'SHUKERNATURE BOOK 3: CRYSTAL PALACE DINOSAURS, JUNGLE WALRUSES, AND OTHER BELATED BLOG BEASTS' - MY BRAND-NEW, 34TH BOOK IS NOW PUBLISHED!

 Thefull wraparound cover of my brand-new, 34th book ShukerNatureBook 3: Crystal Palace Dinosaurs, Jungle Walruses, and Other Belated BlogBeasts (© Dr KarlShuker/Coachwhip Publishing)

I'm very happy to announce today that my 34thbook is now officially published, and as you can discern from its title – ShukerNature Book 3: Crystal Palace Dinosaurs, Jungle Walruses,and Other Belated Blog Beasts – it'sa third compendium of my most significant ShukerNature blog posts, expanded andupdated wherever possible, packed with colour and b/w illustrations, and 404 pageslong.

If youhave purchased either or both of my previous two (as I'm sure you have!!), youwill know that ShukerNatureBook 1 was devoted to creatures I'd blogged about thatI referred to in its subtitle as cryptic. That is, not merely cryptozoologicalin most cases but also (indeed, especially) little-known, esoteric examples - fromthe likes of locust dragons, king hares, giant oil-drinking cathedral spiders, andLinnaeus's hellish fury worm, to medieval snail-cats, glowing lightbulblizards, tizheruks, tsmoks, and many more offerings from the most obscurerealms of unnatural history.

For ShukerNature Book 2, I concentratedupon creatures I'd blogged about that I referred to in its subtitle asmonstrous. That is, straddling the often ill-defined borders between themythological and the mundane, fantasy and fact, reverie and reality - such asliving gorgons, bottled homunculi, fossil griffins, Lewis Carroll's mockturtle, Harry Potter's ambiguous amblypygid, and Doctor Dolittle'spushmi-pullyu, the Big Grey Man of Ben MacDhui, Wisconsin's giant grasshoppers,South America's photographed but non-existent 'ape', and all manner of otherfascinating if macabre curiosities and caprices from the shadowy hinterlands ofdarkest zoology.

  My first two ShukerNaturecompilation books (© Dr Karl Shuker/Coachwhip Publications)

Forthis present, third ShukerNaturebook, however, I elected to veer off into a very different direction whenselecting its contents as drawn from my blog. I've been a professionalcryptozoological researcher and writer for almost 40 years now, so, as you canimagine, I've covered a vast array of subjects during that lengthy period of time.Yet however many I do document, there are always countless others jostling forposition on the literary sidelines, impatiently agitating to secure their placein a future book or article of mine. Of these, there are a number that I havefully intended to blog about for many years, but for a multitude of differentreasons I have somehow never got around to doing so in spite of just how muchthey have always fascinated me. Equally, there are subjects that my manyreaders down through the years have persistently asked me to blog about butwhich again, inexplicably, I've never actually done so.

Duringthe lengthy, enforced periods of social lockdown necessitated by the Covid-19pandemic, however, I made a determined effort to rectify my previousprocrastination concerning these undeservedly delayed subjects, by researchingand blogging about as many of them as possible. Having now done so with asizeable selection, it is these, therefore, that constitute the theme of thisthird ShukerNature book – which inturn safeguards them from the uncertainties of ongoing online existence bypreserving them for all time in print.

Theyinclude such long-awaited topics as the awe-inspiring Crystal Palace dinosaur statuesthat I visited and photographed over a decade ago but never wrote up afterwards(but which are now the subject of my book's spectacular wraparound cover – the veryfirst such cover that has ever graced any of my books), my personal (andundoubtedly controversial, iconoclastic, heterodox) views regarding the(in)famous Surgeon's Photograph reputedly depicting an unknown object in LochNess, the huge but mysterious animal head discovered in an ancient Egyptianboat, and the muddle of misidentification surrounding Lake Dakataua's aquaticmigo.

Longstanding friend and awesome artist Anthony Wallis'sstunning portrait of the Nandi bear that he prepared exclusively for inclusion inthis latest book of mine – thanks Ant! (© Anthony Wallis)

Plus theNandi bear specimen that was actually examined by two of the world's foremostscientists before it mysteriously vanished, the officially-impossible elephanthybrid whose existence proved all the experts wrong, the wry comedy ofzoological errors enshrouding the huge but hysterical imperial flea, as well asan eclectic assemblage of jungle walruses, flying monkeys, hairless hyaenas, Koch'smonstrous Missourium and horrid Hydarchos, Beebe's black-and-white mysterymanta ray, the giant lizards of Papua, a tenacious tomb-shattering pterodactyl,and lots more too.

Somany of these curious, charismatic subjects have been a long time coming, Ifreely confess – but now that they arefinally here for you to read about and ponder over, I hope very much that, aswith all the best things in life, you'll consider them well worth the wait. Moredetails concerning my book can be found on its dedicated page here,in my official website.

As always, my new book can be ordered directlythrough Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, and other online bookstores,or ordered via your local physical bookstore anywhere.

  Vintageengraving of 19th-Century sculptor Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins's CrystalPalace studio in 1853, containing some of his completed prehistoric animal statues(public domain)