Books by Michael Taylor
“I was immediately gripped by Impossible Monsters because he begins this book about—to use its expansive subtitle— ‘dinosaurs, Darwin and the war between science and religion’ at the perfect yet most unexpected point. Archbishop Ussher of Armagh, who was the great scholarly prelate of the 17th century before and during the time of the Civil War, constructed a chronology about when the creation of the world described in Genesis could have occurred. Michael Taylor is absolutely brilliant at describing Ussher’s extraordinary, monumental, logical thought processes, how he used Biblical evidence, reasonable deduction, sparse ancient records and everything else available to him to establish that the world was created 6,000 years ago. It’s easy to think it a silly idea now, but for Ussher and his contemporaries it was a huge, global, conceptual achievement. I think Michael Taylor shows great imagination in starting with that perspective, one that exemplifies how he approaches the whole book.” Read more...
The Best Nonfiction Books: The 2025 Duff Cooper Prize
Minoo Dinshaw, Biographer
“This is quite a small book which is about Rembrandt’s representation of his own nose. But the bigger story is about the way in which he renders flesh…” Read more...
Bronwyn Law-Viljoen on Extraordinary Art Books
Bronwyn Law-Viljoen, Art Historians, Critics & Curator
Interviews where books by Michael Taylor were recommended
Bronwyn Law-Viljoen on Extraordinary Art Books
The arts books publisher chooses a book about Rembrandt’s representation of his own nose, and tells the bigger story is about the way in which Rembrandt renders sense of flesh in his prints and his oil paintings
-
1
Italy Reborn: From Fascism to Democracy
by Mark Gilbert -
2
Catland: Feline Enchantment and the Making of the Modern World
by Kathryn Hughes -
3
The Scapegoat: The Brilliant Brief Life of the Duke of Buckingham
by Lucy Hughes-Hallett -
4
Forbidden Desire in Early Modern Europe: Male-Male Sexual Relations, 1400-1750
by Noel Malcolm -
5
Wild Thing: A Life of Paul Gauguin
by Sue Prideaux -
6
Impossible Monsters: Dinosaurs, Darwin, and the Battle Between Science and Religion
by Michael Taylor
The Best Nonfiction Books: The 2025 Duff Cooper Prize, recommended by Minoo Dinshaw
The Best Nonfiction Books: The 2025 Duff Cooper Prize, recommended by Minoo Dinshaw
It’s a nonfiction book prize that values “style, rigour, argument, meatiness, readability, freshness, oddity and individuality,” says Minoo Dinshaw, author of Friends in Youth and one of this year’s judges. He introduces the six brilliant books that made the shortlist of this year’s Pol Roger Duff Cooper Prize, from the history of post-World War II Italy to the disputes caused by the discovery of dinosaur fossils.
