Wild Life: An Explorer's Guide to the World's Living Wonders
Cara Giaimo visits Phoenixville to discuss Atlas Obscura: Wild Life, the latest book from the wildly popular team at Atlas Obscura. Along with her co-author Joshua Foer, Cara has brought us a nature book like no other—a dazzling, over-the-top collection of the world’s most extraordinary wild species that takes you to all seven continents and beyond. It’s more than a field guide—it’s an adventure.
Joined in conversation by Anna Dhody, Founder and Executive Director of the Dhody Research Institute and former curatorial chair of the Mütter Museum, Cara will bring Atlas Obscura’s signature style of curiosity and wonder to Phoenixville for what will be an evening filled with fascinating insight into the natural world.
Featuring over 500 extraordinary plants, animals, and natural phenomena, with illustrations and photos on every page, Atlas Obscura: Wild Life takes readers around the globe—from Antarctic deserts to lush jungles, and into the deepest fathoms of the ocean and the hearts of our densest cities. Teeming with detail and wildly entertaining, Wild Life reinvigorates our sense of wonder, awe and amazement about the incredible creatures we share our planet with.
Whether you’re armchair exploring or planning your next real-life adventure, Wild Life makes the natural world feel vivid, magical, and spectacularly real. Discover the hidden natural wonders right in your backyard or explore mind-bending symbiotic relationships on the other side of the world.
Cara Giaimo lives in Somerville, MA, with her wife, Lilia, two cats, many plants, and uncountable neighborhood rats. A former staff writer at Atlas Obscura, Cara now covers our fellow species for the New York Times, Fabrikzeitung, Bloomberg Businessweek, and elsewhere. Her first book, Detector Dogs (with Christina Couch), was published by MIT Kids Press in 2022. She plays guitar in Sidebody.
Anna N. Dhody, MFS is the Founder and Executive Director of the Dhody Research Institute. She was previously the Gretchen Worden Curatorial Chair, Mütter Museum and Director, Mütter Research Institute of The College of Physicians of Philadelphia. She received her BA in archaeology from Boston University, Masters in Forensic Science from The George Washington University. A forensic anthropologist, Ms. Dhody previously served as an osteologist at Harvard University’s Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology and worked with the United Nations Development Programme and the Public Ministry of Peru to identify some of the estimated 69,000 “Desaparecidos'' victims of state terrorism. Ms. Dhody is a member of the Vidocq Society, a Consulting Scholar at The University of Pennsylvania’s Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology and was appointed a Fulbright Specialist in 2023 in museum studies and physical anthropology.
Please note that this is a ticketed event, and your ticket includes a copy of Atlas Obscura: Wild Life (retail price $40) which Cara will be happy to sign following the event. There are two ticket options:
ADMIT ONE: $42 | Single Ticket: Admission for ONE + ONE signed copy of ATLAS OBSCURA: WILD LIFE (includes processing fee)
ADMIT TWO: $48 | Double Ticket: Admission for TWO + ONE signed copy of ATLAS OBSCURA: WILD LIFE (includes processing fee)
