Evolutionary molecular biologist Beth Shapiro’s meteoric career has centered on the analysis of ancient DNA, genetic material recovered from frozen, mummified, or otherwise preserved animals and plants. A Rhodes Scholar, winner of a MacArthur “Genius Grant,” and an Oxford University research fellow, Shapiro has written about ecology for a number of academic journals, including Science, Molecular Biology and Evolution, and PLoS Biology. Her new book examines the incredible and controversial process of de-extinction, the means through which mammoths, passenger pigeons, dodos, and other extinct species can truly be resurrected, reintroduced to the wild, and conserved for future generations.

Writing for the New York Times, Janet Maslin calls Thomas Pierce’s story collection, Hall of Small Mammals, “ridiculously good” and “beautifully built.” Intersecting at the crossroads of everyday and extraordinary, Pierce’s breakout debut peeks into the strange and intimate worlds of comedians, fossil-hounds, hot air balloonists, skeptics, believers, wise children and foolish adults. (And did we mention a cloned and resurrected wooly mammoth?) Mysterious and somehow linked, the stories in Hall of Small Mammals seek to embody the voice of the New South. Pierce, an MFA graduate from the University of Virginia, has published stories in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and Oxford American.