Roger Osborne's work has provided a range of innovative insights into our views of the past, and how they inform the present. His previous books include The Floating Egg- Episodes in the Making of Geology, The Deprat Affair- Ambition, Revenge and Deceit in French Indo-China, The Dreamer of the Calle San Salvador- Visions of Sedition and Sacrilege in Sixteenth-Century Spain, Civilization- A New History of the Western World and Of The People, By The People, A New History of Democracy. Roger Osborne is also a professional playwright. His plays include The Art Of Persuasion, first performed in 2011 and Laughton, staged in 2013 He lives in Scarborough.
This is a strange and unclassifiable book which tells the story of the early days of geology by focusing on a series of events associated with the north east of England. The events themselves seem disjointed - discoveries of fossils, stones falling from the sky, alchemy, the voyages of James Cook. The style is also disjointed - an uneasy mixture of fact and fiction, anecdote and historical quotation. But the result is somehow greater than the sum of its parts, providing an eclectic and readable, if patchy, introduction to the geological sciences. And yes, there really is a floating egg in the story - but you'll have to read the book to find out its relevance to geology. (Kirkus UK)