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Thor Hanson to read at Darvill's on Aug. 11
San Juan Island author Thor Hanson will read from and sign copies of his new book Feathers at Darvill’s Bookstore Thursday, August 11 at 7pm. The conservation biologist is well-known for his previous work, The Impenetrable Forest: My Gorilla Years in Uganda, which won the 2008 USA Book News Award for nature writing. He is also a Switzer Environmental Fellow and well-known speaker on nature and environmental issues.
When asked what first sparked his interest in feathers, field biologist Hanson answers that “vultures made him do it”. He has been pondering the marvelous qualities of feathers – and the birds they come from – ever since studying vulture feeding hierarchies in Kenya, where he plunged his arms into a pile of moldering zebra guts in the name of science. “It seems that no matter how long one works with them, or how much one learns, feathers still retain the power to amaze, to inspire wonder,” he says.