Raymond Barnett

Raymond Barnett graduated Magna cum Laude from Yale University in 1967, majoring in Chinese History. He studied the history of religions at Union Theological Seminary in New York City for a year, then was inducted into the U.S. Army and spent 1969-70 at Long Binh in Vietnam, acting as a medical records liaison between the Surgeon General’s Office at Headquarters, US Army, Vietnam and field hospitals throughout the country.

He completed the Ph.D. program in Zoology at Duke University in 1976, and taught biology the next 32 years at California State University, Chico, publishing articles in numerous scientific journals, before his retirement in 2008.

For a decade beginning in 1996, Dr. Barnett was instrumental in founding the Gateway Science Museum (formerly the Northern California Natural History Museum) as its Executive Director, making dozens of presentations on its behalf throughout Northern California and the state capital in Sacramento. The museum opened in 2010. At his retirement, the Board of Directors named Barnett “The Father of the Museum” (see Resolution).

In the midst of his science career, Dr. Barnett has retained his fascination with the cultures of China and Japan. He has traveled extensively in China, Japan, Taiwan, and Korea, both as a tour leader and, more frequently, as an independent traveler far off the tourist paths, sometimes alone, sometimes with intrepid travel buddies, where his knowledge of the Chinese language has been invaluable.

While his novels and nonfiction are often set in Asia, his diverse interests have resulted in publications set in Cuba and London as well. In 1988 Random House published his historical novel Jade and Fire, set in Peking in 1948. In 2004 Penguin/Putnam published his Relax, You're Already Home: everyday Taoist habits for a richer life, a primer on Taoism. The Return to Treasure Island, in which Long John Silver lures Jim Hawkins back to the Caribbean, came out from iUniverse in June 2011. The Death of Mycroft features an 89-year-old Sherlock Holmes racing to find and foil a Nazi spy who has murdered his brother Mycroft on the eve of D-Day; a publisher is being sought for this novel, as well as The China Ultimatum, a near-future thriller, and The T'ae Medallion, set in Korea during the Sino-Japanese War in 1894.