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Elizabeth Preston celebrates The Creatures' Guide to Caring
Featured Book
The Creatures' Guide to Caring
A lively and revelatory journey through the evolution of caretaking on Earth, from animal parents to modern-day humans, making the case that caring for children and each other made us who we are.
This book will be available for purchase at the event.
About This Event
Science journalist, Elizabeth Preston is coming to City Lit to celebrate her new book on caretaking in nature and humanity, The Creatures' Guide to Caring. Elizabeth will be in conversation with Chicago comic artist and illustrator, Marnie Galloway who created artwork for the book.
“Reading this book is like sitting at a dinner table with your smartest, funniest friend. Elizabeth Preston’s writing shimmers with wit, charisma, and infectious delight, as she shows how the act of caretaking connects us to the rest of the animal kingdom.” —Ed Yong, New York Times bestselling author of An Immense World
A lively and revelatory journey through the evolution of caretaking on Earth, from animal parents to modern-day humans, making the case that caring for children and each other made us who we are.
Poison frog fathers carry tadpoles on their backs. Killer whale grandmothers hunt to feed their adult sons. Tropical birds incubate their friends' eggs. Spider moms let their hatchlings eat them alive. Around the world, animals from the exotic to the familiar go to astonishing lengths to keep their young alive. Their biology, brains and behaviors show us what we have in common with other creatures, as well as what's unique about Homo sapiens.
With warmth, humor, and occasional run-ins with bodily fluids, science journalist Elizabeth Preston leads a highly accessible tour of cutting-edge research into how and why we and other animals care for young. She discovers that humans evolved to raise our kids in cooperative groups, and that the tools we've inherited for caretaking aren't only for moms or dads—they're the basis for our human society.
Featured Author
Elizabeth Preston
Elizabeth Preston is a science journalist who contributes regularly to The New York Times and has written for Science, The Boston Globe, The Atlantic, Orion, Slate, Audubon, Discover, National Geographic and others. She is a winner of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Kavli Science Journalism Gold Award. Preston is also a humor writer whose work has appeared in outlets such as McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, Parents, and Real Simple and was the editor of Muse, a magazine about science and ideas for kids. She lives in Massachusetts.
In Conversation With
Marnie Galloway
Marnie Galloway is an Eisner nominated cartoonist who makes poetic comics about identity, motherhood, love, and rage. She is best known for her Xeric Award winning wordless graphic novel, In the Sounds and Seas; recent work includes Abortion Pill Zine, an educational comic about medical abortion and reproductive justice, and Really In It, a collection of diary comics about parenting three young children. Her work has appeared in Best American Comics, The New York Times, PEN America, ASK Magazine, Saveur Magazine, and MUTHA Magazine. Marnie lives in Avondale, Chicago and teaches comics at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
About the Venue
City Lit Books
Located in the heart of Logan Square, City Lit specializes in contemporary fiction and non-fiction, with a richly curated collection of children's literature, speculative fiction, poetry, and more. Our store is a literary hub for the community, hosting many book clubs, poetry readings, and author events.
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