Pick, Nancy

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PICK, Nancy

PERSONAL: Married; children: two sons.

ADDRESSES: Home—MA. Agent—c/o Author Mail, Harper Resource, 10 E. 53rd St., 7th Fl., New York, NY 10022.

CAREER: Baltimore Sun, Baltimore, MD, former journalist; Harvard Museum of Natural History, Cambridge, MA, staff writer.

WRITINGS:

The Rarest of the Rare: Stories behind the Treasures at the Harvard Museum of Natural History, introduction by Edward O. Wilson, photographs by Mark Sloan, Harper Resource (New York, NY) 2004.

SIDELIGHTS: Nancy Pick, a staff writer for the Harvard Museum of Natural History, provides the text for a number of the museum's exhibitions. Her The Rarest of the Rare: Stories behind the Treasures at the Harvard Museum of Natural History goes inside the museum and explores the stories that accompany many of the exhibits. She describes more than seventy items from the museum's collection, including some that are seldom on display. Exhibits discussed include a stuffed bird brought back as part of the Lewis and Clark expedition, a sand dollar that Charles Darwin collected as a specimen during his voyage on the HMS Beagle, and a butterfly that is thirty-five million years old. Pick gives information about the items, as well as how Harvard University acquired them. A contributor to Publishers Weekly found that the volume "contains arresting visuals and intriguing facts but has a vaguely musty air about it." Gilbert Taylor, in a review for Booklist, remarked that "this work is a beautiful showcase that will arrest the interest of every passing browser."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, September 15, 2004, Gilbert Taylor, review of The Rarest of the Rare: Stories behind the Treasures at the Harvard Museum of Natural History, p. 187.

Publishers Weekly, August 16, 2004, review of The Rarest of the Rare, p. 49.

Science News, November 20, 2004, review of The Rarest of the Rare, p. 335.