1 rating | 0 reviews | avg rating:5.00

Douglas Preston’s Followers (13,728)

Douglas’s Bookshelves

to-read (4)
currently-reading (1)
read (0)
did-not-finish (0)

Douglas’s Friends (231)

Rachel

7,791 books | 205 friends

RS Fuster

3,359 books | 38 friends

Sharif Khan

743 books | 483 friends

Corey

2,546 books | 344 friends

Ellee

36,062 books | 347 friends

donna backshall

12,396 books | 2,089 friends

Beagle Lover (Avid Reader)

29,777 books | 633 friends

Dan

13,341 books | 2,046 friends

More friends…

Douglas Preston

Goodreads Author

Born

in Cambridge, Massachusetts, The United States

Website

http://www.prestonchild.com/

Genre

Mystery & Thrillers

Member Since

April 2014

edit data

Douglas Preston was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1956, and grew up in the deadly boring suburb of Wellesley. Following a distinguished career at a private nursery school--he was almost immediately expelled--he attended public schools and the Cambridge School of Weston. Notable events in his early life included the loss of a fingertip at the age of three to a bicycle; the loss of his two front teeth to his brother Richard's fist; and various broken bones, also incurred in dust-ups with Richard. (Richard went on to write The Hot Zone and The Cobra Event, which tells you all you need to know about what it was like to grow up with him as a brother.)

As they grew up, Doug, Richard, and their little brother David roamed the quiet suburbs o Douglas Preston was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1956, and grew up in the deadly boring suburb of Wellesley. Following a distinguished career at a private nursery school--he was almost immediately expelled--he attended public schools and the Cambridge School of Weston. Notable events in his early life included the loss of a fingertip at the age of three to a bicycle; the loss of his two front teeth to his brother Richard's fist; and various broken bones, also incurred in dust-ups with Richard. (Richard went on to write The Hot Zone and The Cobra Event, which tells you all you need to know about what it was like to grow up with him as a brother.)

As they grew up, Doug, Richard, and their little brother David roamed the quiet suburbs of Wellesley, terrorizing the natives with home-made rockets and incendiary devices mail-ordered from the backs of comic books or concocted from chemistry sets. With a friend they once attempted to fly a rocket into Wellesley Square; the rocket malfunctioned and nearly killed a man mowing his lawn. They were local celebrities, often appearing in the "Police Notes" section of The Wellesley Townsman. It is a miracle they survived childhood intact.

After unaccountably being rejected by Stanford University (a pox on it), Preston attended Pomona College in Claremont, California, where he studied mathematics, biology, physics, anthropology, chemistry, geology, and astronomy before settling down to English literature. After graduating, Preston began his career at the American Museum of Natural History in New York as an editor, writer, and eventually manager of publications. (Preston also taught writing at Princeton University and was managing editor of Curator.) His eight-year stint at the Museum resulted in the non-fiction book, Dinosaurs in the Attic, edited by a rising young star at St. Martin's Press, a polymath by the name of Lincoln Child. During this period, Preston gave Child a midnight tour of the museum, and in the darkened Hall of Late Dinosaurs, under a looming T. Rex, Child turned to Preston and said: "This would make the perfect setting for a thriller!" That thriller would, of course, be Relic.

In 1986, Douglas Preston piled everything he owned into the back of a Subaru and moved from New York City to Santa Fe to write full time, following the advice of S. J. Perelman that "the dubious privilege of a freelance writer is he's given the freedom to starve anywhere." After the requisite period of penury, Preston achieved a small success with the publication of Cities of Gold, a non-fiction book about Coronado's search for the legendary Seven Cities of Cibola. To research the book, Preston and a friend retraced on horseback 1,000 miles of Coronado's route across Arizona and New Mexico, packing their supplies and sleeping under the stars--nearly killing themselves in the process. Since then he has published several more non-fiction books on the history of the American Southwest, Talking to the Ground and The Royal Road, as well as a novel entitled Jennie. In the early 1990s Preston and Child teamed up to write suspense novels; Relic was the first, followed by several others, including Riptide and Thunderhead. Relic was released as a motion picture by Paramount in 1997. Other films are under development at Hollywood studios. Preston and Child live 500 miles apart and write their books together via telephone, fax, and the Internet.

Preston and his brother Richard are currently producing a television miniseries for ABC and Mandalay Entertainment, to be aired in the spring of 2000, if all goes well, which in Hollywood is rarely the case.

Preston continues a magazine writing career by contributing regularly to The New Yorker magazine. He has also written for National Geographic, Natural History, Smithsonisan, Harper's,and Travel & Leisure,among others.

http://us.macmillan.com/author/dougla... ...more

Learn more
Ask the Author

To ask Douglas Preston questions, please sign up.

Combine Editions
Douglas Preston’s books

Average rating: 4.05 · 1,275,409 ratings · 85,082 reviews · 192 distinct works • Similar authors

	Relic (Pendergast, #1) by Douglas Preston (Goodreads Author), Lincoln Child 4.05 avg rating — 117,066 ratings — published 1995 — 145 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Lost City of the Monkey God 3.93 avg rating — 63,962 ratings — published 2017 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Cabinet of Curiosities (Pendergast, #3; Nora Kelly, #0B) by Douglas Preston (Goodreads Author), Lincoln Child 4.26 avg rating — 56,518 ratings — published 2002 — 130 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Reliquary (Pendergast, #2) by Douglas Preston (Goodreads Author), Lincoln Child 4.04 avg rating — 51,265 ratings — published 1997 — 101 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Brimstone (Pendergast, #5; Diogenes, #1) by Douglas Preston (Goodreads Author), Lincoln Child 4.15 avg rating — 43,970 ratings — published 2004 — 111 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Still Life With Crows (Pendergast, #4) by Douglas Preston (Goodreads Author), Lincoln Child 4.22 avg rating — 42,535 ratings — published 2003 — 110 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Book of the Dead (Pendergast, #7; Diogenes, #3) by Douglas Preston (Goodreads Author), Lincoln Child 4.17 avg rating — 40,147 ratings — published 2006 — 105 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Fever Dream (Pendergast, #10) by Douglas Preston (Goodreads Author), Lincoln Child 4.13 avg rating — 37,457 ratings — published 2010 — 69 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Dance of Death (Pendergast, #6; Diogenes, #2) by Douglas Preston (Goodreads Author), Lincoln Child 4.20 avg rating — 36,043 ratings — published 2005 — 108 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Monster of Florence by Douglas Preston (Goodreads Author), Mario Spezi 3.76 avg rating — 37,245 ratings — published 2008 — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

More books by Douglas Preston…

Series by Douglas Preston

Pendergast (23 books)
by

Douglas Preston (Goodreads Author),

Lincoln Child

4.13 avg rating — 774,031 ratings

Nora Kelly (5 books)
by

Douglas Preston (Goodreads Author),

Lincoln Child

4.19 avg rating — 184,754 ratings

Diogenes (3 books)
by

Douglas Preston (Goodreads Author),

Lincoln Child

4.18 avg rating — 121,675 ratings

Helen (3 books)
by

Douglas Preston (Goodreads Author),

Lincoln Child

4.11 avg rating — 93,054 ratings

Gideon Crew (5 books)
by

Douglas Preston (Goodreads Author),

Lincoln Child

3.81 avg rating — 69,115 ratings

More series by Douglas Preston…

At the beginning of each calendar month, Goodreads’ crack editorial squad assembles a list of the hottest and most popular new books...

Douglas is Currently Reading

Douglas Preston is currently reading

Dead Mountain (Nora Kelly, #4)

by Douglas Preston (Goodreads Author)

bookshelves: currently-reading

Rate this book

Clear rating

1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

Aug 07, 2023 07:57AM

rss
Douglas’s Recent Updates

Douglas Preston wants to read The Bone People by Keri Hulme	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Feb 04, 2026 08:53PM · 8 likes · like

More of Douglas's books…

Quotes by Douglas Preston (?)

“We all have a Monster within; the difference is in degree, not in kind.”
― Douglas Preston, The Monster of Florence

tags: evil, monster

1753 likes

“It's a very bad habit, but one I find hard to break.”
― Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child

tags: pendergast

87 likes

“The truth shall make you free, but first it will make you miserable.”
― Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child, Gideon's Sword

85 likes

See all Douglas Preston's quotes »

Polls

September is another non-fiction month...open category. You can vote through Friday, August 13.

This is the Fire

Don Lemon

4 votes, 100.0%

The Earth Shall Weep

James Wilson

0 votes, 0.0%

The Lost City of the Monkey God

Douglas Preston

0 votes, 0.0%

Temples, Tombs & Hieroglyphs: A Popular History of Ancient Egypt

Barbara Mertz

0 votes, 0.0%

Neanderthal: Neanderthal Man and the Story of Human Origins

Paul Jordan

0 votes, 0.0%

Good Wives: Image and Reality in the Lives of Women in Northern New England

Laurel Thatcher Ulrich

0 votes, 0.0%

4 total votes

2 comments

More...

Topics Mentioning This Author

topics	posts	views	last activity
The Book Challenge: Sarah's 2008 Book Challenge v2.0 - Fini!	5	1870	Dec 29, 2008 09:31AM
Pendergast Task F...: Easter Eggs	5	98	Mar 26, 2009 01:34PM
The Book Challenge: Michelle Kay's Reads 2009	4	1210	Apr 17, 2009 12:42AM
College Students! : Michelle Kay's 2009 Reads	7	553	May 06, 2009 09:12PM
Challenge: 50 Books: Susan's 50 books in 2009 DONE	65	320	Sep 14, 2009 04:12AM
Beyond Reality: What else are you reading? (September)	62	100	Sep 30, 2009 09:09AM