Join us on Thursday June 8 and hear acclaimed nature and true-adventure writer Patrick Dean talk about his new book, Nature’s Messenger, with Jenise Gordon. Patrick will also be available to sign his books.

In the pages of this dynamic, fresh story, Patrick explores the life of naturalist and artist Mark Catesby—who predated John James Audubon by nearly a century— and his influence on how we understand American wildlife. 

Nature’s Messenger takes us from the rice plantations of the Carolina Lowcountry to the bustling coffeehouses of 18th-century England, from the sun-drenched islands of the Bahamas to the austere meeting-rooms of London’s Royal Society, then presided over by Isaac Newton. It was a time of discovery, of intellectual ferment, and of the rise of the British Empire. And there on history’s leading edge, recording the extraordinary and often violent mingling of cultures as well as of nature, was Mark Catesby.