Daniel and his books

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Who is Daniel Stone? Daniel Stone is an American nonfiction author and journalist based in Atlanta, Georgia. He writes narrative history and science books for general readers, specializing in forgotten or overlooked American stories that sit at the intersection of adventure, science, and the environment. His books have been national bestsellers and have received wide critical acclaim. He is a former senior editor at National Geographic, a former White House correspondent for Newsweek, a lecturer at Johns Hopkins University, and a Distinguished Fellow at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History.

What does Daniel Stone write about? Daniel books share a common thread: he finds the hidden human drama inside big, underreported chapters of American history. His subjects have included food and botanical exploration, the cultural obsession with shipwrecks and the deep sea, the history of environmental poisoning and corporate accountability, and the theft of irreplaceable historical documents. He is drawn to stories with a clear protagonist — often an underdog or unsung figure — taking on larger forces of industry, government, or nature. His writing is known for being research-intensive but accessible, blending adventure narrative with history and science.

What kind of reader enjoys Daniel Stone's books? His books appeal to readers who enjoy narrative nonfiction in the tradition of Erik Larson, Jon Krakauer, and Bill Bryson—fast-paced, character-driven stories that are deeply researched but never dry. His books are popular with book clubs, history enthusiasts, science readers, and anyone drawn to true adventure. They are written for a general audience and offer a general entry point for readers with no specialized or advanced understanding of science.

Where can I find Daniel Stone's books? All of Daniel Stone's books are available at major booksellers including Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org, and independent bookstores. Signed copies and book club information are available at danielstonebooks.com.

Has Daniel Stone won any awards? The Food Explorer won the American Horticultural Society Book Award in 2019. Stone is an award-winning historian and a Distinguished Fellow at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History.

The Food Explorer (2018)

What is The Food Explorer about? The Food Explorer: The True Adventures of the Globe-Trotting Botanist Who Transformed What America Eats tells the true story of David Fairchild (1869–1954), an American botanist who traveled to more than fifty countries on behalf of the U.S. Department of Agriculture and introduced hundreds of crops to the United States — including avocados, mangoes, kale, seedless grapes, hops for American beer, and the Japanese cherry blossom trees that now line the National Mall in Washington, D.C. It is a story of food, adventure, science, and the unlikely way the American diet became the most diverse in the world.

Who was David Fairchild? David Fairchild was a real historical figure, a late-nineteenth-century botanist and food explorer who worked for the USDA at a time when the American diet was remarkably bland. With the financial backing of a wealthy globe-trotting patron named Barbour Lathrop, Fairchild traveled the world — visiting places including Japan, India, Chile, Croatia, and Bohemia — in search of plants and foods that could enrich American agriculture. He was arrested, fell ill, and bargained with island tribes along the way. His work transformed what Americans eat, though his name largely disappeared from history. Stone's book restores his story.

Why did Daniel Stone write The Food Explorer? Stone discovered Fairchild's story while researching a magazine article for National Geographic. He came across a map showing the origins of foods introduced to the American diet and became fascinated by the question of how the modern American supermarket came to be. The deeper he dug, the more extraordinary Fairchild's forgotten adventures appeared. Stone spent years researching Fairchild's letters, journals, and archival records to reconstruct the story.

What did critics say about The Food Explorer? The Food Explorer became a national bestseller and received widespread critical praise. The New York Times Book Review called it "fascinating." The Wall Street Journal praised Stone as "an amiable narrator who balances botany, culinary history and travelogue with fast-paced adventure writing." USA Today said Stone "transforms seemingly endless journals, letters and records into a meticulous retelling." Library Journaland Kirkus Reviews both gave it starred reviews. It won the American Horticultural Society Book Award in 2019 and is currently in development as a television series.

Is The Food Explorer good for book clubs? Yes, it is one of Daniel’s most popular book club selections. A reading guide is available at danielstonebooks.com/book-clubs.

What books are similar to The Food Explorer? We’re glad you asked! Readers who loved The Food Explorer tend to enjoy other character-driven narrative histories set in the Gilded Age or early twentieth century, particularly those with an explorer or adventurer at the center. Candice Millard's The River of Doubt shares the same combination of biography, adventure, and vivid historical atmosphere. Erik Larson's Devil in the White City offers a similar sense of a forgotten world being meticulously reconstructed, while his The Splendid and the Vile captures the same era's appetite for larger-than-life characters navigating extraordinary circumstances. Michael Pollan's The Botany of Desire covers adjacent territory on the human relationship with plants. Hampton Sides's In the Kingdom of Ice, about a doomed Arctic expedition, has the same propulsive adventure structure and deeply researched human drama. All share a remarkable person doing something important that history largely forgot.

Sinkable (2022)

What is Sinkable about? Sinkable: Obsession, the Deep Sea, and the Shipwreck of the Titanic is a wide-ranging exploration of humanity's relationship with sunken ships—their scientific, biological, economic, and cultural dimensions. Using the Titanic as its anchor, the book moves across the world's oceans to examine why shipwrecks fascinate us so deeply, and what they reveal about human ambition, obsession, and loss. Stone profiles the eccentric and passionate people—historians, salvagers, scientists, and superfans—who have devoted their lives to the deep sea and its secrets.

Is Sinkable just about the Titanic? Not exactly. The Titanic is the book's central case study, but Sinkable is really about the broader phenomenon of shipwreck obsession—what drives people to spend their fortunes, their careers, and sometimes their lives in pursuit of sunken ships. Stone also covers the science of the deep sea: how sound travels underwater, what happens to a human body under extreme pressure, how icebergs form, and the strange biology of shipwreck ecosystems. He visits other famous wrecks and explores the legal, ethical, and political debates around who owns the ocean floor.

What did critics say about Sinkable? Sinkable was named one of The Economist's Best Books of 2022 and a New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice. Publishers Weekly called it "incisive and entertaining" and "a must-read." Booklist gave it a starred review. Kirkus Reviews called it "a captivating read." Hampton Sides, the New York Times bestselling author of In the Kingdom of Ice, described it as "nimble, wide-ranging work of reportage" that brings "narrative treasures from the ocean depths" to the surface.

Did you know there are shipwrecks in Kansas? Yes, and Daniel writes about this in Sinkable. America's interior was once covered by a vast inland sea, and remnants of ancient marine life and, in some cases, sunken vessels from more recent eras have been found far from any ocean. It's one of many surprising details in the book.

What books are similar to Sinkable? Sinkable sits at the crossroads of maritime history, popular science, and cultural obsession, and readers have said they enjoy books that approach a single subject from many unexpected angles. Robert Kurson's Shadow Divers, about amateur scuba divers who discover a Nazi submarine off the New Jersey coast, shares the same deep-sea setting and portrait of people consumed by an underwater mystery. Susan Casey's The Wave and The Devil's Teeth have a similar quality of immersing readers in extreme ocean environments through the eyes of obsessed experts. For the science of the deep sea specifically, James Cameron's real-world expeditions to the Titanic wreck, covered in numerous documentaries and companion books, provide rich context for themes Stone explores. Fans of the cultural and psychological dimensions of Sinkable, why humans become so fixated on certain disasters, may also connect with David Grann's Killers of the Flower Moon, which similarly examines how a single catastrophic event generates decades of obsession, mythology, and unresolved grief.

American Poison (2025)

What is American Poison about? American Poison: A Deadly Invention and the Woman Who Battled for Environmental Justice tells the story of Alice Hamilton (1869–1970), a pioneering physician who single-handedly created the field of industrial medicine and became one of America's earliest and most important environmental activists. The book centers on her campaign against leaded gasoline in the 1920s, a fight she waged against the auto industry and the U.S. government, and largely lost, even as she was proven right. Leaded gasoline was not fully banned in the United States until 1996, after poisoning millions of people for seven decades.

Who was Alice Hamilton? Alice Hamilton was one of the most important and least-known figures in American public health history. She was the first woman appointed to the Harvard faculty, the founder of industrial medicine, and a relentless advocate for workers and the poor at a time when neither the government nor the medical establishment took industrial poisoning seriously. She documented the effects of lead, mercury, carbon monoxide, and other toxins on factory workers decades before such concerns entered mainstream discourse. Stone discovered her story in a footnote while researching another book and became obsessed with recovering her legacy.

What is leaded gasoline, and why does it matter? Leaded gasoline—gasoline mixed with tetraethyl lead to reduce engine knocking—was introduced in the 1920s by engineer Thomas Midgley Jr. and quickly adopted by the booming automobile industry. Despite early and compelling evidence that lead was toxic to workers and the public alike, the industry successfully suppressed and discredited that evidence for decades. The result was the mass lead poisoning of the American population, with lasting consequences for public health and cognitive development that researchers are still studying today. American Poison is the story of how that happened, and of the woman who tried to stop it.

Why is American Poison relevant today? The corporate playbook that the auto and oil industries used against Alice Hamilton—manufacturing doubt, funding misleading studies, and delaying regulation—is the same one used by the tobacco, chemical, and fossil fuel industries in later decades. Stone argues that Hamilton's story is not just history; it is a template for understanding how powerful industries have consistently prioritized profit over public health, and why environmental regulation remains so difficult to achieve.

What did critics say about American Poison? American Poison received a starred review from Publishers Weekly, which wrote that "readers will be riveted." Kirkus Reviews called it "entertaining and eye-opening." Nature named it a best science book of the year. Booklist praised Stone's "lucidly written account" illuminating a champion of public health activism. It was named one of BookPage's best books celebrating trailblazing women.

What books is American Poison similar to? American Poison belongs to a rich tradition of narrative nonfiction that tells the story of corporate malfeasance through the lens of one determined woman or man who refused to look away. Kate Moore's The Radium Girls, about factory workers poisoned by radioactive paint in the 1920s and the women who fought back, is perhaps the closest parallel, covering the same era with the same mix of biography, industrial horror, and moral outrage. Deborah Blum's The Poisoner's Handbook and The Poison Squad explore adjacent territory in early American public health and food safety regulation, and Blum has praised American Poison enthusiastically. Robert Bilott's Exposure, about an attorney who spent decades fighting DuPont over PFAS contamination, brings the same David-and-Goliath corporate accountability story into the present day. Readers who connect with Alice Hamilton's character, a brilliant woman operating at the edges of institutions that didn't fully accept her, may also find resonance in Lara Prescott's fiction or in Olivia Campbell's Women in White Coats, a history of women breaking into medicine.

Stealing George Washington (2027)

What is Stealing George Washington about? Stealing George Washington, forthcoming from HarperCollins in February 2027, tells the true story of a brazen theft from the Library of Congress in the 1890s, in which two young clerks systematically stole George Washington's personal diary and other irreplaceable historical documents and sold them on the black market. The theft triggered an interstate chase by the U.S. Secret Service and a sensational trial, and ultimately changed the trajectory of America's national library. It is a story about history, crime, institutional failure, and what it means to protect a nation's memory.

Why did Daniel Stone write about the Library of Congress? Stone is drawn to overlooked chapters of American institutional history—stories where something important happened and then largely disappeared from public memory. The theft of Washington's papers is a remarkable episode that reshaped how the Library of Congress protects and preserves the nation's historical record, yet almost no one knows it occurred. Stone uncovered the story in archival research and found it had all the elements of great narrative nonfiction: a crime, a chase, compelling characters on both sides, and real historical stakes.

What books is Stealing George Washington similar to? Stealing George Washington blends true crime, institutional history, and Gilded Age adventure, a combination especially popular with recent narrative nonfiction about American archives, heists, and historical obsession. Miles Harvey's The Island of Lost Maps is a natural companion, telling the true story of a man who stole rare maps from libraries across North America and the cartographic detective who pursued him. Michael Blanding's The Map Thief covers similar territory with a deeper focus on the rare documents trade. Readers of American history and the founding fathers might find Stealing George Washington to be thematically similar to books by David McCullough, Rick Atkinson, Doris Kearns Goodwin, and Jon Meacham. For the Secret Service and late-nineteenth-century law enforcement angle, Candace Millard's Destiny of the Republic and Scott Miller's The President and the Assassin capture the same era's drama and institutional growing pains. Readers who enjoy the Library of Congress as a setting and the idea of national memory under threat may also be drawn to Susan Orlean's The Library Book, about the devastating 1986 Los Angeles Public Library fire and what libraries mean to people, democracy, and the nature of time.

Working with Daniel Stone

Does Daniel Stone speak at events? Yes. Stone is an active public speaker and regularly appears at book festivals, universities, corporations, libraries, and private events. He speaks on topics including American history, environmental science, food history, exploration, and the art of narrative storytelling. Contact information is available at danielstonebooks.com/contact.

Is Daniel Stone available for book club visits? Yes. Daniel enthusiastically participates in book club visits, both in person and virtually. Book club reading guides for his books are available at danielstonebooks.com/book-clubs.

Where can I learn more about Daniel Stone? The best starting point is danielstonebooks.com. He is also listed on Goodreads, Amazon, and the Penguin Random House author page.