Sam Kean: Dinner With King Tut

Join us for an in-person event with New York Times bestselling author Sam Kean for the launch of his new book Dinner With King Tut. This event will be hosted in the Strand Book Store's 3rd floor Rare Book Room at 828 Broadway on 12th Street.

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ACCESSIBILITY:

Strand Book Store is an ADA compliant venue. The event space is accessible via elevator. Please ask a Strand employee upon arrival for directions to accessible seating if preferred.

ASL interpretation is available for this event by request only. Please reach out to our events team at ZXZlbnRzIHwgc3RyYW5kYm9va3MgISBjb20= by 6/25 to request.

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From “one of America’s smartest and most charming writers” (NPR), an archaeological romp through the entire history of humankind—and through all five senses—from tropical Polynesian islands to forbidding arctic ice floes, and everywhere in between.

Whether it’s the mighty pyramids of Egypt or the majestic temples of Mexico, we have a good idea of what the past looked like. But what about our other senses: The tang of Roman fish sauce and the springy crust of Egyptian sourdough? The boom of medieval cannons and the clash of Viking swords? The frenzied plays of an Aztec ballgame...and the chilling reality that the losers might also lose their lives?

History often neglects the tastes, textures, sounds, and smells that were an intimate part of our ancestors’ lives, but a new generation of researchers is resurrecting those hidden details, pioneering an exciting new discipline called experimental archaeology. These are scientists gone rogue: They make human mummies. They investigate the unsolved murders of ancient bog bodies. They carve primitive spears and go hunting, then knap their own obsidian blades to skin the game. They build perilous boats and plunge out onto the open sea—all in the name of experiencing history as it was, with all its dangers, disappointments, and unexpected delights.

Beloved author Sam Kean joins these experimental archaeologists on their adventures across the globe, from the Andes to the South Seas. He fires medieval catapults, tries his hand at ancient surgery and tattooing, builds Roman-style roads—and, in novelistic interludes, spins gripping tales about the lives of our ancestors with vivid imagination and his signature meticulous research.

Lively, offbeat, and filled with stunning revelations about our past, Dinner with King Tut sheds light on days long gone and the intrepid experts resurrecting them today, with startling, lifelike detail and more than a few laughs along the way.

Sam Kean is the New York Times bestselling author of The Icepick Surgeon, The Bastard Brigade, Caesar’s Last Breath (the Guardian’s Science Book of the Year), The Tale of the Dueling Neurosurgeons, The Violinist’s Thumb, and The Disappearing Spoon. He is also a two-time finalist for the PEN/E. O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award. His work has appeared in The Best American Science and Nature Writing, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and The New York Times Magazine, among other publications, and he has been featured on NPR’s Radiolab, All Things Considered, Science Friday, and Fresh Air. His podcast, The Disappearing Spoon, debuted at #1 on the iTunes science charts. Kean lives in Washington, DC

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