Daniel Stone, author portrait
© Spencer Millsap

Daniel Stone

Daniel Stone is a writer on science, history, and the environment, as well as the author of Sinkable and the national bestseller The Food Explorer. He is a professor of environmental science and policy at Johns Hopkins University, a Smithsonian distinguished fellow, a former senior editor for National Geographic, and a former White House correspondent for Newsweek. He lives in Atlanta with his wife and two sons.
American Poison
The Food Explorer

Books

American Poison
The Food Explorer

Register for the 2026 Penguin Random House First-Year Experience® Conference Author Events!

Penguin Random House Author Events at the 45th Annual First-Year Experience® Conference February 15-18, 2026 Seattle, Washington Hyatt Regency Seattle Click Here to RSVP A complimentary meal and a limited number of books will be available to attendees. Each event will also be followed by an author signing. Interested in hosting one of these authors at

Read more

What Students Will Be Reading: Campus Common Reading Roundup, 2025-26

With the fall semester in full swing, colleges and universities around the country have announced their Common Reading books for the upcoming 2025-26 academic year. We’ve compiled a list of over 284 programs and their title selections from publicly available sources, which you can download here: First-Year Reading 2025-26. We will continue to update this

Read more

2026 Catalog for First-Year & Common Reading

We are delighted to present our new First-Year & Common Reading Catalog for 2026! From award-winning fiction, poetry, memoir, and biography to new books about the environment, current events, history, public health, science, social justice, student success, and technology, the titles presented in our common reading catalog will have students not only eagerly flipping through

Read more

FROM THE PAGE: An excerpt from Daniel Stone’s American Poison

From the national bestselling author of The Food Explorer comes the untold story of Alice Hamilton, a trailblazing doctor and public health activist who took on the booming auto industry—and the deadly invention of leaded gasoline, which would poison millions of people across America.   1 Alice Hamilton in 1915. Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1919 For as long as

Read more