Jennie

Jennie

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Douglas Preston’s Jennie, based on the real story of the chimpanzee who inspired Curious George, is the celebrated novel that was made into the award-winning Disney television film The Jennie Project. Translated into many languages, Jennie became a worldwide bestselling sensation.

On a research trip to West Africa, Dr. Hugo Archibald of the Boston Museum of Natural History encounters an orphaned baby chimpanzee. Archibald decides to bring the ape, whom he names Jennie, back to Boston and raise her alongside his own two young children as a kind of scientific experiment.

Jennie captures the hearts of everyone she encounters. She believes herself to be a human being. She does almost everything a human child can, from riding a tricycle to fighting over the television with her siblings to communicating in American Sign Language.

Told from shifting points of view of those closest to Jennie, this heartwarming and bittersweet novel forces us to take a closer look at the species that shares 98 percent of our DNA and ask ourselves the question: What does it really mean to be human?

Reviews

“Engaging and touching . . . A remarkable book.” —The Denver Post on Jennie

“Brilliant and complex. Jennie is a dazzling fiction debut.” —Los Angeles Times

“A poignant, thought-provoking story.” —The Wall Street Journal

“A haunting account of the nebulous line between man and animal. . . . Tragic, dark, irresistible.” —Boston Herald

“I love Jennie, the book and the chimp . . . a very remarkable person and a very important book.” —Jane Goodall, bestselling author of In the Shadow of Man

“An amazing story.” —Entertainment Weekly

“Engrossing story of a chimp experiment . . . Jennie is a believable character, both hilarious and heart-breaking.” —Cleveland Plain Dealer

“An enchanting morality tale in which genes and evolution replace fates of ancient tragedy. . . . Preston sticks to scientific fact and so it’s to his credit that he reader finds himself asking ‘Is Jennie human?’ and to the end is never convinced that she is not.” —Dallas Morning News

About the Author

DOUGLAS PRESTON has published forty books of both nonfiction and fiction, of which thirty one have been New York Times bestsellers, a half-dozen reaching the #1 position. He is the co-author, with Lincoln Child, of the Pendergast series of thrillers. He also writes nonfiction pieces for the New Yorker. He worked as an editor at the American Museum of Natural History in New York and taught nonfiction writing at Princeton University. He is president emeritus of the Authors Guild and serves on the Advisory Board of the School for Advanced Research in Santa Fe.

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Books By Douglas Preston