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.