Imperial Dreams: Imperial Dreams makes Top 10 Science & Health Books of 2013 list

Wednesday, January 8, 2014

Imperial Dreams makes Top 10 Science & Health Books of 2013 list

I just heard that my latest book, Imperial Dreams, was one of the books chosen for Booklist's Top 10 Science & Health Books of 2013 list. I was honored to be on the same list as E. O. Wilson and the other authors. The reviewer said, "Gallagher sets the gold standard for nature writing in this chronicle of his search for the possibly extinct imperial woodpecker in Mexican territory held by drug traffickers."

1 comment:

johnJanuary 11, 2014 at 7:40 PM
Congratulations on your book award Mr. Gallagher. I just finished reading it. I am wondering if you have an email that I might, as a PhD Natural Science, offer some comments on ways to help find the Imperial Woodpecker.
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About Me

I'm the author of six books, including my latest, Born to Fish (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; May 2018) about world-class angler Greg Myerson and his conservation efforts on behalf of the striped bass.

My other recent book is Imperial Dreams, about my search for the Imperial Woodpecker of Mexico, the largest woodpecker that ever lived. Two feet in length, with the deepest black plumage and brilliant, snow-white flight feathers that showed as a white shield on its lower back, the Imperial Woodpecker lived only in the high country of northwestern Mexico. The last documented sighting of the species took place in 1956, and many scientists have already written the bird's epitaph. But stories persist of lone Imperial Woodpeckers flying yet over the most remote pine forests of the Sierra Madre.

I began searching for these birds about ten years ago and interviewing people who remembered seeing them. It was tough. The mountains have become a major center of drug growing where you often encounter AK-47-toting drug traffickers and other dangerous people.