Dear friends: I'm ecstatic to announce that my first book was just named a finalist for the Los Angeles Times book prize for 2005 in the category of "science and technology." The five finalists are:
Sean B. Carroll, Endless Forms Most Beautiful: The New Science of Evo Devo and the Making of the Animal Kingdom (W.W. Norton)
Mariana Gosnell, Ice: The Nature, the History, and the Uses of an Astonishing Substance (Alfred A. Knopf)
Brad Matsen, Descent: The Heroic Discovery of the Abyss (Pantheon Books)
Chris Mooney, The Republican War on Science (Basic Books)
Diana Preston, Before the Fallout: From Marie Curie to Hiroshima (Walker & Company)
May the best writer win. The official prize will be announced on April 28 in Los Angeles....
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Last night she was announced winner of the Los Angeles Times book prize in science and technology for her book Before the Fallout: From Marie Curie to Hiroshima, which I haven't read but which I'm certain is very deserving of the distinction. Afterwards, Sean Carroll and I cried into our beers....…
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'cept these folks:
Slate, on Janet Browne's new edition of Origin and on Darwin as a writer. Jonah's digging it too; and so is fellow Virginian Jason.
The Economist on the globalizing trend of evolution-creationism debates
The Chronicle of Higher Education dishes up an essay that discusses these…
Wow! Fantastic! Congratulations! You deserve it!
Congratulations. May the nomination set you on the path to many more book tours.
Brad Matsen actually did a bit of writing for me [I was an editor] a quarter century ago! Since then he's been writing a string of books that include topics about evolution and much about the sea. We both lived in Alaska then, next to the sea.
Congratulations, Chris, but you've got good competition with Carroll.
Chris,
I don't see how I can be the first to tell you this, but you'll want to read the article "Political Science" in this week's New Yorker. I've only read the first two pages, and they haven't yet mentioned your book yet. They start out with how the Bush administration is opposing a vacine against cancer.
Congratulations. Haven't read your book yet, Chris but it's on my to do list. I thought science writing reached a new low with Brad Matsen's Descent. har. A wonderful book chronicling Beebe's human plumb-line to the abyss. Due to personality conflict there was often nearly as much pressure inside that bathysphere as outside. You're in great company.
Congratulations, Chris! The book deserves a few awards. Still...
As a science writer myself (books for young readers, http://www.fredbortz.com), I think the book is in the wrong category. It's hard enough for science books to get recognition. They shouldn't have to compete for a science book award with books that are mainly about politics.
If people like me make the final selection, you won't win. That doesn't mean I don't admire the book. (See my review at http://www.scienceshelf.com/RepublicanWaronScience.htm)
It's kind of like the Oscars: just getting nominated is a monumental honor. Congratulations, indeed. Considering the company your in (my suspicion is your biggest competition may be Ice), I hope you've already poured yourself a nice glass of single malt.
Congratulations. I have only read your's and Sean Carrolls's and enjoyed both but I have to agree with John Wilkins, Carroll will be tough to beat.
Congratulations! Good competition? Perhaps. But how many of them have been on the Daily Show?!
If you loose to a book about ice I'll stop reading your blog...
Only kidding! Congratulations!
I just sent email to New Yorker
regarding its flagrant failure to mention your book in its current
article on the Repubican attack on science. I find they often refuse to acknowledge someone is ahead of them on a topic; they often deign not to condescend to mentioning or refinforcing the work of other writers.
Thanks to you all. I figure if the judges want a pure science book, then I'm probably not their guy. But if they think the politics of science was the most important topic of 2005, well....
Increasingly I would like to know the comparative status & health of science and politics in Europe (and Canada) and whether they have anything like the problems we do with attacks on evolution and rightwing business+religion efforts to subvert and control scientific commissions in U. S. Suggest references? Books? Articles? Thank you.
Art, thank you. I found the New Yorker article quite derivative. It mentioned neither myself *nor* the work of the Union of Concerned Scientists. I'd like to hear the reactions of others, though, who have read both my book and the New Yorker piece.
Chris, it's an incredible honor for a first book. I agree with you, if the judges think the political theme in general is one of the significant ideas of the last few years, then you have a shot. Odds are, however, that Carroll will win. Sentiment and ideology might be on your side, though.
Matt,
Who the hell knows, right? Who knew Crash was going to win best picture? The upshot is that I'm just extremely happy to be nominated.