David Dobbs, author of Reef Madness and the #1 Kindle-Single bestseller My Mother's Lover, writes features and essays for publications including the The New York Times, National Geographic, Slate, Wired, Atlantic, Nature, and other publications. Several of his stories have been chosen for leading anthologies, the most recent being "Beautiful Brains," about adolescents, which ran in the National Geographic and was selected for both Ecco's The Best American Science Writing 2012, edited by Michio Kaku, and Mariner's The Best American Science and Nature Writring 2012, edited by Dan Ariely. He is also author of the #1 Kindle Single bestseller My Mother's Lover.
He is now writing his fourth book, The Orchid and the Dandelion (Crown) which expands on his much-discussed feature for the Atlantic, "The Orchid Children." It will follow both scientists and some rather extraordinary 'regular' people as they grapple with emerging ideas about how genes and culture shape temperament, behavior, evolution, and destiny.
His most recent previous book, Reef Madness (Pantheon, 2005), looks at a long argument that Charles Darwin had about how coral reefs form. Oliver Sacks found it "brilliantly written, almost unbearably poignant." He lives in Vermont, with frequent trips to New York, London, DC, and other points distant.