The Book of Science and Antiquities

Thomas Keneally, the bestselling author of The Daughters of Mars and Schindler&;s List, returns with an exquisite exploration of community and country, love and morality, taking place in both prehistoric and modern Australia.An award-winning documentary filmmaker, Shelby Apple is obsessed with reimagining the full story of the Learned Man&;a prehistoric man whose remains are believed to be the link between Africa and ancient Australia. From Vietnam to northern Africa and the Australian Outback, Shelby searches for understanding of this enigmatic man from the ancient past, unaware that the two men share a great deal in common. Some 40,000 years in the past, the Learned Man has made his home alongside other members of his tribe. Complex and deeply introspective, he reveres tradition, loyalty, and respect for his ancestors. Willing to sacrifice himself for the greater good, the Learned Man cannot conceive that a man millennia later could relate to him in heart and feeling. In this &;meditation on last things, but still electric with life, passion and appetite&; (The Australian), Thomas Keneally weaves an extraordinary dual narrative that effortlessly transports you around the world and across time, offering &;a hymn to idealism and to human development&; (Sydney Morning Herald).

A novel of breath-taking reach and inspired imagination, drawing on the discovery of Australia's oldest known human inhabitant. Shade lives peaceably with his second wife on the shores of a bountiful lake. Conscious of ageing but still vigorous, when called on by the spirit ancestors to sacrifice himself for the sake of his clan, he knows he must obey. Over 40,000 years later, Shade's skeleton is unearthed near the now dry Lake Learned in New South Wales. The sensational discovery of so-called 'Learned Man' rewrites the history of Australia and fuels the Aboriginal people's claim to be the land's rightful owners - and has a lasting impact on a young documentary maker, Shelby Apple, who gets caught up in the fate of Learned's remains. When Shelby, too, faces mortality and looks back on his life, Learned stands as an enduring spirit, a fellow player in the long, ever-evolving story of humankind.