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Douglas Preston

Goodreads Author

Born

in Cambridge, Massachusetts, The United States

Website

http://www.prestonchild.com/

Genre

Mystery & Thrillers

Member Since

April 2014

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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.

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Combine Editions
Douglas Preston’s books

Average rating: 4.04 · 1,063,705 ratings · 68,006 reviews · 170 distinct works • Similar authors

	Relic (Pendergast, #1) by Douglas Preston (Goodreads Author), Lincoln Child 4.05 avg rating — 107,099 ratings — published 1995 — 168 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 — 55,591 ratings — published 2017 — 61 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 — 50,491 ratings — published 2002 — 122 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 4.03 avg rating — 46,224 ratings — published 1997 — 118 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 — 40,185 ratings — published 2004 — 6 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 4.21 avg rating — 38,255 ratings — published 2003 — 107 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 4.16 avg rating — 36,491 ratings — published 2006 — 5 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 4.12 avg rating — 34,516 ratings — published 2010 — 81 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 4.19 avg rating — 32,801 ratings — published 2005 — 6 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 3.76 avg rating — 33,898 ratings — published 2008 — 86 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

Aloysius Pendergast (22 books)
by

Douglas Preston (Goodreads Author),

Lincoln Child

4.11 avg rating — 674,293 ratings

Nora Kelly (4 books)
by

Douglas Preston (Goodreads Author),

Lincoln Child

4.19 avg rating — 142,528 ratings

Diogenes (3 books)
by

Douglas Preston (Goodreads Author),

Lincoln Child

4.17 avg rating — 110,793 ratings

Helen (3 books)
by

Douglas Preston (Goodreads Author),

Lincoln Child

4.10 avg rating — 85,404 ratings

Gideon Crew (5 books)
by

Douglas Preston (Goodreads Author),

Lincoln Child

3.78 avg rating — 61,811 ratings

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Dead Mountain (Nora Kelly, #4)

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Douglas Preston is currently reading Dead Mountain (Nora Kelly, #4) by Douglas Preston (Goodreads Author)	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
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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

1764 likes

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

tags: pendergast

85 likes

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

82 likes

See all Douglas Preston's quotes »

Polls

Which three books should we read in March? Vote for your favorite!
The top three books will be Book of the month in March 2019.
You vote by clicking on your absolute favorite below. You can only vote on ONE book.

The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton

16 votes 11.2%

City of the Lost (Rockton, #1) by Kelley Armstrong

City of the Lost by Kelley Armstrong

14 votes 9.8%

First Grave on the Right (Charley Davidson, #1) by Darynda Jones

First Grave on the Right by Darynda Jones

12 votes 8.4%

Two Can Keep a Secret by Karen M. McManus

11 votes 7.7%

The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides

11 votes 7.7%

The Girl With All the Gifts (The Girl With All the Gifts, #1) by M.R. Carey

The Girl With All the Gifts by M.R. Carey

9 votes 6.3%

Pet Sematary by Stephen King

9 votes 6.3%

An Anonymous Girl by Greer Hendricks & Sarah Pekkanen

9 votes 6.3%

Verity by Colleen Hoover

8 votes 5.6%

Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens

8 votes 5.6%

The Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware

7 votes 4.9%

Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane

5 votes 3.5%

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Süskind

3 votes 2.1%

The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories by Angela Carter

3 votes 2.1%

The Face of Death (Smoky Barrett, #2) by Cody McFadyen

The Face of Death by Cody McFadyen

2 votes 1.4%

Relic (Pendergast, #1) by Douglas Preston

Relic by Douglas Preston

2 votes 1.4%

The Kind Worth Killing by Peter Swanson

2 votes 1.4%

No Turning Back (Kathleen Turner, #1) by Tiffany Snow

No Turning Back by Tiffany Snow

2 votes 1.4%

Crucibleby Natalie Bennett

2 votes 1.4%

Guilty Pleasures (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, #1) by Laurell K. Hamilton

Guilty Pleasures by Laurell K. Hamilton

2 votes 1.4%

Fever Dream by Samanta Schweblin

2 votes 1.4%

Method 15/33 by Shannon Kirk

2 votes 1.4%

Dare You to Lie by Amber Lynn Natusch

1 vote 0.7%

Concrete Evidence (Evidence, #1) by Rachel Grant

Concrete Evidence by Rachel Grant

1 vote 0.7%

143 total votes

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