Princeton University Press Blog
Mind over chatter since 1905
Neil Downie, author of the
intriguingly titled ‘Vacuum Bazookas, Electric Rainbow Jelly, and 27 Other Saturday Science Projects’, has a new book out from Princeton in June called ‘The Ultimate Book of Saturday Science: The Very Best Backyard Science Experiments You Can Do Yourself’.
For a taster of the treats in store for you see Neil’s youtube video.
We were thrilled to read Jennifer Schuessler’s terrific story on the popular phenomenon of bar lecturing (and not in an intoxicated way, but a learned way!) Check out her story here. It looks like alcohol and science is a powerful (and successful) formula.
The Press is pleased to have had the pleasure of working with the Secret Science Club as they’ve hosted talks for a handful of our science authors. In particular, I was delighted to see friend-of-the-Press Dorian Devins at the SSC getting a mention!
If you can’t join us today at the Princeton Public Library for Michael Nielsen’s TEDx talk, I hope you enjoy this great talk for Authors@Google.
If you would like details on the PPL event tonight, click here: http://tedxsalonopensourcing.eventbrite.com/
You can also read a free excerpt from Michael’s new book Reinventing Discovery: The New Era of Networked Science here: http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/s9517.pdf
Even though the cover is reversed, that galley is easily recognizable as Reinventing Discovery by Michael Nielsen. We expect finished books in October, but so far most of the reactions have been, well, you can see for yourself…
Via our friends at Citizen Science Quarterly.
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You will notice we have slightly changed the way we are producing Princeton Global Science. The first two issues were published all at once on the 1st and 15th of the month, but for the past two weeks, we have posted articles as they were ready. So today, I am posting more or less a table of contents to highlight these contributions.
Paul Nahin contributes a video log about his publishing relationship with with Princeton University Press and his writing process — it turns out he writes a page a day, no matter what. Paul has written eight books for PUP and he describes the behind-the-scenes wrangling that goes into writing his books and the cover designs for three of them.
We also have a dialogue with Paul Thagard, author of The Brain and the Meaning of Life, in which he describes how a book that was originally conceived as an assessment of current research in neuroscience shifted to tackle one of the largest philosophical questions — what is the meaning of life?
Our natural history guides are a large part of our publishing program and with two new guides publishing in October, it makes sense that our Princeton Field Guide series is highlighted this issue. Science Group Publisher Robert Kirk describes the history of this popular series and we have features on the most recent additions The Princeton Field Guide to Dinosaurs by Gregory S. Paul and Parrots of the World by Joseph M. Forshaw with illustrations by Frank Knight.
Click here to view the daily dinosaur feature which draws on information and images from The Princeton Field Guide to Dinosaurs and click here for a sneak peek of the page layout and gorgeous illustrations from Parrots of the World.
As always, we also include a classic text from Princeton University Press history. This issue’s selection from A Century of Books is Finite Dimensional Vector Spaces by Paul R. Halmos. |
Next week we will launch Princeton Global Science on this blog. Hope you will join us on September 1st for original content from from our science editors and authors. More to come!
| What is the Science Book Challenge you ask? Well, according to the Scienticity site:
The Science Book Challenge is easy as pi: read 3 (or 3.14!) science books during 2010, then tell us about the books you’ve read and help spread science literacy. Sounds like an admirable pursuit and you have approximately 5 months left to complete the task. Here are some good PUP books to help you reach your goal: |
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| The Little Book of String Theory | How to Find a Habitable Planet | What’s Eating You?: People and Parasites |
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| Honeybee Democracy | The Princeton Field Guide to Dinosaurs | Darwin in Galápagos: Footsteps to a New World |
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| Delete: The Virtue of Forgetting in the Digital Age | The Poison King: The Life and Legend of Mithradates, Rome’s Deadliest Enemy | On Fact and Fraud: Cautionary Tales from the Front Lines of Science |
David Goodstein, author of On Fact and Fraud, spoke at Town Hall Seattle last month and his talk is the featured segment for Terry Tazioli’s Author’s Hour.
Enjoy the lecture, then pick up a copy of On Fact and Fraud.
These are the best-selling books for the past week.
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1177 BC: The Year Civilization Collapsed by Eric H. Cline |
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Philology: The Forgotten Origins of the Modern Humanities by James Turner |
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Blind Spots: Why We Fail to Do What’s Right and What to Do about It by Max H. Bazerman and Ann E. Tenbrunsel |
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Tesla: Inventor of the Electrical Age by W. Bernard Carlson |
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Why Government Fails So Often: And How It Can Do Better by Peter H. Schuck |
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Everyday Calculus: Discovering the Hidden Math All around Us by Oscar E. Fernandez |
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On Bullshit by Harry G. Frankfurt |
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The I Ching or Book of Changes by Hellmut Wilhelm and Cary F. Baynes |
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Bumblebees of North America: An Identification Guide by Paul H. Williams, Robbin W. Thorp, Leif L. Richardson, and Sheila R. Colla |
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The Transformation of the World: A Global History of the Nineteenth Century by Jürgen Osterhammel (trans. Patrick Camiller) |
