Author Sam Kean discusses and signs THE MUSEUM OF LOST THINGS

Saturday, September 19th at 2:00 p.m. on the 3rd floor
Barnes & Noble Georgetown
3040 M St. NW
Washington, DC 20007

Join us for a very special talk with Sam Kean whose latest book is THE MUSEUM OF LOST THINGS: True Tales of Fabled Treasures, Legendary Cities, and Mythical Creatures That Vanished From History.

----------

ABOUT THE BOOK

Discover the astonishing story of the world’s greatest lost treasures in this enthralling narrative by a writer with "the anecdotal flourishes of Oliver Sacks and the populist accessibility of Malcolm Gladwell."—Entertainment Weekly
Spanning a million years of history, the mysteries in these pages include fabled relics, legendary cities, mythical species, and undeciphered languages that have bedeviled seekers for centuries.
Perhaps the single most common theme across all of history is loss. The loss of lands, loss of sacred objects, loss of languages, of rights, of life—the past groans with disappearances of all kinds. This enthralling narrative collects the most spellbinding tales of these experiences and weaves them into a thoughtful meditation on what it all means across the sweep of human history and the scope of human lives, including:

• The long-lost city of Troy
• The hidden tomb of Genghis Khan
• The destruction of the fabled library of Alexandria
• The near-destruction of the Mona Lisa and other art
• The decipherment of ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs
• The extinction—and potential resurrection—of dodos, mammoths, and other iconic species

Provocative, surprising, and above all entertaining, this globe-trotting narrative acknowledges the sheer scale of humanity’s losses, celebrates the treasures we have managed to retain, and reveals why they continue to captivate us centuries later.

----------

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Sam Kean is the New York Times-bestselling author of seven books. He spent years collecting mercury from broken thermometers as a kid, and now lives in Washington, D.C. His stories have appeared in National Geographic, The Best American Science and Nature Writing, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and Slate, among other places, and his work has been featured on NPR’s “Radiolab”, “Science Friday," and “All Things Considered.”

The Bastard Brigade was a “Science Friday” book of the year, while Caesar’s Last Breath was the Guardian science book of the year. The Disappearing Spoon was a runner-up for the Royal Society book of the year. The Violinist’s Thumb and The Dueling Neurosurgeons were nominated for PEN’s literary science writing award, and Dinner with King Tut was named a best book of the year by the New Yorker, Smithsonian, Amazon, and the History Channel, and won the Non-Obvious Book Award for most original book.