Nancy Marie Brown

Science      Travel      Sagas

Nancy Marie Brown has just published The Far Traveler: Voyages of a Viking Woman (Harcourt Books), the saga of an adventurous woman who explored America a thousand years ago and of the archaeologists who are bringing her world to life.

"A marvelously sneaky history of the Viking mind," said Kirkus Reviews. "A nimble synthesis of the literary and the scientific that will charm even readers who didn't know they were interested."

The New York Times Book Review called The Far Traveler a "snappily written biography of a time and place. ... Brown pursues Gudrid out of admiration for a woman bold and wise. I eagerly pursued this book, which is as much about Brown's adventures as Gudrid's, for the very same reasons."

According to Conde Nast's Traveler, The Far Traveler is among "The New Classics" of adventure writing, "one of the season's great travel reads."

Noted ALA Booklist, "Even more compelling than the journeys themselves is the wealth of information providing illuminating details of a woman's place in both a flourishing and a declining Viking society."

"A powerful book," said a reader from Iceland. "Thanks to Nancy Marie Brown's vivid imagination, detailed research, and, above all, skilful narration, the brave world of Gudrid finally gets the treatment it truly deserves."

See the reviews... Meet the author or download a podcast... Read an excerpt from the prologue... Travel to Gudrid's world... View a map of Gudrid's travels...

Nancy Marie Brown has published two previous books. Readers called her first book, A Good Horse Has No Color: Searching Iceland for the Perfect Horse (Stackpole Books, 2001) "rich and transporting, a true saga." Read more about A Good Horse Has No Color...

Her second book, Mendel in the Kitchen: A Scientist's View of Genetically Modified Foods (Joseph Henry Press, 2004), co-authored with Nina Fedoroff, "puts the science back into dilemmas posed by genetically engineered foods," a reviewer said. Read more about Mendel in the Kitchen...

Author photo: Jennifer Anne Tucker and Gerald Lang

Nancy Marie Brown has over 25 years' experience as a writer and editor. She holds a B.A. in English (Writing Option) and an M.A. in Comparative Literature, both from Penn State University. From 1981 to 2003, she covered science and scholarship in all disciplines for Research/Penn State magazine. Here are some of her favorites:

Practical Education, January 2002. Studying the Icelandic sagas as a way to make a life.
The Agateer, September 2001. The lore of agates and the science of ignorance.
Flowers Out of Glass, September 1999. Glass science in the service of art: saving the Harvard Glass Flowers Collection.
Images of the Horse, September 1999. An artist's eye and his passion for technology.
Our Place in the Universe, September 1997. Why you should bother to watch a comet.
The Wild Mares of Assateague, March 1995. The stallion doesn't lead his herd, nor sire all the foals.
The Chemistry of Caterpillar Guts, September 1995. An oak chewed on by gypsy moths is not defenseless, but it may be ill-advised.
The Lesson of the Lock, September 1991. When students teach their teacher.
In the Interest of Public Safety, March 1990. Why a scientist scrambles into smoking volcanoes.
The Fractal Dances of Nature, March 1988. When fractals were new and "frighteningly lovely."
Easy Money: Gambling in America, December 1986. The risk to the gambler versus the risk to society.

Nancy Marie Brown now lives in Vermont with her husband, the writer Charles Fergus, author of 19 books about nature and the outdoors. They have four Icelandic horses and two rough-shooting dogs. Their son, William, attends Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

e-mail: nmb@nasw.org