species whose evolutionary history differs dramatically from that of mammals. He is currently Dean of Graduate House at St Paul's College, Sydney, and a Research Associate of the Department of Zoology at the University of Oxford. He was previously Fellow in Biology at Magdalen College, Oxford.
Martinho-Truswell applied the “Page 99 Test” to his new book, The Parrot in the Mirror: How evolving to be like birds makes us human, and reported the following:
Page 99 of my book is, for better or worse, right between two sections. It is divided almost exactly in half, with the first part concluding a several-page discussion of how different groups of birds raise their young, and why you don’t see baby pigeons (or rather, why you don’t think you do). The second half of the page is the opening paragraph of the next section, which discusses how all birds are classified into a few small groups and one big group, and why that big group (the songbirds) makes talking about birds in general terms a bit tricky. Both are good sections, I just wish page 99 didn’t get so rudely split for this test!Visit Antone Martinho-Truswell's website.
The Page 99 Test is probably not the best way to judge my book! Page 98, which contains the real denouement of my baby pigeon section, and a great photo of a baby pigeon, would be perfect! That section on baby pigeons is really reflective of the book – I try to make the science approachable and engaging for the reader with examples and puzzles from daily life – like why you don’t see baby pigeons and why that is related to how humans raise our own children! The trouble with 99 is that it gets only the final words of that section, which is much more like the bulk of the book, and then the start of the classification section, which is not. That classification section is interesting enough, but it is only about a page and a half long, and is really just doing shovel work to get the reader ready for the big point of Chapter 4 – which is that once you strip away a few small, specific groups of birds, the overwhelming majority share something really important and interesting with us humans: they monogamously mate and both parents rear their babies together.
All that said, my hope would be that page 99 does show the browser two things: first, with the pigeon bit, that the book is engaging and approachable, and filled with interesting questions, and second, with the classification bit, that it is built on good, hard science. So, I like page 99, but I hope readers tackle the whole book!
--Marshal Zeringue
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