Book cover of The Last Dinosaur Book: The Life and Times of a Cultural Icon

Book description

This text addresses the question of how dinosaurs moved from natural extinction to pop culture resurrection, exploring the animal's place in our lives and the source of its popular appeal. In tracing the cultural family tree of the dinosaur there is discovered a creature of striking flexibility, linked to dragons…

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Why read it?

1 author picked The Last Dinosaur Book as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Dinosaurs are the gateway drug to kaiju: most Godzilla fans began as kids fascinated by T-rexes and brontosauruses. I was blown away when I discovered W.J.T. Mitchell’s wonky, geeky, and wonderfully eccentric exploration of why we love dinosaurs, actual monsters (albeit prehistoric ones we can only experience today as skeletons in museums) rather than monsters conjured from our darkest imaginations.

Mitchell’s book is lots of fun to dip into, like a jarful of monstrous candy, but reveals in wonderful detail how dinosaurs (just like the creatures of folklore or fiction) are blank slates onto which a culture’s anxieties and aspirations…

From William's list on The best books on why we love monsters.

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Book cover of December on 5C4

December on 5C4 by Adam Strassberg,

Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!

On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…

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Child of Vanris by Nikki McCormack,

At five years old, Kasiel was found with the pointed ends of his ears cut off. Despite that brutal start, he’s lived twelve peaceful years with the man who took him in. Keeping his hair long over his mutilated ears helps him hide the fact that he is Vanrian, a…

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Almost Home by Howard Means,

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In late April 1865, almost 2,000 newly freed Union prisoners of war are packed onto the steamer Sultana, in poor repair and with a listed capacity of 376 passengers.Ā Among them are four Indiana soldiers…

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