Welcome To
NewquistBooks.





This is the site for books by HP Newquist.

From science and music to business and brains, HP Newquist has written nearly two dozen books for both children and adults. His books have received numerous awards and citations, and they have been translated into languages as diverse as Korean, kanji, Arabic, Mandarin, and Indonesian.

This website contains links to all of Newquist's books, along with excerpts, links, and reviews. Just click a book from the list on the left.




HP Newquist's latest book is . . .

"HERE THERE BE MONSTERS"

Now Available And Nominated for A New England Booksellers Award!
Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.





Hundreds of years ago, there were many unexplored regions of the world. These areas were left blank by mapmakers . . . but something sinister was out there. Sailors claimed that these faraway places were inhabited by mysterious beasts and sea serpents. To warn of the dangers lurking on land and under the sea, mapmakers wrote words that would chill the hearts of even the bravest explorers: Here There Be Monsters.

One of those monsters caused fear in sailors all over the world. It had huge eyes, an enormous head, and a razor-sharp beak. Most terrifying of all were its tentacles and slithering arms, each lined with hundreds of suckers. The creature was strong enough to grab an entire ship and drag it down—along with all the men on it—to the dark depths of the ocean. This monster was the legendary kraken.

Weaving scientific discovery with historical accounts—along with the giant squid’s appearance in film and literature--Here There Be Monsters explores the mystery of this creature in fascinating detail. Readers will find that the monster remains hidden no longer, because scientists have finally seen the kraken with their own eyes . . . alive and rising up out of the sea.

KIRKUS REVIEWS writes: In an engaging, fast-paced text, Newquist chronicles how centuries-old myths about a sea monster known as the kraken transformed into the modern study of Architeuthis dux, the giant squid. Until the 1870s, when dozens of giant squid were sighted and more mysteriously washed up dead on coasts around the world, scientific knowledge of the creature was fragmentary, and speculations about it were based more on fiction than facts. Even now, despite enormous advances in underwater exploration technology, the creature remains shrouded in mystery. A live squid was not observed until 2004, by Japanese scientists. The author does a commendable job of packing a great deal of information into a compact narrative. He seamlessly moves among exploration of history, mythology, film, literature and scientific discovery; the discussions of how everyone from Alfred, Lord Tennyson to Jules Verne to Walt Disney kept the myth of the ferocious kraken alive in people's imaginations are especially interesting. The book is abundantly illustrated with charts, maps and photographs.

According to Newquist "One of the things that I write about in "Monsters" (as I call the book) is that humans have been to the moon six times and retrieved more than two thousand rocks. The moon is 250,000 miles away from earth. Yet scientists have collected only about two dozen specimens of the colossal squid, a creature that lives less than one mile under the ocean. It's very weird that we have more specimens from a place that is a quarter of a million miles away than we do of one of the biggest creatures on the earth, even though it lives right here in our oceans."








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Next up . . .

"THE BOOK OF BLOOD"
From Legends & Leeches to Vampires & Veins

Coming in 2012 from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt!





Written very much in the same vein as Newquist's award-winning The Great Brain Book, this look at blood explores the myths, the legends, and the very real science that have always surrounded the gallon of red, sticky liquid that courses through your body every minute of the day.

Readers will meet the doctors and scientists who have tried to unravel the secrets of blood for centuries, beasts who need to drink blood to live, the amazing things that blood does as it pulses alongs thousands of miles of vessels, and a few mythological creatures that might not be so mythical after all.

Due from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in Spring 2012.


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"THIS WILL KILL YOU: A Guide To The Ways In Which We Go"
Available from St. Martin's Press

It's a simple concept: how do things actually kill you?


Illustration by Jim Shinnick


There are lots of ways to go. Some of them incredibly unpleasant, some not so bad, and some that are actually kind of funny as long as they’re not happening to you.

Most of us are familiar with the events that cause our always untimely demise — diseases, accidents, lethal force — but we typically don’t know why such things make us die. For example, what really happens to the human body when you get hit by lightning? What does the dreaded Ebola virus really do to your insides? Why will four shots of whiskey make you happy but forty shots make you dead?

Since you’re definitely going to go, you might as well know what happens to you. That’s where this book comes in.

Written with co-author Rich Maloof, This Will Kill You is already featured in Men's Fitness, is a Book of the Month selection from Quality Paperback Book Club . . . and you can get much more over at the official website.





HP Newquist's "For Boys Only: The Biggest Baddest Book Ever" has won all kinds of awards and has been printed in special editions from China to Australia.
You can click right here to read more about it.



Latest news – it's available in a Chinese translation. That means a billion more people can read it! Check out the cover. A little different approach from the U.S. version . . .



And get this: There's a brand new Australian version, complete with facts about kangaroos, bushrangers, cricket teams, and snakes you never want to meet while out on walkabout. And it has the daily minimum requirement of 25% Australian Content! Crikey . . . now we have even more reasons to rush back to Australia – even if it's just to pick up a copy of the new book. Here's the advert:











HP Newquist

Illustration by Jim Shinnick