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Mr. Wilson's Cabinet Of Wonder

Mr. Wilson's Cabinet Of Wonder - Main image
$12.78 $18 In stock

Category: Art of Play

*** Finalist for Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction ***
*** Finalist for National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction ***

Pronged ants, horned humans, a landscape carved on a fruit pit–some of the displays in David Wilson’s Museum of Jurassic Technology are hoaxes. But which ones? As he guides readers through an intellectual hall of mirrors, Lawrence Weschler revisits the 16th-century “wonder cabinets” that were the first museums and compels readers to examine the imaginative origins of both art and science.

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Customer Reviews (4.8 / 5 · 5 reviews)

Alexander A. ★★★★★

I picked this up for the fruit-pit carvings chapter alone, but the pronged ant details pulled me in even deeper. It’s the kind of book you end up reading aloud to whoever’s nearby, which is exactly what I did.

Adam U. ★★★★★

I’ve never read anything quite like this—the section on those pronged ants alone is worth the price. It’s dense in the best way, and the historical details feel utterly strange and real.

Lily R. ★★★★★

The way it weaves the story of those pronged ants and horned humans into a bigger meditation on curiosity is unlike any architecture book I've read. The prose is so vivid I felt like I was walking through the cabinets myself.