different people, who have written books collaboratively and separately. Their author pages should not be combined with each other, or with any of the variants using both their names. Please see "Who Should/Shouldn't Get combined" on the Author wiki page. Thank you.

Image credit: Uncredited photo at literati.net

Series

Works by Douglas Preston

Relic (1995) 5,431 copies, 154 reviews
The Cabinet of Curiosities (2002) 4,150 copies, 115 reviews
Reliquary (1997) 3,711 copies, 84 reviews
The Book of the Dead (2006) 3,653 copies, 81 reviews
Brimstone (2004) 3,511 copies, 69 reviews
The Wheel Of Darkness (2007) 3,234 copies, 76 reviews
Dance of Death (2005) 3,163 copies, 66 reviews
Still Life with Crows (2003) 3,151 copies, 87 reviews
The Monster of Florence (2008) 2,712 copies, 110 reviews
Cemetery Dance (2009) 2,463 copies, 84 reviews
Thunderhead (1999) 2,332 copies, 45 reviews
Fever Dream (2010) 2,321 copies, 86 reviews
Riptide (1998) 2,229 copies, 46 reviews
Tyrannosaur Canyon (2005) 2,157 copies, 58 reviews
The Codex (2003) 2,139 copies, 44 reviews
The Lost City of the Monkey God: A True Story (2017) 2,051 copies, 99 reviews
The Ice Limit (2000) 2,025 copies, 40 reviews
Mount Dragon (1996) 1,781 copies, 20 reviews
Blasphemy (2008) 1,695 copies, 52 reviews
Cold Vengeance (2011) 1,646 copies, 73 reviews
Two Graves (2012) 1,582 copies, 66 reviews
White Fire (2013) 1,501 copies, 79 reviews
Gideon's Sword (2011) — Author — 1,491 copies, 95 reviews
Impact (2010) 1,388 copies, 53 reviews
Blue Labyrinth (2014) 1,313 copies, 73 reviews
Crimson Shore (2015) 1,160 copies, 57 reviews
The Obsidian Chamber (2016) 971 copies, 46 reviews
Gideon's Corpse (2012) — Author — 951 copies, 42 reviews
City of Endless Night (2018) 936 copies, 40 reviews
Old Bones (2019) 899 copies, 53 reviews
The Lost Island (2014) 877 copies, 33 reviews
Verses for the Dead (2018) 815 copies, 29 reviews
Crooked River (2020) 681 copies, 26 reviews
Bloodless (2021) 647 copies, 23 reviews
Beyond the Ice Limit (2016) 643 copies, 30 reviews
The Scorpion's Tail (2021) 603 copies, 22 reviews
The Pharoah Key (2018) 547 copies, 16 reviews
The Kraken Project (2014) 541 copies, 29 reviews
The Cabinet of Dr. Leng (2023) 454 copies, 19 reviews
Diablo Mesa (2022) 435 copies, 16 reviews
Dead Mountain (2023) — Author — 324 copies, 6 reviews
Extraction (2012) 292 copies, 14 reviews
Fourteen Days: A Collaborative Novel (2022) — Editor; Contributor — 288 copies, 11 reviews
Extinction (2024) 274 copies, 18 reviews
Jennie (1994) 220 copies, 6 reviews
Angel of Vengeance (2024) 178 copies, 8 reviews
Talking to the Ground (1995) 103 copies, 3 reviews
The Strange Case of Monsieur Bertin (2019) 15 copies, 1 review
Riptide [abridged audiobook] (1998) — Author — 4 copies
Loputtoman yön kaupunki (2024) 3 copies
O v℗irus do apocalipse (2013) 2 copies
L'antre du diable (2022) 2 copies
Strangers 1 copy
Desperation 1 copy
Il fiume del male (2023) 1 copy
La costa cremisi (2016) 1 copy
Nel fuoco 1 copy
A sötétség kereke (2008) 1 copy

Associated Works

Thriller: Stories To Keep You Up All Night (2006) — Contributor — 780 copies, 13 reviews
FaceOff (2014) — Contributor — 521 copies, 33 reviews
The Big Book of Adventure Stories (2011) — Foreword — 121 copies, 3 reviews
The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2020 (2021) — Contributor — 113 copies
In Search of Ice Age Americans (2002) — Foreword — 28 copies, 3 reviews
National Geographic Magazine 2015 v228 #4 October (2015) — Contributor — 23 copies
Reader's Digest Select Editions 1998 v06 #240 (1998) — Author — 11 copies

Tagged

adventure (838) Agent Pendergast (646) archaeology (431) audio (186) audiobook (350) crime (535) detective (193) Douglas Preston (242) ebook (611) FBI (256) fiction (4,419) goodreads (150) hardcover (266) history (208) horror (1,181) Italy (230) Kindle (399) library (155) murder (382) mystery (3,137) mystery-thriller (268) New York (291) New York City (218) non-fiction (616) novel (254) own (314) paperback (210) Pendergast (1,624) Pendergast series (233) Preston & Child (371) read (836) science fiction (596) serial killer (203) series (609) supernatural (181) suspense (1,274) thriller (4,076) to-read (2,807) true crime (264) unread (242)

Common Knowledge

Legal name
Preston, Douglas J.
Birthdate
1956-05-26
Gender
male
Nationality
USA
Birthplace
Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
Places of residence
Wellesley, Massachusetts, USA
New York, New York, USA
Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
Round Pond, Maine, USA
Education
Pomona College
Cambridge School of Weston
Occupations
editor
writer
manager of publications
professor
research associate
School of American Research (Boardmember)
Relationships
Preston, Richard (brother)
Dickinson, Emily (Ancestor)
Organizations
American Museum of Natural History
The Atlantic Monthly
Smithsonian
The New Yorker
Laboratory of Anthropology (Santa Fe)
PEN New Mexico
Agent
Eric Simonoff (Janklow & Nesbit Associates)
Matthew Snyder
Short biography
Douglas Preston is the author of thirty-five books, both fiction and nonfiction, twenty-two of which have been New York Times bestsellers, with several reaching the number 1 position. He has worked as an editor at the American Museum of Natural History in New York and taught nonfiction writing at Princeton University. His first novel, RELIC, co-authored with Lincoln Child, was made into a movie by Paramount Pictures, which launched the famed Pendergast series of novels. His recent nonfiction book, THE MONSTER OF FLORENCE, is also in production as a film. His latest book, THE LOST CITY OF THE MONKEY GOD, tells the true story of the discovery of a prehistoric city in an unexplored valley deep in the Honduran jungle. In addition to books, Preston writes about archaeology and paleontology for the New Yorker, National Geographic, and Smithsonian. He is past co-president of International Thriller Writers and serves on the board of the Authors Guild. He is the recipient of numerous writing awards in the US and Europe, including an honorary Doctor of Letters degree from Pomona College.
Disambiguation notice
This author is Douglas Preston. DO NOT COMBINE THIS PAGE WITH ANY JOINT PAGES OF DOUGLAS PRESTON AND LINCOLN CHILD Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child are two different people, who have written books collaboratively and separately. Their author pages should not be combined with each other, or with any of the variants using both their names. Please see "Who Should/Shouldn't Get combined" on the Author wiki page. Thank you.

Members

Reviews

I believe the Covid pandemic is going to provide much fodder for literature, just as the world wars have. It makes sense since these events affected so many and changed life as we knew it.

This book is a series of interconnected stories set in an apartment block in New York City during the pandemic lockdown. I listened to the audiobook and my one regret is that there was no additional information about which author wrote which piece. In all as there was in the printed edition, 36 authors contributed to the book so, obviously, more than one person created each tale. Maybe it doesn't matter but it would just provide a finishing touch.

The residents of the Fernsby Arms gather on the roof of the building each night in order to take part in the nightly ritual of noisemaking to show appreciation for health care workers. They linger on after that outburst, all carefully social distanced, and tell stories. The building's superintendant covertly records the stories and then transcribes them into a scrapbook left behind by her predecessor. Her predecessor kept notes about all the tenants and gave them all nicknames. They are a diverse group so their stories are quite different. Many deal with death and/or ghosts as may be expected given the time they are experiencing. No one seems to have contact with anyone outside the building. The superintendant's father is in a nursing home and she hasn't been able to reach anyone there. A doctor staying in the building while she helps out in the emergency ward of a local hospital (although she's on leave right now) also can't get through. Residents, including the super, hear strange noises in an apartment that is supposed to be vacant. Occasionally, strangers show up on the roof top when the super knows the door to the outside is locked tight. It's all a little spooky but also very interesting. And the ending absolutely threw me for a loop. I didn't see that coming.

The Decameron, a similar book of stories supposedly written by a group of people who fled Florence during the Black Death, is referenced several times. Obviously, this provided a starting point for this collective of writers but they gave it a twenty-first century spin. One obvious difference is that the people in The Decameron left the city whereas these people were the ones left behind when the well-off fled the city.
… (more)
 
Flagged
gypsysmom | 10 other reviews | Dec 28, 2024 |
Misleading Description Yet Excellent Tale. Just Not Anything Really Remotely Like Jurassic Park. Ok, the few things that *are* like Jurassic Park: human hubris leads to "de-extincting" long-extinct plants and creatures. Commentary on modern science baked into the story. Commentary on history baked into the story. Thus ends the things that are like Jurassic Park.

In other words... don't go into this book expecting "Jurassic Park... With Mammoths". This is *NOT* that story. Instead, it is more "murder mystery at a park similar to Jurassic Park". Go into this book with those at least somewhat lower expectations... and this is an awesome book with plenty of wonder, action, thrills, chills... and a few cheeky meta references. (Such as when a character is reading one of his and longtime writing partner Lincoln Child's Pendergast books - a trope many authors use to plug their own books or sometimes friends' books or even just random books the author has read and enjoyed.)

For the story we *do* get here, it is truly well done, a fast paced action thriller that will keep you on the edge of your seat and keep you guessing about what will come next.

Very much recommended.
… (more)
 
Flagged
BookAnonJeff | 17 other reviews | Dec 23, 2024 |
Nora Kelly works as an archeologist specializing in mountain digs in and around the Sierra Nevadas. When a man approaches her with information that may lead to the lost camp area of the historical Donner party from the 1800s she is intrigued. When the dig runs into issues, FBI agent Corrine Swanson thinks it might be connected to a case she is working on and the two women must join forces to solve the mystery. As this was my first Preston & Child book, it was clear at certain points that I was missing some backstory but it didn’t matter. I thoroughly enjoyed Old Bones and look forward to reading more cases involving Nora and Corrie.… (more)
½
 
Flagged
Hccpsk | 52 other reviews | Dec 22, 2024 |
Pendergast assumes direction of attempt to find and destroy genetically modified animal which is killing visitors to exhibition in the nY museum of natural history.
 
Flagged
fwbl | 153 other reviews | Dec 19, 2024 |

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Statistics

Works
112
Also by
28
Members
76,664
Popularity
#160
Rating
3.8
Reviews
2,435
ISBNs
1,801
Languages
23
Favorited
177

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