The book 'Wildlife on the planet Furaha' (ISBN: 9780719845710) has been published today, December 3rd, 2025.
How do you get a copy?
If you are in the UK, you should know that the book just arrived at Crowood's, so UK bookshops will need a bit of time to get it onto their shelves. If you wish to order the book, you can do so directly from the publisher, Crowood Press (link below), where it is available right now. Note that Amazon will not have stock for another week, so if you want one quickly, get your copy through Crowood Press. Ordering directly from Crowood is also much better for the publisher and for me, thank you very much!
If you are in the USA or Canada, the publisher advises to use Blackwell's. Blackwell's will start sending out copies in just a few days once they get their copies. I am told they currently offer free shipping, which sounds good!
Both Crowood and Blackwell's have a long list of countries they ship to, so that should take care of most requests from the rest of the world.
Links to order the book
Crowood: https://www.crowood.com/book/wildlife-on-the-planet-furaha/
Damn it, I wouldn't have ordered from Amazon had I known better 😢
ReplyDeleteCongratulations!
ReplyDeleteIncredible! How amazing that its all come to fruition. Youre work just on the blog has already been so influential in SpecEvo. You must be proud.
ReplyDeleteDavide: Not a problem; you can always order another one ;-)
ReplyDeleteAvardent: thank you!
Anonymous: Finding a publisher was the really scary part, over which you have little or no influence as an author. Am I proud? In a somewhat self-conscious way, I am, because I did not received any formal training in the fields of painting, creative writing, or programming. I wasn't formally trained in biology either, but was trained in medicine, and the scientific approach easily carries over between fields.
If the Furaha book is successful, I plan to base a second book on the scientific parts of the blog. As I wrote before, its title will have something in it like 'Newtonian mechanics in a Darwinian universe'.
Do you reckon it will be at waterstones (if not which other book shops in the uk)
ReplyDeleteSigmund/Gert here : yes, I think Waterstone's will have the book, if only because Blackwell's is apparently a part of Waterstone's.
ReplyDeleteYES!! *happy dance* good to see its available. kudos!
ReplyDeleteI'm going to try Barnes&Noble before I to to Blackwell or Waterstone.
Very excited for this! I've followed your blog for years watching the book come together. I've my copy ordered from Blackwell. ^_^
ReplyDeleteSigmund /Gert again: if you order from Crowood and mention TCP10, you get a 10% discount! Consider it my Christmas present for my blog readers!
ReplyDeleteCongratulations !!
ReplyDeleteI've already ordered mine from Crowood.
I placed my pre-order reserve.
ReplyDeleteOrdered mine a few days ago! Hoping it'll be here in time for Christmas, but it'd take a miracle.
ReplyDeleteCongrats on finally getting it published in any case! Was worried this project would always stay a net exclusive.
BlueGreen and Keenir: I hope the books arrive on time!
ReplyDeleteThanks Gert, in my case, I received the book yesterday !
ReplyDeleteI'm keeping it for Christmas !
I wish you happy holidays and thank you for creating Furaha !
Gert,
ReplyDeleteJe levenswerk! Gefeliciteerd! Wij willen natuurlijk een geisgneerde versie met quote kopen. Ben zo benieuwd naar het boek en hoe het met jullie gaat. Misschien kunnen we weer eens ontmoeten?
-Bob en Antoinette
Ha Bob en Antoinette, Dank je (ik ben een tweede, ander, boek van plan). Goed om van jullie te horen. Fotografeer je nog steeds? Kijk dan maar eens op htpps://lijnenlicht.art ; tekeningen op basis van foto's. Expositie in galerie Zône (Nieuwstraat Leiden) in januari (dwz ik hang ze op op 2 jan).
ReplyDeleteCongratulations!! I've been reading this blog for over 10 years and waiting patiently for the book all that time. As soon as it becomes available in the US I'll run out and grab a copy!
ReplyDeleteAnonymous: thank you! You can get a copy earlier than that, but I do not know how much extra postage that is going to cost you. If you order directly from Crowood in the UK and mention TCP10 you get a 10% discount.
ReplyDeleteIt's really cool you have a book I just learned about it from a biblaridian video. Though it's kind of expensive But I will be looking into it when there's a sale.
ReplyDeleteI think I've seen your site before but it's been a while so I don't know if This information is already contained in there but There's something I'm wondering though from what I learned from his video. The harmonica skeleton is real neat. A while back ago I had a dream with a creature with a spring-loaded Harmonica type Skeletal system Of some kind. What this creature would do is if it was startled it would scrunch up And then rapidly unscrunch leading to it Leaping upwards rapidly, escaping the predator And possibly stabbing it in the process If it was in the way. At the time I didn't have enough knowledge to figure out how that would work. But now I wonder if that would work with the skeletal system like that. Would it be plausible with that type of skeletal system to have a spring loaded mechanism to leap upwards like a jack in the box? This animal is shaped like a big ferret And likes to hang out in tunnels. It does have a pair of sharp horns So startling this thing could be hazardous.
Anonymous: The publisher sets the price, not the author. The book is full-colour, printed in good quality, counts 160 pages and measures 28 by 22 cm. I don't think 20 GBP is expensive for that, certainly not if you compare that to similar books about dinosaurs or existing animals. The ebook version is cheaper; does that help?
ReplyDeleteAs for a harmonica skeleton, I think you could use it for what you describe. Mind you, Furahan rusps hardly ever use their harmonica skeleton to become longer or shorter overall. Instead, the mean distance between neighbouring segments stays the same, even when , for instance, left margins approach one another. The reason is that the overall volume does change and neither does the circumference of a segment. Think about a earthworm: if it lengthens, it becomes thinner. If it cannot become thinner, it cannot lengthen. I overdid the harmonica effect in the animations I made for Biblaridion's video to clarify to effect, not as an illustration of how rusps would actually move.
If you wish to develop harmonica animals, you will have to solve this matter.
I had imagined as compressed And preparing to launch, the mass would be pushed to the side outwards between the rings, similar to how our belly expands when the lungs expanding pushes our organs downwards. The organs would need to be more durable and squishy of course.
DeleteWould you be so kind to reveal the URL's to the Biblaridion video's here?
ReplyDeleteAnonymous: The Biblaridion video is easy to find on YouTube, but here it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0lqBgO2xs4
ReplyDeleteSo you solved the harmonica problem by having part of the volume of the animal squeeze out between the rings. The might work. Another solution would be to have air chambers inside each segment. If the animal shortens itself, these chambers are compressed, and when the animal lengthens suddenly, the air chambers would help with that. You wouldn't notice their existence from the outside. Just a rough idea though!
I also considered air chambers I think I like that better. There's not that brief moment of vulnerability where all your organs are un protected like that. I wonder how much Upwards force that could create
DeleteI really wish I found out about this before Christmas. It would have been the perfect present to suggest someone get me or for me to buy for myself. I haven't been following this project in a while, and decided to check up on it, and I was so excited to find out about the book.
ReplyDelete