Author Darrin Lunde works at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. His love of natural history drew him to write, “The Naturalist: Theodore Roosevelt, a Lifetime of Exploration, and the Triumph of American Natural History.”
Lunde will be at the main Louisville Free Public Library Thursday evening as part of the library’s author series. I talked with him about his book.
Listen to the interview in the player above.
On sharing a similar background to Roosevelt:
"From his (Roosevelt) early introduction to natural history as a boy wandering the streets of New York finding animals that he learned how to mount, teaching himself taxidermy, and building his own boyhood museum, it was a real surprise to discover that he and I shared that in common."
On the book's focus:
"I think the one thing that really defines Roosevelt as a naturalist is his life-long passion and focus on a particular brand of naturalism called 'museum naturalism,' where he's tapping into his instincts to collect and to preserve natural history specimens so that they are available to scientists to study, essentially, forever."
Darrin Lunde will share his new book, “The Naturalist: Theodore Roosevelt, a Lifetime of Exploration, and the Triumph of American Natural History” at the main Louisville Free Public Library tonight at 7 p.m. For more details, click here.
