SPINELESS!

There’s the cover! And wow, could it be any more beautiful? The stunning colors and elegant layout came from my publisher Riverhead books and the jellyfish drawings are by Ernst Haeckel, an Austrian naturalist/jellyfish expert/philosopher/physician/artist who lived in the late 1800s.

If you haven’t ever seen Haeckel’s book of drawings called Kunstformen der Natur, or Art Forms of Nature, take a look. It’s one of those works that will stick with you for a long time. You might even start to see his drawings on Etsy products and in random gift shops because they are still so inspiring. Haeckel had the incredible ability to render the most unnoticed creatures on our planet in exquisite grandeur.

But despite his inimitable faculty with the drawing pen, Haeckel did have his flaws. Toward the end of his life, he was criticized by the science community for his staunch ideas about evolution and embryology, and accused of tampering with his drawings to make his point. Even so, I have long been hopelessly in love with looking at his art, and am thrilled its on the cover.

The book’s official release date is November 7, 2017. But, if you are as excited about Spineless finally having a physical form–and such a beautiful one too–as I am, it’s now available for pre-order.

One more bit of exciting news: Publisher’s Weekly put it on the list of the Most Anticipated Books of the Fall! (Scroll down to the science listings.)

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