The Science Factory
Frankfurt Book Fair 2016
CONTENTS NEW DEALS Wanted Dead and Alive by Tanya Bub & Jeffrey Bub 1 Water World by Sarah Dry 2 The Pleasure Shock by Lone Frank 3 Human Origins by Lee Sanghee & Yoon Shinyoung 4 FORTHCOMING TITLES The Reality Wars by Adam Becker 5 This Fatal Game by Jesse Bering 6 The Truth About Language by Michael Corballis 7 Speech Odyssey by Trevor Cox 8 Flavour by Bob Holmes 9 The Enlightened Mr Parkinson by Cherry Lewis 10 Flare by Abby Norman 11 How to be a Stoic by Massimo Pigliucci 12 Inferior by Angela Saini 13 Surfing Spacetime by Govert Schilling 14 Darwin Comes to Town by Menno Schilthuizen 15 Inheritors of the Earth by Chris Thomas 16 Override by Caroline Williams 17 RECENTLY PUBLISHED The Appointment by Graham Easton 18 Authentic by Stephen Joseph 19 Siddhartha’s Brain by James Kingsland 20 The Perfect Bet by Adam Kucharski 21 The Great Invention by Ehsan Masood 22 Restless Creatures by Matt Wilkinson 23 BACKLIST TITLES The Edge of Physics by Anil Ananthaswamy 24 The Man Who Wasn’t There by Anil Ananthaswamy 24 Who Killed Professor X? by Thodoris Andriopoulos 24 Atomic by Jim Baggott 25 Farewell to Reality by Jim Baggott 25 The Belief Instinct by Jesse Bering 25 Five Billion Years of Solitude by Lee Billings 26 The Man Who Ran the Moon by Piers Bizony 26 Wetware by Dennis Bray 26 A Piece of the Sun by Daniel Clery 27 The Egg and Sperm Race by Matthew Cobb 27 The Resistance by Matthew Cobb 27 Eleven Days in August by Matthew Cobb 28 Life’s Greatest Secret by Matthew Cobb 28 From Cells to Civilizations by Enrico Coen 28 Sonic Wonderland by Trevor Cox 29 How to Change Minds about Our Changing Climate by Seth Darling & Douglas Sisterson 29 Starman by Jamie Doran & Piers Bizony 29 The Devil’s Derivatives by Nicholas Dunbar 30 How Intelligence Happens by John Duncan 30 Mindfield by Lone Frank 30 My Beautiful Genome by Lone Frank 31
The Science Factory
Frankfurt Book Fair 2016
Flat Earth by Christine Garwood 31 The Improbability Principle by David Hand 31 Only the Longest Threads by Tasneem Zehra Husain 32 Wolves by Simon Ings 32 Heaven’s Bankers by Harris Irfan 32 What Doesn’t Kill Us by Stephen Joseph 33 The Naked Surgeon by Samer Nashef 33 Incoming! by Ted Nield 33 Underlands by Ted Nield 34 Reinventing Discovery by Michael Nielsen 34 The Science of Doctor Who by Paul Parsons 34 The End of Plagues by John Rhodes 35 Massive by Ian Sample 35 The Poppy by Nicholas J. Saunders 35 Nature’s Nether Regions by Menno Schilthuizen 36 Doomsday Men by P. D. Smith 36 The Gap by Thomas Suddendorf 36 How to Make a Zombie by Frank Swain 37 Body by Darwin by Jeremy Taylor 37 The Edge of the Sky by Roberto Trotta 37 Selected by Mark Van Vugt & Anjana Ahuja 38 The Evolutionary World by Geerat J. Vermeij 38 WORLD RIGHTS DEALS 39–40 FOREIGN LANGUAGE CO-AGENTS 41
For further information about translation rights in all titles in this catalogue, please contact Louisa Pritchard at Table 8N or Peter Tallack at Table 7N in the Literary Agents & Scouts Centre (‘LitAg’) (Hall 6.3). Louisa Pritchard mobile: +44 (0)7714 721 787 email: louisa@louisapritchard.co.uk Peter Tallack mobile: m: +49 (0)151 4246 1109 email: peter@sciencefactory.co.uk
* Including world rights sales not detailed in the rights list.
The Science Factory
Frankfurt Book Fair 2016
NEW DEALS
WANTED DEAD AND ALIVE A Wild Ride into the Heart of the Quantum World TANYA BUB & JEFFREY BUB
A thought experiment in the form of a comic: an adventure undertaken from the safety of your armchair into the weird world of quantum entanglement, the greatest mystery of our time. Imagine you have two coins. Flip them starting heads up, they land opposite (one heads, one tails). Flip them starting any other way, they land the same (both heads or both tails). It sounds straightforward enough. But if NASA and Google and Apple and all the smartest people in the world had an unlimited budget and unlimited time, they couldn’t build coins like these, or even write a program that runs on two separate computers to simulate the correlation of these coins. Yet in the world of the very small, elementary particles can do what NASA, Google, Apple and all the smartest people in the world can’t. One particle (or ‘coin’) can seemingly influence another in an instantaneous, faster-than-light way without anything passing between them. Were they to fly off to opposite ends of the Universe, they would still act in unison, as if transcending space and time. This seemingly magical correlation – dubbed ‘entanglement’ by Erwin Schrödinger – lies at the heart of what is so mysterious about quantum theory. Funny, addictive and mind-bending, WANTED DEAD AND ALIVE is a uniquely imaginative comic that places a pair of quantum coins in your hands so that you can grapple firsthand with entanglement and its bewildering consequences. You’ll finally experience that wonderful ‘Aha!’ moment you get from properly understanding why the world doesn’t work the way you think it does. And you’ll get to see how this magical correlation allows us to do some pretty cool and crazy stuff such as write uncrackable codes, perform fantastically fast computations and teleport particles. It’s the only book about quantum theory you ever need to read, a brilliantly original guide to both the true nature of reality and a technological revolution that looks set to transform our lives. TANYA BUB has a degrees in philosophy of science from McGill University and fine arts from the Emily Carr University of Art and Design in Vancouver. She is the founder of 48th Ave Productions, a web development company. JEFFREY BUB is Distinguished University Professor at the University of Maryland. He studied physics with David Bohm at Birkbeck College and philosophy of science with Karl Popper and Imre Lakatos at the London School of Economics. An expert on the conceptual foundations of quantum mechanics, he is the author of two academic books: INTERPRETING THE QUANTUM WORLD (CUP, 1997), which won the prestigious Lakatos Award in 1998, and BANANA WORLD (OUP, 2016). Publisher: Princeton University Press (Editor: Eric Henney) Delivery: 31 December 2016 Publication: Autumn 2017 Status: Proposal and sample spreads Length: 220–260 pages All rights available excluding World English Language (Princeton University Press) 1
The Science Factory
Frankfurt Book Fair 2016
NEW DEALS
WATER WORLD The Story of the Scientists Who Unravelled the Mysteries of Our Seas, Glaciers and Atmosphere — and Made the Planet Whole SARAH DRY Praise for THE NEWTON PAPERS Engaging – ECONOMIST A fresh and readable chronicle of the tortuous route that Newton’s manuscript took to being made public – NATURE
How we unravelled the mysteries of Earth's water – and in doing so discovered a global climate. We’re taught early on about the importance of water, about how our bodies are largely made up of H2O and how Earth is the blue planet. Water makes life possible, and we seek evidence of its traces when exploring Mars, distant moons and exoplanets. Less well-known is how the extraordinary forms of water that pervade our environment – clouds, glaciers, waves, rain – not only give rise to life but, more importantly, create, sustain and change the climate on which life depends. Starting in the 1850s, with the advent of large-scale international meteorological efforts, and ending in the present day, WATER WORLD tells the story of how we sought to understand the weather – and ended up discovering a global climate. Through the adventures of the scientists who pioneered this new climate science, Sarah Dry weaves a gripping tale of how we came to our acute awareness of the interconnectedness of all things on our planet. Along the way we learn how storms in the Southern Ocean generate waves that end up on Alaskan beaches; how water vapour in the atmosphere creates a heat blanket, protecting the planet from the cold of interstellar space; how isotopes in rainwater circulate throughout the globe, preserving evidence of temperature changes across space and time – and much more.. The first book on water to focus exclusively on the physics of the environment, WATER WORLD brings this important science to life by getting as close as possible to the remarkable individuals at the heart of the research – very human stories of love, tragedy, rivalry, muddle, mistakes, intuition, creativity and disappointment. The result is an intimate chronicle of amazing discoveries made in the most remote places on Earth – discoveries that together profoundly transformed our understanding of our changing planet. SARAH DRY is a writer and historian of science. She has a PhD in the history of science from the University of Cambridge, where she was awarded a Gates Cambridge Fellowship from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and studied history and literature as an undergraduate at Harvard University. Her previous books include CURIE: A Life (Haus, 2004) and THE NEWTON PAPERS: The Strange and True Odyssey of Isaac Newton’s Private Manuscripts (OUP, 2013). She lives in Oxford with her family.
Publisher: University of Chicago Press (US)/Scribe (UK) (Editors: Karen Merikangas Darling, US/Philip Gwyn Jones, UK) Delivery: 1 September 2017 Publication: Autumn 2018 Status: Proposal and sample chapter Length: 95,000 words All rights available excluding UK & Commonwealth (Scribe), US & Canada (University of Chicago Press)
2
The Science Factory
Frankfurt Book Fair 2016
NEW DEALS
THE PLEASURE SHOCK The Electrifying, Forgotten History of Robert Heath’s Brain Pacemaker LONE FRANK
The secret history of one of today’s most promising medical breakthroughs: deep brain stimulation, or 'brain pacemakers'. Deep brain stimulation was invented by the American psychiatrist Robert G. Heath at Tulane University in the 1950s and 1960s in what has been described as one of ‘the most controversial yet largely undocumented experiments in US history’ – controversial to us because Heath’s patients including incarcerated convicts and gay men hoping to be ‘cured’ of their sexual preference; controversial in its day because his work was allegedly part of MKUltra, the CIA’s notorious ‘mind control’ project. As a result, Heath’s cutting-edge research and legacy were put under lock and key, buried in Tulane’s archives. Decades later, it seems the ethical issues raised by his work have also been buried: this very same experimental treatment is becoming mainstream practice in modern psychiatry for everything from schizophrenia, anorexia and compulsive behaviour to depression, anxiety and even drug and alcohol addiction, obesity and aggression. In the first popular book to tell this story, the award-winning science writer Lone Frank juxtaposes Heath’s pioneering efforts and subsequent public outrage with the current embrace of deep brain stimulation by scientists and patients alike. What has changed? Why do we today unquestioningly embrace this technology as a cure? How do we decide what is a disease of the brain to be cured, and what should be allowed to remain un-probed, and un-prodded? THE PLEASURE SHOCK weaves together biography, neuroscience, psychology, history of science, and medical ethics to explore our views of the mind and the self – and what changes to the brain we are prepared to find acceptable. LONE FRANK is an acclaimed science writer and the author of two previous books in English, MY BEAUTIFUL GENOME (Oneworld, 2011) – which was shortlisted for the Royal Society Winton Prize for Science Books – and MINDFIELD (Oneworld, 2009). She has also been a presenter and coproducer of several TV documentaries with global distribution, and is currently working on a featurelength, internationally financed, English-language documentary about Heath and deep brain stimulation. Before her career as a science writer, she earned a PhD in neurobiology and worked in the US biotech industry. She lives in Copenhagen and her website is at www.lonefrank.dk. Publisher: Dutton/Penguin (Editor: Stephen Morrow) Delivery: 1 May 2017 Publication: Spring 2018 Status: Proposal and sample chapter Length: 80,000 words All rights available excluding World English Language (Dutton)
3
The Science Factory
Frankfurt Book Fair 2016
NEW DEALS
HUMAN ORIGINS 22 Fascinating Stories about Humans – from the ‘Hobbit’ to Neanderthals Lee Sanghee & Yoon Shinyoung
An original, authoritative and thought-provoking overview of what we do know – and don’t know – about human evolution. HUMAN ORIGINS tells the story of humanity from human ancestral fossils to the ancient DNA extracted from them. Covering old and famous discoveries such as Peking Man, as well as the newest finds such as the Hobbit and the Denisovans, Lee Sanghee – a leading biological anthropologist – and Yoon Shinyoung – an internationally acclaimed science writer – provide a tour of our evolutionary history to ask: what makes us human? In 22 entertaining bite-sized essays, the authors explore a wide range of intriguing questions such as: When did the first humans first appear? Did all humans come from Africa? Are modern humans related to Neanderthals? What price did we pay for walking upright? Did agriculture bring us prosperity? Have there ever been real cannibals? When did we become hairless? Are we still evolving? Along the way, readers encounter many tales of the unexpected – including an account of how one of the authors almost ended up in a Yakuza initiation ritual… Based on the authors’ joint columns in the leading Korean science magazine Science DongA, HUMAN ORIGINS has been a bestseller in Korea since publication in 2015. LEE SANGHEE is a biological anthropologist specializing in human evolution. She holds degrees from the University of Michigan and Seoul National University, and has since 2001 been on the faculty of the University of California at Riverside, where she is currently an associate professor in anthropology. She has published more than 30 academic papers on many aspects of human evolution including sexual dimorphism, brain size, longevity and human evolution in northeast Asia, and has written for the general public about human evolution in a variety of newspapers and magazines. YOOM SHINYOUNG is editor-in-chief of Science DongA. He has covered a wide range of scientific issues, including theoretical physics, energy, occupational health, animal rights and human evolution. He graduated from Yonsei University with degrees in urban engineering and biotechnology, and is completing a master’s degree in environmental studies at Seoul National University. In 2008 he won a journalism award from the American Association for the Advancement of Science for his article ‘Roadkill, horror on roads’. Publisher: Norton (Editor: Jeff Shreve) Delivery: 31 December 2016 (English manuscript) Publication: Spring 2018 Status: Proposal and sample chapters in English/finished copies in Korean Length: 351 pages All rights available excluding World English Language (Norton), Korea (Minumsa) 4
The Science Factory
Frankfurt Book Fair 2016
FORTHCOMING TITLES
THE REALITY WARS The Unfinished Struggle at the Heart of Quantum Physics ADAM BECKER
A revelatory and dramatic account of how the most widely held view of the nature of reality has brainwashed a whole generation of physicists. Cats that are both dead and alive, atoms that ‘know’ when you are looking at them and particles that seem to travel down two different paths at once. Despite these strange features, quantum theory is the most successful framework for understanding the Universe that we have, explaining why the Sun shines and how to build a computer out of silicon. But there’s a problem: no one actually knows how to interpret the bizarre picture of nature that it reveals. According to Niels Bohr, the father of quantum physics, there is no need to worry about how the quantum world can be so strange, because ‘there is no quantum world. There is only an abstract quantum mechanical description’. Bohr inspired a flawed and pernicious orthodoxy that has somehow held sway over science for almost a century: the so-called ‘Copenhagen interpretation’, a nonsensical pile of vague assertions and mutually contradictory statements about the nature of reality. The Copenhagen interpretation has been bruised, battered and thoroughly refuted, time and again – yet it’s still the most widely-accepted account of how the quantum world works, largely because Bohr ‘brainwashed a whole generation of physicists’, as Murray Gell-Mann, the Nobel-prizewinning physicist, put it. In THE REALITY WARS, Adam Becker exposes this lie at the heart of quantum physics. How did the Copenhagen interpretation gain wide acceptance in the face of opposition from Einstein, Schrödinger and others? How did it remain so totally dominant for most of the twentieth century? How did it ruin the reputations and careers of those physicists who challenged it? Why have physicists finally started to renounce it? And what does Copenhagen’s rise and fall tell us about how science works? This is a rich and sordid history, filled with not only mind-bending physics, but also geopolitical intrigue and personal drama. It’s a story of the twentieth century in microcosm, an intellectual adventure that will engage readers even if they’ve never heard of Schrödinger’s cat. The cast of characters includes David Bohm, who discovered a revolutionary new version of quantum physics at the same time he was being hounded out of the United States by the forces of McCarthyism; Hugh Everett, who introduced the idea of parallel worlds into quantum physics, and then, ignored by the rest of the physics community, quit the field and instead conducted top-secret research for the Cold War military-industrial complex; and John Bell, the iconoclastic physicist who proved that quantum physics is stranger than anyone expected, but whose work is usually misrepresented as evidence for the Copenhagen interpretation. ADAM BECKER is a freelance astrophysicist and science writer. Born in New Jersey in 1984, he studied philosophy and physics at Cornell University and earned a PhD in astrophysics from the University of Michigan in 2012. He channels his passion for communicating science across many forms of media, including the BBC and New Scientist. Publisher: BasicBooks (Editor: TJ Kelleher) Delivery: July 2017 Publication: Spring 2018 Status: Proposal and sample chapter Length: 90,000 words All rights available excluding World English Language (Basic) 5
The Science Factory
Frankfurt Book Fair 2016
FORTHCOMING TITLES
THIS FATAL GAME Why Suicide Plagues the Human Species JESSE BERING Praise for Jesse Bering’s work Excellent... a rare tapestry of scientific rigor and a powerful, articulate social point of view – BRAIN PICKINGS
What does it feel like to want to kill yourself? Despite the prevalence of suicide in the developed world, this question is one that most of us fail to ask. On hearing news of a suicide we are devastated, sad – but overwhelmingly we feel disbelief. We distance ourselves by assuring ourselves it’s the final act of a mentally ill ‘other'. Yet six months after emerging from a serious bout of depression, research psychologist Jesse Bering found himself wanting to peer more deeply into his mind at its lowest moment of despair. The result was a post on his online column at Scientific American, titled 'What It Feels Like to Want to Kill Yourself’. Through the lens of his own experience Bering examined the suicidal mindset from the inside out, drawing on Roy Baumeister’s six-step 'escape from self' theory of suicide and raising awareness of this model of a systematic path down which the suicidal mind wanders before reaching its final, irreversible goal. The response was extraordinary. The article generated more emails and personal testimonials than anything Bering had written before – or has written since – and six years later, these letters continue to come in. THIS FATAL GAME is the result. This provocative, important book expands substantially on Bering’s original column to address the natural history of suicide, its evolutionary inheritance, our contradictory superstitions about the act, and its social aspect, among other topics. And as the response to the article shows, there is clearly a large readership hungering for such a book: a personal, accessible, yet scientifically sound examination of the suicidal mind. JESSE BERING is an associate professor of science communication at the University of Otago, New Zealand, where he conducts research on experimental suicidology (using controlled laboratory methods to address core hypotheses in suicide theory). A renowned expert in the field of cognitive science and and the psychology of religion, he is the author of THE BELIEF INSTINCT (Norton, 2011), WHY IS THE PENIS SHAPED LIKE THAT? (Scientific American/FSG, 2012) and PERV (Scientific American/FSG, 2013). Publisher: University of Chicago Press (US)/Transworld (UK) (Editors: Christie Henry, US/Doug Young, UK) Delivery: 1 June 2017 Publication: Spring 2018 Status: Proposal Length: 75,000 words All rights available excluding US & Canada (University of Chicago Press), UK & Commonwealth (Transworld), Japan (Kagaku-Dojin)
6
The Science Factory
Frankfurt Book Fair 2016
FORTHCOMING TITLES
THE TRUTH ABOUT LANGUAGE MICHAEL CORBALLIS A brilliant and witty scientist – Steven Pinker
An original provocative account of the evolution of language – what it is and where it came from. If there is one thing that separates us from other animals it is language. Even our closest nonhuman relatives, the chimpanzee and bonobo, come nowhere near being able to talk as we humans do. They can’t gossip, tell stories, let us or their mates know what they plan for tomorrow, or explain how to make a tool. The apparent uniqueness of human language has led to the widely held belief that language must have been the result of a big-bang moment, whether a gift from the deity, a fortunate genetic mutation, or a byproduct of simply having a large and complicated brain. In THE TRUTH ABOUT LANGUAGE, Michael Corballis shatters this view. Drawing on decades of experience at the forefront of cognitive science, he makes sense of the complexity of human language with the help of just one powerful idea: that language evolved as a gradual process, governed by natural selection. In a fresh and impressive synthesis of psychology, neuroscience, genetics and anthropology, he reveals how we learned first to speak with our hands, not our mouths, and why our advanced language skills depend not on a universal grammar or on the inherent wordiness of our thoughts, but on our ability to imagine the past and future and to understand what others are thinking. Language, in other words, is a device for sharing our thoughts, not thought itself. What’s more, Corballis argues, by understanding the stepwise progression of our capacity to tell stories and converse with others, we can see that the possibility of animals ‘crossing the Rubicon of language’ may not be as farfetched as we had thought. MICHAEL CORBALLIS is one of the world’s leading psychologists. Described by Steven Pinker as a 'brilliant and witty scientist', he is an emeritus professor of psychology at the University of Auckland. His previous books include The Lopsided Ape (Oxford University Press, 1991), From Hand to Mouth (Princeton University Press, 2002), The Recursive Mind (Princeton University Press, 2011), A Very Short Tour of the Mind (Overlook/Duckworth, 2013) and The Wandering Mind (University of Chicago Press, 2015). Publisher: University of Chicago Press (Editor: Christie Henry) Publication: March 2017 Status: Manuscript Length: 288 pages All rights available excluding World English Language (University of Chicago Press)
7
The Science Factory
Frankfurt Book Fair 2016
FORTHCOMING TITLES
SPEECH ODYSSEY The Story of Vocal Communication— from Neanderthals to Artificial Intelligence TREVOR COX A David Attenborough of the acoustic realm – INDEPENDENT
A revelatory journey down the path of the human voice that seeks to answer the question: how did we go from speaking apes to speaking to computers? The invention of the phonograph marked a revolution in our relationship to sound. In this book, Trevor Cox follows the nursery-rhyme phrase ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb’ – recited by Thomas Edison in his original experiments – from the mind of the speaker to the mind of the listener, revealing the hidden complexity of what on the surface seems a simple everyday task. Through an illuminating tour of the forefront of speech and hearing research, Cox aims to provide readers with a deeper appreciation of something most of us probably take for granted: the ability to converse. Most of us are unaware, for example, that speech requires a precise coordination of over a hundred muscles, with the laryngeal muscles among the fastest in the body. And because verbal communication is central to humanity, this is a book that takes in a dizzying array of realms including literature, philosophy, evolution, archaeology, psychology, neuroscience, physics, biology, linguistics and music. Most important, it’s a story that must now also include computer science and artificial intelligence. Could a computer take the place of a future Edison or Shakespeare and invent new technologies or write literature that revolutionizes the world? Speaking and listening offer a window into one of the biggest problems in science: understanding the nature of consciousness. If we can create machines that are both creative and conscious, then this would call into question many of our most cherished and long-held beliefs, not least about the uniqueness of human intelligence. SPEECH ODYSSEY is an original fascinating guide to human communication – past, present and future – from one of the world’s most gifted communicators in science. TREVOR COX is a professor of acoustic engineering at the University of Salford, UK, and the author of SONIC WONDERLAND (Bodley Head, 2014)/THE SOUND BOOK (Norton, 2014). Publisher: Bodley Head (Editor: Stuart Williams) Delivery: 30 June 2017 Publication: May 2018 Status: Proposal and sample chapter Length: 80,000 words All rights available excluding World English Language (Bodley Head)
8
The Science Factory
Frankfurt Book Fair 2016
FORTHCOMING TITLES
FLAVOUR The Science Our Most Neglected Sense BOB HOLMES
Whether you are someone who likes to cook creatively, delve into cutting-edge science or explore the latest ideas about health, diet and nutrition, this book will open your mind – and your palate – to a vast, exciting sensory world. Most of us don't pay much attention to flavour in our day-to-day lives. We might notice that dinner tasted good, but we'd probably struggle to say anything more precise than that. For far too many people, flavour remains a vague, undeveloped experience – elevator music for the palate. In FLAVOUR, Bob Holmes journeys into the surprising science behind our flavour senses. He shows why what we thought we knew about taste is almost certainly wrong, why no two people have exactly the same sense of smell, and how the sense of touch contributes to flavour. He visits the birthplace of flavour in the brain to discover why cake tastes sweetest on a white plate, how wine experts’ eyes can fool their noses, and how even language affects the flavour we find in food. He learns why people like the foods they do, what makes some foods more delicious than others, and how flavour affects our appetite – and, in turn, our health. Moving from the laboratory into the kitchen, he peers over the shoulders of some of the most fascinating food professionals: the food technologists seeking to engineer the perfect snack food or soft drink, the professional chefs looking for new ways to combine flavours into surprising yet delicious dishes, and even the mathematicians searching for the perfect pizza topping and the chemists seeking the ideal pairing of food and wine. He ends by revealing how we can all sharpen our flavour senses, teaching us the skills and techniques that professionals use to name flavours and describe them articulately. BOB HOLMES has been a correspondent for New Scientist magazine for nearly two decades, and has written more than 800 articles for the magazine. He has a PhD in evolutionary biology from the University of Arizona and taught for several years in the science-writing programme at the University of California. A member of Slow Food Canada, he has worked with the taste-education programme of his local chapter and is a passionate home cook. He lives with his wife and teenage son in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. FLAVOUR is his first book. Publisher: WH Allen/Random House (UK)/Norton (US) (Editors: Ed Faulkner, UK/John Glusman, US) Publication: April 2017 Status: Manuscript Length: 80,000 words All rights available excluding UK & Commonwealth, US, Germany (Riemann), Netherlands (Atlas Contact), Russia (Alpina)
9
The Science Factory
Frankfurt Book Fair 2016
FORTHCOMING TITLES
THE ENLIGHTENED MR PARKINSON The Pioneering Life of a Forgotten English Surgeon CHERRY LEWIS Praise for THE DATING GAME A smart, absorbing and elegant little book – SYDNEY MORNING HERALD
A fascinating biography of one of Britain’s lost heroes of science, medicine and politics. One person in every 500 has Parkinson’s disease. That’s about 127,000 people in the UK alone. But despite the widespread awareness of this neurological disorder, few know anything about the man after whom it is named. In 1817 James Parkinson (1755–1824) published his ‘Essay on the Shaking Palsy’. In doing so he became the first person to identify the disease as a distinct medical condition, writing about it so clearly and precisely that today we still diagnose the condition from the symptoms he identified. Now, 200 years later, Cherry Lewis tells the story of the life and work of this remarkable man, revealing how through his three passions – medicine, politics and fossils – he made significant contributions to ‘an age of miracles where anything could be achieved’. As one contemporary put it, the light that Parkinson shone on science would benefit mankind until ‘the end of time’. An inveterate observer and recorder of the human and natural worlds, Parkinson experimented with electricity in an effort to bring a dead man back to life; mixed salt with the blood of a young girl and made her drink it in one of the first successful attempts at aversion therapy; and recommended the rare practice of performing autopsies to establish cause of death. And as author of the three-volume work Organic Remains of a Former World, he put palaeontology on the scientific map of Britain while making fossil collecting the nation’s favourite pastime. Throughout he was a friend of the people, dedicated to improving the lives of the poor. He was a public health reformer who abhorred child labour, campaigned for reform of the acts regulating the madhouses, and helped Edward Jenner to set up smallpox vaccination stations across London. He was also a political radical who put his loyalty to his acquaintances before his own life: during his interrogation in the trial over a plot to kill King George III, he was forced to reveal that he was the author of several anti-government pamphlets, a crime for which many others had been transported to Australia. In 1912, an admirer of Parkinson’s work said of him: ‘English born and bred… forgotten by the English and the world at large – such is the fate of James Parkinson’. This book aims to restore Parkinson to his rightful place in history. CHERRY LEWIS is an honorary research fellow at the University of Bristol. A geologist by training, she worked in the oil industry as well as in the press office of the University of Bristol before turning her interests to the history of geology. She is the author of THE DATING GAME: One Man’s Search for the Age of the Earth (Cambridge University Press, 2000). Publisher: Pegasus (US)/Icon (UK) Publication: April 2017 Status: Draft manuscript Length: 80,000 words All rights available excluding UK & Commonwealth (Icon), US & Canada (Pegasus) 10
The Science Factory
Frankfurt Book Fair 2016
FORTHCOMING TITLES
FLARE A Life on the Pain Scale ABBY NORMAN
A medical mystery about the debilitating chronic pain of undiagnosed endometriosis and one remarkable young woman's resilience, determination and ultimate triumph in challenging the establishment. As patients, we’re asked to rate our pain on a scale of 1 to 10. Yet as Abby Norman discovered, even if you report a level 10, if you’re a woman you’ll have to fight – hard – to have your pain taken seriously. In the fall of 2010, Abby transformed from a healthy, ambitious college sophomore to an emaciated, wandering girl of 19. Her strong dancer’s body dropped 40 pounds and grey hairs began to sprout from her dark temples. For weeks she was repeatedly hospitalized in excruciating pain, but the doctors insisted it was a urinary tract infection and sent her home with antibiotics. Unable to get out of bed, much less attend class, Abby dropped out of school and returned to Maine, embarking on what would become a years-long journey to discover what was wrong with her. Along the way she would come to recognise – and repeatedly battle – medicine’s systemic gender bias, pushing for treatment and diagnosis even as doctors shrugged at her unusual symptoms. It wasn’t until she took matters into her own hands – securing a job in the hospital and educating herself over lunchtime reading in the medical library – that she found an accurate self-diagnosis, one that she had to convince an open-minded doctor to confirm. At its heart, FLARE is the story of a life lived with endometriosis, a chronic disease in which uterine tissue wanders and implants itself outside of the womb, bleeding during menstruation and causing flares of excruciating pain. More than that, it’s a revelatory examination of what it’s like to be a female patient today. Abby writes of what it’s like to have her pain dismissed, be told it’s all in her head, only to be taken seriously when she was accompanied by a boyfriend who confirmed that her sexual performance was, indeed, compromised. Through it all, Abby has become a patient activist, speaking out on behalf of female patients everywhere, sharing her experiences wherever she can, from Medium to Stanford Medicine X, a conference on the future of medicine. Her story is a powerful – and disturbing – reminder of how far we have to go before healthcare can live up to its dictum to ‘Do No Harm’. ABBY NORMAN is a writer and journalist specializing in healthcare and medicine. She has written for Bustle, The Mary Sue, Alternet, Medium, Huffington Post, National Medical Records Briefing and All That Is Interesting and has contributed a large body of work through Healthworks Collective and BHM Healthcare Solutions. She has worked as a patient advocate in hospitals and communities, helping people to navigate the complexities of in-hospital care and aftercare through initiatives to improve health literacy. She was invited to speak at Stanford University’s Stanford Medicine X conference in the fall of 2015 where she presented her story of endometriosis and self-diagnosis to a large audience of patients, clinicians and researchers. She lives in Camden, Maine. Agent: Tisse Takagi Publisher: Nation Books (Editor: Alessandra Bastagli) Delivery: February 2017 Publication: Autumn 2017 Status: Proposal and sample writing Length: 75,000 words All rights available excluding World English Language (Nation Books)
11
The Science Factory
Frankfurt Book Fair 2016
FORTHCOMING TITLES
HOW TO BE A STOIC Using Ancient Philosophy to Live a Modern Life MASSIMO PIGLIUCCI Praise for ANSWERS FOR ARISTOTLE Pigliucci is proof positive that the reports of philosophy’s death have been greatly exaggerated…. This book is a refreshing, sympathetic look at how philosophy can enlist the help of science to answer enduring questions… highly enjoyable – CHOICE
In a world fraught with difficult moral issues, Stoicism may be our best path forward for structuring our life, achieving tranquility of mind and maintaining our personal integrity – in other words, for shaping a life well lived. Whether we are secular or religious, at some point we all find ourselves facing the question of how to live. How should we handle life’s challenges and vicissitudes? How should we conduct ourselves in the world? How should we treat others? And the ultimate question: how do we best prepare for the final test of our character, when we die? When he turned fifty, philosopher and biologist Massimo Pigliucci found himself, like others before him, facing his own mortality and reflecting on the big questions: who am I and what am I doing? A trained scientist, a self-professed moderate atheist and a native of Rome, Pigliucci embraced his cultural roots as well as his experimental nature – he became a Stoic. In HOW TO BE A STOIC, Pigliucci combines his experiment in Stoic living with a brisk and illuminating guide to this timely philosophy. Developed by Zeno of Citium in the early third century BC, Stoicism counts Seneca and Marcus Aurelius among its best known practitioners, but is today associated more with grim endurance than with living a good life. As Pigliucci reveals, however, Stoicism is fundamentally a practical philosophy, with a core practice of meditation, mindfulness and focus on virtue. And although for centuries it was eclipsed by Christian thought in the mainstream, Stoic influences appear in unexpected places: the Serenity Prayer, the underlying principles of cognitive behavioural therapy. Pigliucci finds in Stoicism a rational, science-friendly philosophy that also allows room for a spiritual metaphysics: that is, a practical philosophy eminently open to revision – in stark contrast to so much of the dogma we face today. In practising Stoicism, Pigliucci offers a reconsideration of this ancient philosophy for modern life and reveals why its popularity is now on the rise. MASSIMO PIGLIUCCI is the K.D. Irani Professor of Philosophy at the City College of New York, and was previously a professor of ecology and evolution at Stony Brook University. His books include NONSENSE ON STILTS: How to Tell Science from Bunk (University of Chicago Press, 2010) and ANSWERS FOR ARISTOTLE: How Science and Philosophy Can Lead Us to a More Meaningful Life (Basic Books, 2012). He lives in New York City. Agent: Tisse Takagi Publisher: BasicBooks (Editor: TJ Kelleher) Delivery: 31 October 2016 Publication: April 2017 Status: Proposal and sample chapter Length: 288 pages
All rights available excluding World English Language (Basic), Germany (Piper), Italy (Garzanti), Japan (Hayakawa), Netherlands (Ten Have), Spain (Ariel) 12
The Science Factory
Frankfurt Book Fair 2016
FORTHCOMING TITLES
INFERIOR How Science Got Women Wrong – and the New Research That’s Rewriting the Story ANGELA SAINI Praise for GEEK NATION Eye-opening… Engagingly written and remarkably objective, GEEK NATION shatters many myths while not discouraging guarded optimism…. First-rate reportage – INDEPENDENT
An eye-opening account of a new wave of revisionist science and the extraordinary schisms that surround it – an alternative history that rises to the challenge of properly understanding the female of the human species. From intelligence to emotion, for hundreds of years science has told us that men and women are fundamentally different. Biologists claim that women are better suited to raising families, while men excel at tasks that require logic and motor skills. Anthropologists say that human evolution has been shaped by man, the hunter-gatherer. But this is not the whole story. A huge wave of scientific research is now emerging with an alternative version of what we thought we knew. The differences between the sexes are being redefined and a radically new story is being written about women’s place in evolution. In INFERIOR Angela Saini takes readers on an eye-opening journey to uncover how women – their bodies and their minds – are being rediscovered. By telling personal stories, shedding light on controversial research and investigating the ferocious gender wars in biology, psychology and anthropology, she explores what these revelations mean for us as individuals and as a society. And as part of the larger cultural movement towards a new feminism, she reveals an alternative view of science in which women are included rather than excluded. So what does the rediscovered woman look like? Well, she had a far bigger hand in human evolution than we thought, she drove the rise in human longevity, she was never confined solely to the kitchen or childrearing, she is as smart as any man and in some aspects she is physically stronger. And, most provocatively of all, her fight for gender equality is not a fight against nature as some might see it, but goes hand in hand with nature. It is, as Saini says, her biological right. ANGELA SAINI is an award-winning British science journalist and broadcaster. Well-known for presenting science programmes on BBC Radio 4 and the World Service, she also writes for the Guardian and New Scientist, as well as prominent journals including Science. A former BBC and ITN television news reporter, she has a masters degree in engineering science from the University of Oxford and a second masters in science and security from the Department of War Studies at King’s College London. Her first book, Geek Nation: How Indian Science is Taking Over the World, was published by Hodder in 2011. Publisher: Fourth Estate (UK)/Beacon (US) (Editors: Louise Haines, UK/Amy Caldwell, US) Publication: May 2017 Status: Manuscript Length: 320 pages All rights available excluding UK & Commonwealth
13
The Science Factory
Frankfurt Book Fair 2016
FORTHCOMING TITLES
SURFING SPACETIME The Quest for Gravitational Waves and the Final Missing Piece in Einstein’s Theory of Relativity GOVERT SCHILLING A renowned popularizer of science with a gift for conveying awesome concepts to ordinary Earthlings – BBC SKY AT NIGHT magazine One of the world's premier astronomy writers. Govert Schilling is not only scrupulously accurate, he writes beautifully as well – Stephen P. Maran, author of ASTRONOMY FOR DUMMIES
The first truly accessible book to tell the full story of the ultimate scientific quest: understanding the structure of the cosmic stage on which we all play out our lives. In February 2016, scientists announced the revolutionary discovery of gravitational waves, tiny ripples in the very fabric of spacetime that were first predicted by Einstein almost a century ago. Not only does the discovery provide the last missing piece of Einstein’s general theory of relativity; it also opens up a new window on the most violent events in the Universe – one that doesn’t see cosmic events but, in an almost literal sense, feels them. Stellar explosions, merging neutron stars, orbiting black holes – according to Einstein, they all produce minute propagating ripples that stretch and squeeze empty space as they pass by. There’s been ample indirect evidence for the existence of gravitational waves, but despite decades of dedicated attempts, it is only now, with the advent of huge laser interferometers, that they have been measured directly. As well as these extremely sensitive instruments, radio telescopes are trying to catch gravitational waves by observing the clock-like behaviour of pulsars and by studying their fingerprints in the cosmic microwave background – the radiation left over from the Big Bang; scientists are testing techniques to detect gravitational waves from space; and astronomers are building new instruments to follow up on the expected discoveries. In SURFING SPACETIME, the award-winning astronomy writer Govert Schilling catches the excitement of the quest for gravitational waves, telling the story of past highlights, current developments and future expectations. In doing so he takes his readers on a whirlwind tour across the continents, from astronomical instruments in the Chilean Atacama Desert and interferometer laboratories in the United States, Europe and Japan, to radio telescopes in Puerto Rico and at the South Pole. The result is a thrilling portrait of science in progress, with all its potential pitfalls, harsh competition, and colourful tales of personal struggle and perseverance. GOVERT SCHILLING is an internationally acclaimed astronomy journalist and writer. He is a regular contributor to New Scientist, Sky & Telescope and Sky at Night. In 2007, asteroid 10986 was named Govert in his honour by the International Astronomical Union. He has written over 50 books (most published originally in Dutch) on a wide variety of astronomical topics, including ATLAS OF ASTRONOMICAL DISCOVERIES (Springer, 2011), TWEETING THE UNIVERSE (Faber, 2011; coauthored with Marcus Chown) and DEEP SPACE (Black Dog & Leventhal, 2014). He lives in Amersfoort, the Netherlands. Publisher: Harvard University Press (Editor: Jeff Dean) Delivery: Spring 2017 Publication: Autumn 2017 Status: Proposal and sample chapter Length: 80,000 words All rights available excluding World English Language (Harvard University Press), Germany (Piper), Japan (Kagaku-Dojin), Netherlands (Fontaine) 14
The Science Factory
Frankfurt Book Fair 2016
FORTHCOMING TITLES
DARWIN COMES TO TOWN How the Urban Jungle Drives Evolution MENNO SCHILTHUIZEN Praise for NATURE’S NETHER REGIONS Schilthuizen balances the silly and the serious [and] tours some of nature's weirdest inventions – SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN
An awe-inspiring account of how plants and animals are adapting to our seemingly hostile environments of asphalt and steel. We are marching towards a future in which three-quarters of humans live in cities, more than half of the landmass of the planet is urbanized, and the rest is covered by farms, pasture and plantations. Increasingly, species and ecosystems crafted by millions of years of evolution teeter on the brink of extinction – or have already disappeared. While many researchers focus their attention on these last strongholds of conventional evolution, a growing band of ‘urban ecologists’ is beginning to realize that natural selection is not so easily stopped – that it is a stunningly flexible process that can act swiftly when pressed. They are finding that, not content to merely cling on for survival, more and more plants and animals are adopting new ways of living in the city environments that we humans have created. It’s a question of adapt or die. And, like true city-dwellers, adapting is what a lot of wildlife has been doing, embarking on new ecological relationships with cosmopolitan species from all corners of the world. Carrion crows in the Japanese city of Sendai, for example, have learned to use passing traffic to crack nuts for them; otters and bobcats, no longer persecuted by humans, are waiting at the New York City gates; superb fairy-wrens in Australia have evolved different mating structures for nesting in strips of vegetation along roads; while distinct populations of London underground mosquitoes have been fashioned by tube line. In DARWIN COMES TO TOWN, Menno Schilthuizen draws on these and many other eye-opening examples to reveal that evolution can happen far more rapidly than Darwin had dared dream, while providing a glimmer of hope that we might not take the rest of nature down with us as we race towards the abyss of overpopulation. With a better appreciation of urban evolution, Schilthuizen says, we can even harness the process to create more liveable cities and landscapes – novel environments where humans and wildlife co-exist in harmony. MENNO SCHILTHUIZEN (born 1965) is a senior research scientist at Naturalis Biodiversity Center in the Netherlands and professor of evolutionary biology at Leiden University. He received his PhD from Leiden University in 1994, obtained two postdoctoral fellowships at Wageningen University and then spent seven years in Malaysian Borneo as associate professor at the Institute for Tropical Biology and Conservation. His research revolves around evolution of biodiversity in insects and land snails. Besides his scientific work, he is a prolific science popularizer. He has written over 250 stories, columns, and articles, about half for a variety of international media, such as New Scientist, Time and Science; makes frequent appearances on radio and television; and has written three popular books including NATURE’S NETHER REGIONS (Viking, 2014). Publisher: Quercus (UK)/Picador (US) (Editors: Richard Milner, UK/Stephen Morrison, US) Delivery: 1 April 2017 Publication: Autumn 2017 Status: Proposal and sample chapter Length: 80,000 words All rights available excluding UK & Commonwealth (Quercus), US (Picador) Germany (DTV), Netherlands (Atlas Contact) 15
The Science Factory
Frankfurt Book Fair 2016
FORTHCOMING TITLES
INHERITORS OF THE EARTH How Nature is Fighting Back on a Human-dominated Planet CHRIS THOMAS
One of the world’s leading ecologists reveals that, contrary to common assumption, the number of new species in almost every region of the world is growing faster than ever before. It’s accepted wisdom that human beings have irrevocably damaged the natural world. Throughout history we’ve introduced species and infectious diseases to foreign shores; hunted slow-moving (and slower-reproducing) mammals to extinction; and polluted previously pristine tracts of land. Now we are in the midst of the planet’s sixth mass-extinction event – for which we are the main culprit. Yet as distinguished ecologist Chris Thomas argues, this gloomy narrative obscures a more hopeful truth. In INHERITORS OF THE EARTH he tells the remarkable story of how nature is fighting back. He complicates the standard picture of today’s ecological reality, revealing that we are witnessing the first stages of a new mass acceleration of ecological and evolutionary diversity. He shows that urbanization and the mass cultivation of agriculture also created new places for enterprising animals and plants to live. Human modification of ecosystems has stimulated evolutionary change in virtually every population of every living species. Most remarkably, he shows, our actions may well have raised the rate at which new species are formed to the highest level ever in the history of our planet. Drawing on the success stories of diverse species, from the chocolate-coloured comma butterfly in York to the scarlet-beaked, turkey-sized New Zealand takahe, Thomas overturns the accepted story of declining biodiversity on Earth. In so doing, he questions why we are so reluctant to embrace new forms of life, as well as why we see human activities as fundamentally unnatural. Ultimately, he suggests that if life on Earth can recover from the asteroid that killed off the dinosaurs, it can survive the onslaughts, however violent, of a technological ape. Combining a naturalist’s eye for wildlife with an ecologist’s wide lens, INHERITORS OF THE EARTH offers an authoritative account of the Anthropocene present and future, a challenge to conventional views of almost everything we do that relates to our interaction with the environment, and an illuminating reexamination of the relationship between humanity and the natural world. CHRIS THOMAS is a professor of conservation biology at the University of York, UK. A prolific writer, he has published 210 scientific journal articles, 29 book chapters, edited one academic book, and has written around 20 magazine and other popular articles since 2000. His works have been cited more than 26,000 times, making him one of the world’s most influential ecologists, and his research has been covered on the front pages of the Guardian and Washington Post. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 2012, is a long-standing fellow of the Royal Entomological Society, and received Marsh Awards for Climate Change Research in 2011 and for Conservation Biology in 2004 and the prestigious British Ecological Society President’s Medal in 2001. Publisher: Allen Lane/Penguin Press (UK)/PublicAffairs (US) (Editors: Laura Stickney, UK/Ben Adams, US) Delivery: Spring 2017 Publication: Spring 2018 Status: Proposal and sample chapter Length: 80,000–90,000 words All rights available excluding UK & Commonwealth, US, China (Grand China Publishing House)
16
The Science Factory
Frankfurt Book Fair 2016
FORTHCOMING TITLES
OVERRIDE My Quest to Go Beyond Brain Training and Take Control of My Mind CAROLINE WILLIAMS
A personal journey into the heart of neuroscience to find out, once and for all, what, if anything, neuroscience can do for us.
A few decades ago, only fitness fanatics went to the gym. Now a twice-weekly visit is the norm for those of us who want to keep our body healthy. A similar revolution is happening in brain training and mental fitness. But there’s a problem: none of us knows exactly what we should be doing. In OVERRIDE, Caroline Williams describes her year-long mission to find out. She investigates how the latest studies are showing that brain games don’t actually do that much to make you smarter, and tries to square that finding with the reality of brain plasticity – that the brain adapts physically as we learn something new. Visiting the labs of top neuroscientists and volunteering herself as a guinea pig in neuroscience studies, she challenges researchers to make lasting improvements to her own brain. She seeks to strengthen her particular weaknesses, such as a limited attention span and a tendency to worry more than is healthy, and then branches out into more mysterious areas such as intelligence, creativity and the perception of time. Trying methods from the ancient art of meditation to high-tech electrical brain stimulation, she finds out from the experts whether anything has actually changed in her brain and reports back on whether life feels any different afterwards. And, crucially, she takes the latest neuroscience out of the laboratory and translates it into practical exercises that the average person can do at home. What, if anything, can neuroscience tell us about how to hack into the basic features of the human brain and make them run more efficiently? Can the powers of brain plasticity really override the brain that genetics and life experience have built? And is there a simple, 20-minute brain workout that anyone can do to change his or her brain for the better? CAROLINE WILLIAMS is a UK-based science writer and broadcaster with over 10 years of experience in magazine and radio journalism. She earned a BSc in biological sciences from Exeter University and an MSc (Distinction) in science communication from Imperial College London. She has written extensively for New Scientist, and spent five years in-house as a feature editor, contributing to some of the magazine’s top-selling cover stories. Her work has also appeared in the Guardian, BBC Future and BBC Earth and she has provided written materials for organizations such as the Royal Society. As a broadcaster she has produced and presented radio programmes and reports for the BBC, contributing to the science, natural history and children’s radio output. Between 2006 and 2010 she was also the regular co-presenter of the New Scientist podcast. Her website is at www.carolinewilliams.net. Publisher: Scribe (Editor: Philip Gwyn Jones) Publication: February 2017 Status: Proofs Length: 320 pages All rights available excluding UK & Commonwealth (excluding Canada) 17
The Science Factory
Frankfurt Book Fair 2016
RECENTLY PUBLISHED
THE APPOINTMENT What Your Doctor Really Thinks During Your Ten-Minute Consultation DR GRAHAM EASTON A fascinating account of what it’s actually like to be a GP dealing with all the surprises that come your way, appointment after appointment, in those ten minute slots they have to deal with all your ailments every morning. A very engrossing read. I enjoyed reading it very much – Jonathan Ross, BBC Radio 2 Arts Show
There’s little that’s more important than our health – yet very few people have any idea how their doctor makes sense of their health problems. In THE APPOINTMENT, Graham Easton offer the first authentic insight into what goes on in your doctor’s mind during your precious 10-minute consultation. Taking readers on a journey through an entire morning surgery of 15 typical appointments, he reveals the secrets of diagnosis and modern medical management, and the startling complexity of what often seems like a straightforward visit to the doctor. As well as introducing the wide range of problems that doctors invariably tackle between breakfast and lunch, he shows what it feels like to be up against the clock as well as the limits of medical science and the constraints of an overstretched health service. At the heart of his medical detective work are the challenges of ‘connecting’ with patients and getting essential information from them, and the anxiety of managing the mundane while remaining alert to the life-threatening. It’s like a live performance in which a doctor’s thinking is deconstructed in unique detail using trueto-life cases that most people will recognize, from sore throats, coughs and high blood pressure to chest pain, cancer and depression. The author reveals the strategies doctors use to arrive at a diagnosis, and how they are trained to involve the patient in coming up with a plan of action. Each case focuses on a specific issue, explaining, for example, how doctors use chaperones for intimate examinations, how they deal with risk, how they decide on the best investigations and treatments, and how they hunt for ‘red flags’ – signs or symptoms that should ring alarm bells for any doctor, anywhere in the world. DR GRAHAM EASTON is a practising family/primary care doctor (or general practitioner (GP)), fellow of the Royal College of General Practitioners and a recognized expert in GP education. He is senior clinical teaching fellow at Imperial College Medical School in London where he trains medical students and junior doctors in general practice. As well as his clinical expertise, he has 20 years’ experience as a communicator of medical ideas to the non-medical public. He was senior producer and presenter in the BBC Science Unit for 10 years, launching and presenting Radio 4’s successful flagship medical programme ‘Case Notes’ and a range of science and medical programmes across Radio 4, 5 and World Service. He is currently a regular guest and occasional presenter on ‘Health Check’, the BBC's global health radio programme. He was an editor at the British Medical Journal for four years and publishes widely in the academic medical literature and for a lay audience, having had his own regular columns on the BBC Health website (‘Surgery Notes’) and in Eve magazine (‘What’s the Evidence?’). He lives in London with his wife and two children. Publisher: Robinson/Little, Brown (UK) (Editor: Andrew McAleer) Publication: 1 September 2016 Length: 336 pages All rights available excluding UK & Commonwealth (excluding Canada), Japan (Kawadeshobo)
18
The Science Factory
Frankfurt Book Fair 2016
RECENTLY PUBLISHED
AUTHENTIC How To Be Yourself and Why It Matters STEPHEN JOSEPH Praise for WHAT DOESN’T KILL US A book of wisdom... psychology at its best: honest, hopeful, helpful, and based on sound serious research – Robert J. Wicks, Professor, Loyola University Maryland, author of BOUNCE: Living the Resilient Life
A fresh, inspiring and important new perspective on the psychology of being ‘true to yourself’. The hunger for authenticity guides us throughout our lives. People strive for joined-up living, where on the one hand what they say and do reflects what they think and feel, and on the other what they think and feel reflects who they are. In the past few years there has been an explosion of research pointing to authenticity as the key to fulfilment, vitality and well-being. Stephen Joseph has pioneered developments in this new field, drawing on the solid science of positive psychology to develop what has become one of the goldstandard tests for assessing authenticity. His and others’ findings reveal that when people are in relationships in which they feel accepted, understood and valued, they drop their defences. They naturally begin to examine themselves psychologically, accommodate new information and live more authentically. What’s more, the latest studies reveal that it is authenticity that leads to true happiness. Drawing on the wisdom of existential philosophers, the insights and research of psychologists, and case studies from his own and others’ clinical experiences, Joseph shows how authenticity is the foundation of human flourishing – as well as how the new findings relate to debates about the importance of happiness and its measurement in public policy. An authentic life is much sought after, but sadly many of us become derailed in our quest. Introducing the authenticity formula of ‘know yourself + own yourself + be yourself’, AUTHENTIC examines what we can do to get ourselves back on track. STEPHEN JOSEPH is professor of psychology, health and social care at the University of Nottingham, UK, where he is the cluster co-ordinator of counselling and psychotherapy training. Previously he was co-director of the Centre for Trauma, Resilience and Growth and an honorary consultant psychologist in psychotherapy. He has published more than two hundred academic papers and seven academic books, and is often asked to comment in the media on topical events relating to his work. He is the author of WHAT DOESN’T KILL US (Little, Brown/Basic, 2012/2011). Publisher: Piatkus/Little, Brown (Editor: Anne Lawrance) Publication: 1 September 2016 Length: 256 pages All rights available excluding UK & Commonwealth (excluding Canada), Germany (Kailash), Netherlands (Bruna), Poland (REBIS)
19
The Science Factory
Frankfurt Book Fair 2016
RECENTLY PUBLISHED
SIDDHARTHA’S BRAIN The Science of Enlightenment JAMES KINGSLAND Kingsland expertly weaves the story and teachings of the Buddha with clinical and scientific research to engage in a highly readable examination of the benefits of mindfulness and meditation… A satisfying read – LIBRARY JOURNAL (starred review) A fascinating exploration of the neuroscience behind meditation…Kingsland skilfully dives in and out of various subjects – the neurological relaxation response to meditation, the difference between pain and suffering, emotional regulation – and effectively paints a neurological picture of the mind without devaluing Buddhism’s spiritual image of cognition – PUBLISHERS WEEKLY Brain science and Buddhist lore combine in this compelling treatise on the benefits of meditation and mindfulness – KIRKUS REVIEWS
A groundbreaking exploration of how meditation and mindfulness work and why they are key to achieving psychological stability and lasting happiness. In a lush grove on the banks of the Neranjara in northern India – 400 years before the birth of Christ, when the foundations of Western science and philosophy were being laid by the great minds of Ancient Greece – a prince turned ascetic wanderer sat beneath a fig tree. His name was Siddhartha Gautama, and he was discovering the astonishing capabilities of the human brain and the secrets of mental wellness and spiritual ‘enlightenment’, the foundation of Buddhism. Framed by the historical journey and teachings of the Buddha, SIDDHARTHA’S BRAIN shows how meditative and Buddhist practice anticipated the findings of modern neuroscience. Moving from the evolutionary history of the brain to the disorders and neuroses associated with our technologydriven world, James Kingsland explains why the ancient practice of mindfulness has been so beneficial and so important for human beings across time. Far from a New Age fad, the principles of meditation have deep scientific support and have been proven to be effective in combating many contemporary psychiatric disorders. Siddhartha posited that ‘Our life is shaped by our mind; we become what we think’. As we are increasingly driven to distraction by competing demands, our ability to focus and control our thoughts has never been more challenged – or more vital. SIDDHARTHA’S BRAIN offers a cutting-edge, big-picture assessment of meditation and mindfulness: how it works, what it does to our brains, and why meditative practice has never been more important. JAMES KINGSLAND is a science and medical journalist with more than two decades of experience working for Nature, New Scientist and the Guardian. For the past five years he has been commissioning editor and contributor for the Guardian’s ‘Notes & Theories’ blog. On his own blog, Plastic Brain, he writes about neuroscience and Buddhist psychology. Publisher: Robinson/Little, Brown (UK)/William Morrow/HarperCollins (US) (Editor: Peter Hubbard) Publication: 26 April 2016 Length: 352 pages All rights available excluding UK & Commonwealth, US, Brazil (Pensamento – Portuguese rights), France (Dunod), Italy (Rizzoli ), Korea (Jogye Order Publishing), Netherlands (AmboAnthos), Spain (Profit Editorial)
20
The Science Factory
Frankfurt Book Fair 2016
RECENTLY PUBLISHED
THE PERFECT BET How Science and Math Are Taking the Luck Out of Gambling ADAM KUCHARSKI Elegant and amusing… Anyone planning to enter a casino or place an online bet would be advised to keep this book handy – WALL STREET JOURNAL Terrific: beautifully written, solidly researched and full of surprises. It’s also practical. Even if you don’t spend time at Las Vegas you’ll be surprised by the clarity it will bring to your day – NEW YORK TIMES Numberplay blog A lucid yet sophisticated look at the mathematics of probability – KIRKUS REVIEWS
An original and revealing guide to how gambling has influenced science and science has influenced gambling. In the past few years, there has been a revolution in the gambling industry. From the statisticians forecasting sports scores to the intelligent algorithms beating human poker players, people are finding new ways to take on casinos and bookmakers. And as methods and technologies improve, these individuals are attempting to do something that has eluded gamblers for centuries: they are using science to hunt for the perfect bet. In THE PERFECT BET, Adam Kucharski brings together ideas from mathematics, psychology, economics and physics to dissect the perfect bet. Who are these people turning hard science into hard cash? How are they managing to beat the house? Where did their approaches come from? And what do these wagers tell us about how we view luck? Covering exploits and ideas from across the globe, he meets teams behind the betting equivalent of hedge funds, and explains how these PhD-level pundits are using methods originally developed for the US nuclear programme to predict sports results. He shows exactly how a group of University of California students in the 1970s famously managed to predict roulette spins with a shoe computer; fearing a casino clampdown, the group never revealed their methods, until mathematicians in Hong Kong solved the 40-year-old mystery in 2012 – the techniques are now being used in real casinos. He reveals why winning at chess depends on luck but – thanks to a discovery in 2007 – victory in checkers does not. And he explains what caused a US stockbroker to lose $400 million in the summer of 2012 and why poker is one of the ultimate challenges for artificial intelligence. We are entering an era where chaos theory blends with psychology, game theory mixes with intelligent bots, and big data compete with traditional statistics and probability. As THE PERFECT BET demonstrates, wagers are our window onto the world of chance and randomness. They show us how to balance risk against reward, and why we value things differently as our circumstances change. They help us unravel how we make decisions and what we can do to control fluke – or avoid it altogether. ADAM KUCHARSKI is a research fellow in the Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and an award-winning science writer. Born in 1986, he studied at the University of Warwick before completing a PhD in mathematics at the University of Cambridge. He has published papers on topics ranging from evolutionary biology to the social structure of epidemics, and in 2013 was awarded a research fellowship by the UK Medical Research Council to investigate disease emergence in Southeast Asia. Winner of the 2012 Wellcome Trust Science Writing Prize, he has contributed popular science articles to the Observer, BBC Focus and Plus Magazine. He lives in London. Publisher: Profile (UK)/BasicBooks (US) (Editor: TJ Kelleher, US) Publication: 23 February 2016 (US)/5 May 2016 (UK) Length: 288 pages All rights available excluding UK & Commonwealth, US, Brazil (Zahar), China (Beijing Paper Jump Cultural Development Company), Japan (Soshisha), Italy (Codice), Korea (Business Books), Russia (Sindbad) 21
The Science Factory
Frankfurt Book Fair 2016
RECENTLY PUBLISHED
The Great Invention The Story of GDP and the Making (and Unmaking) of the Modern World
THE GREAT INVENTION The Story of GDP and the Making (and Unmaking) of the Modern World EHSAN MASOOD In lively prose, Masood argues that GDP is flawed because it ignores volunteering, housework, environmental degradation, job satisfaction, and income inequality… Relying on primary source materials and interviews, Masood names the economists who helped develop GDP… Masood’s critique is interesting – PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Ehsan Masood The biography of one of the twentieth-century’s most influential and dangerously addictive ideas, told through the lives of those who invented it. The world’s principal measure of the health of economies is gross domestic product, or GDP: the sum of what all of us spend every day, from the contents of our weekly shopping to large capital spending by businesses. GDP also includes the myriad things that our governments pay for, from libraries and road-line painting to naval dockyards and nuclear weapons. In 2011, America’s GDP was about $14 trillion. Britain’s was a more modest £1.5 trillion. THE GREAT INVENTION reveals how in just a few decades GDP became the world’s most powerful formula: how six algebraic symbols forged in the fires of the 1930s economic crisis helped Europe and America prosper, how the remedy now risks killing the patient it once saved and how this fundamentally flawed metric is creating the illusion of global prosperity and why many world leaders want to be able to ignore it but so far remain powerless to do so. Drawing on interviews, firsthand accounts and previously neglected source materials, THE GREAT INVENTION takes readers on a journey from Capitol Hill in Washington to Whitehall in London, on the trail of theories made in Cambridge, tested in Karachi and designed for global application, and into the minds of unworldly geniuses seduced by the allure of power and the demands of politics. EHSAN MASOOD is a science writer, journalist and broadcaster. Formerly on the editorial staff of Nature and New Scientist, he is currently the editor of Research Fortnight and Research Europe and teaches international science policy at Imperial College London. As well as writing for Prospect magazine, The Times, Guardian and Le Monde, he is a frequent presenter for BBC Radio and the author of SCIENCE AND ISLAM: A History (Icon, 2009) and coauthor of DRY: Life Without Water (Harvard University Press, 2006). Born in 1967, he lives in London. Publisher: Pegasus Publication: 7 June 2016 Length: 352 pages All rights available excluding World English Language (Pegasus), China (People’s Oriental Publishing & Media Co – simplified Chinese characters), Germany (Julius Beltz)
22
The Science Factory
Frankfurt Book Fair 2016
RECENTLY PUBLISHED
RESTLESS CREATURES The Story of Life in Ten Movements MATT WILKINSON An ingenious but not-dumbed-down history of life’s four-billion-year progress in getting from one place to another…. [Readers] will come away with a deep understanding of an essential basis of life – KIRKUS REVIEWS Packed with revelations, scholarly but clear, RESTLESS CREATURES carries you from the kinetics of the amoeba to that of the blue whale, from the swimcycle of spermatozoa, to why skipping works best on the moon. A pop-science treat – Gavin Francis, author of ADVENTURES IN HUMAN BEING It would be hard to find a more companionable guide to the marvels of locomotory evolution than Matt Wilkinson…. wonderfully adept and informed explanations of locomotory modes – whether in birds, gliding snakes, eels, sharks or a host of fossil vertebrates and there is not a single vignette that I failed to learn something from – Kevin Padian, NATURE Intriguing… [an] enlightening perspective – Richard Conniff, WALL STREET JOURNAL Original and insightful book – Sean B. Carroll, author of BRAVE GENIUS and THE SERENGETI RULES
A book that opens up an astonishing new perspective: that nothing in life makes sense except in the light of movement. How living things move from place to place is often taken for granted. Yet, not only are the ways in which creatures get about dazzlingly sophisticated, but the need for motility has also shaped the very essence of life on Earth: brains, sex, predation, photosynthesis, the evolution of complexity, the invasion of land and the rise of humanity all arose from improvements in getting from A to B. In RESTLESS CREATURES, the acclaimed biologist and science writer Matt Wilkinson shows how the story of movement offers a uniquely powerful way to explain why life is the way it is. Tracing the evolution of locomotion from the lowliest bacteria to Olympic athletes, he reveals that many of evolution's greatest hits, including almost everything that makes us human from opposable thumbs to the way we think and feel, owe their existence to the evolution of motility. And this in turn rests on surprisingly simple foundations: how life has responded to the physical challenges posed by Newton's laws of motion and other mechanical rules. Along the way we learn why there are no flying monkeys or biological wheels; how dinosaurs started to fly and how headless chickens run around; how juvenile spiders can manage to reach the stratosphere; why the left and right sides of most animals are mirror images; why insects have six legs and humans have five fingers; why the lives of plants are still dominated by movement even though they're rooted to the spot; why it's better to run barefoot; why roller coasters are so much fun; and what life's movement machinery has in common with growing mushrooms and military tanks. MATT WILKINSON is a science writer and biologist in the Department of Zoology at the University of Cambridge. As well as being an occasional professional actor, he is an experienced science communicator, having spoken at several science festivals, science cafes and other public events, as well as on radio in the UK and Canada. RESTLESS CREATURES is his first book. Born in 1975, he lives in Cambridge, UK. Publisher: BasicBooks/Icon (Editor: TJ Kelleher) Publication: 23 February 2016/5 May 2016 Length: 336 pages All rights available excluding World English Language (Basic), Japan (Soshisha), Russia (AST)
23
The Science Factory
Frankfurt Book Fair 2016
BACKLIST TITLES
THE EDGE OF PHYSICS A Journey to Earth’s Extremes to Unlock the Secrets of the Universe PHYSICS WORLD’s Book of the Year 2010 An accomplished and timely overview of modern cosmology and particle astrophysics – NATURE ANIL ANANTHASWAMY is an award-winning science journalist and former deputy news editor and current consultant for New Scientist. 336 pages/2010 – UK (Duckworth), US (Harcourt), China (Beijing United), Germany (Spektrum), Greece (Travlos), India (Penguin), Italy (Codice), Japan (Kawadeshobo), Korea (Humanist), Poland (Prószyński), Russia (Eksmo)
THE MAN WHO WASN’T THERE Investigations into the Strange New Science of the Self A blazingly original excursion through the brain – as well as a fascinating catalog of bizarre disorders – ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY ANIL ANANTHASWAMY is an award-winning science journalist and former deputy news editor and current consultant for New Scientist. 320 pages/2015 – World English Language (Dutton/Penguin), China (Beijing Huazhang Graphics and Information), Italy (Edizioni Centro Studi Erickson), Japan (Kinokuniya), Korea (Gilbut), Netherlands (Meulenhoff), Taiwan (Athena), Turkey (YKY)
WHO KILLED PROFESSOR X? A wonderful booklet of fiction, but based on historical incidents… a fantastic present that you can give to anybody between 9 and 99 – Adhemar Bultheel, European Mathematical Society THODORIS ANDRIOPOULOS teaches mathematics at Anatolia College in Thessaloniki and game theory at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Talented Youth in Greece. 176 pages/2014 – World English Language (Springer), Greece (Ellinoekdotiki), Indonesia (PT Pustaka Alvabet), Japan (Kodansha), Korea (Darun)
24
The Science Factory
Frankfurt Book Fair 2016
BACKLIST TITLES
ATOMIC The First War of Physics and the Secret History of the Atom Bomb, 1939–1949 An excellent introduction to a vast and complicated topic... a brisk, exciting and comprehensive narrative – Michael Dobbs, THE NEW YORK TIMES JIM BAGGOTT has been writing about science, philosophy and science history for some two decades, and has won awards for both scientific research and science journalism. 576 pages/2009 – UK (Icon), US (Pegasus)*, Israel (Books in the Attic/Miskal), Japan (Sakuhinsha), Russia (Eksmo) *Published in the US as THE FIRST WAR OF PHYSICS: The Secret History of the Atom Bomb
FAREWELL TO REALITY How Fairy-Tale Physics Has Betrayed the Search for Scientific Truth His fierce and refreshing polemic does a fine job of helping readers understand some of the knottiest ideas in contemporary physics. This is all the more remarkable as he eschews analogies, arguing that they tend to confuse rather than illuminate the counterintuitive ideas and phenomena he describes – THE ECONOMIST JIM BAGGOTT has been writing about science, philosophy and science history for some two decades, and has won awards for both scientific research and science journalism. 352 pages/2014 – UK (Constable), US (Pegasus), Poland (Proszysnki)
THE BELIEF INSTINCT The Psychology of Souls, Destiny and the Meaning of Life A balanced and considered approach to this often inflammatory topic – NATURE JESSE BERING is a psychologist, writer and associate professor of science communication at the University of Otago, New Zealand. 288 pages/2010 – UK (Nicholas Brealey), US (Norton)*, Brazil (Zahar), China (Beijing Standway Books – simplified Chinese characters), Croatia (Naklada Ljevak), Germany (Piper), Italy (Rizzoli), Japan (Kagaku-Dojin), Korea (Purun Communication), Netherlands (Nieuw Amsterdam), Portugal (Temas e Debates), Spain (Paidós), Taiwan (Apocalypse – traditional Chinese characters) *Published in the UK as THE GOD INSTINCT
25
The Science Factory
Frankfurt Book Fair 2016
BACKLIST TITLES
FIVE BILLION YEARS OF SOLITUDE The Search for Life Among the Stars Winner of the American Institute of Physics 2013 Science Writing Award for Books Graceful… the best book I have read about exoplanets, and one of the few whose language approaches the grandeur of a quest that is practically as old as our genes – Dennis Overbye, THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW LEE BILLINGS is a science journalist specialising in astronomy, planetary science, astrophysics and cosmology. 304 pages/2013 – World English Language (Current/Penguin), Dutch (Lannoo), Greece (ROPI Publications), Korea (Ermamama), Latin America (Planeta Mexico – Spanish), Russia (Piter), Taiwan (Gusa Publisher), Turkey (Alfa Group)
THE MAN WHO RAN THE MOON James E. Webb, NASA and the Secret History of Project Apollo Bizony’s excellent corrective to NASA’s mythologised history takes an unflinching look… A firebrand of a book – PUBLISHERS WEEKLY PIERS BIZONY is a science journalist and space historian and author of many acclaimed books. 242 pages/2006 – UK (Icon), US (Thunder’s Mouth)
WETWARE A Computer in Every Cell Drawing on the similarities between Pac-man and an amoeba and efforts to model the human brain, this absorbing read shows that biologists and engineers have a lot to learn from working together – DISCOVER DENNIS BRAY is emeritus professor in the Department of Physiology, Development and Neuroscience at the University of Cambridge. 267 pages/2009 – World English Language (Yale University Press), Japan (Hayakawa), Korea (East Asia)
26
The Science Factory
Frankfurt Book Fair 2016
BACKLIST TITLES
A PIECE OF THE SUN The Quest for Fusion Energy A surprisingly sprightly tour d’horizon of the pursuit of fusion energy... Clery negotiates the hard science with aplomb... A compelling case for continued, even increased, fusion research – KIRKUS REVIEWS DANIEL CLERY is a graduate in theoretical physics who has for more than 20 years worked as a writer and editor on some of the world’s top science magazines. He is currently Science’s news editor in Europe. 320 pages/2013 – UK & Commonwealth (Duckworth), US (Overlook), China (Shanghai Century Publishing Co. Ltd)
THE EGG AND SPERM RACE The Seventeenth-Century Scientists Who Unravelled the Secrets of Sex, Life and Growth A fascinating subject, full of arresting material and personalities – Lisa Jardine, SUNDAY TIMES MATTHEW COBB is professor of zoology at the University of Manchester. 332 pages/2006 – UK & Commonwealth (Simon & Schuster), US (Bloomsbury), Netherlands (Bezige Bij), Turkey (Everest) *Published in the US as GENERATION
THE RESISTANCE The French Fight Against the Nazis Winner of the Franco-British Society’s Enid McLeod Book Prize 2009 Thrilling narration… a soundly sourced history that gallops by with the verve of a great historical novel – BBC HISTORY magazine MATTHEW COBB is a professor of zoology at the University of Manchester. He has translated five books from French into English, and spent most of his adult life as a researcher in Paris, before returning to the UK in 2002. 416 pages/2009 – World English Language (Simon & Schuster)
27
The Science Factory
Frankfurt Book Fair 2016
BACKLIST TITLES
ELEVEN DAYS IN AUGUST The Liberation of Paris in 1944 The fullest account imaginable of the Battle for Paris. Cobb’s narrative... hurtles along, illuminated by blazing details. Admirable... epic – NEW STATESMAN MATTHEW COBB is a professor of zoology at the University of Manchester. He has translated five books from French into English, and spent most of his adult life as a researcher in Paris, before returning to the UK in 2002. 544 pages/2013 – World English Language (Simon & Schuster)
LIFE’S GREATEST SECRET The Story of the Race to Crack the Genetic Code Shortlisted for the 2015 Royal Society Winton Prize for Science Books The cracking of the code of life is a great story, of which this is an accomplished telling – THE ECONOMIST MATTHEW COBB is a professor of zoology at the University of Manchester. 432 pages/2015 – UK & Commonwealth (Profile), US (BasicBooks), China (Ginkgo (Beijing) Book Co), Greece (ROPI Publications), Poland (Proszynski Media), Turkey (Altin Bilek)
FROM CELLS TO CIVILIZATIONS The Principles of Change that Shape Life Shortlisted for the 2013 Royal Society Winton Prize for Science Books The ideas are subtle, possibly significant, and slightly unsettling. What more could a reader wish for? – NEW YORK JOURNAL OF BOOKS ENRICO COEN is a plant biologist at the John Innes Centre in Norwich, UK, and a fellow of the Royal Society. His work is regularly published in top scientific journals such as Science, Nature and Cell. 322 pages/2012 – World English Language (Princeton University Press), Germany (Hanser), Korea (Chung-A Publishing Co.), Spain (Critica)
28
The Science Factory
Frankfurt Book Fair 2016
BACKLIST TITLES
SONIC WONDERLAND A Scientific Odyssey of Sound Cox’s enthusiasm for his specialty is contagious. I’ll now be keeping my ears wide open – WASHINGTON POST TREVOR COX is professor of acoustic engineering at Salford University and former president of the Institute of Acoustics. 304 pages/2014 – UK & Commonwealth (Bodley Head), US (Norton)*, China (New World), Germany (Springer), Italy (Dedalo), Japan (Hakuyosha), Korea (Sejong Books), Taiwan (Marco Polo) *Published in the US as THE SOUND BOOK: The Science of the Sonic Wonders of the World
HOW TO CHANGE MINDS ABOUT OUR CHANGING CLIMATE Everyone – including climate skeptics! – ought to read this book. With wit and verve, it explains why every arguments in the climate skeptics’ handbook is – to put it politely – wrong – Elizabeth Kolbert, author of THE SIXTH EXTINCTION SETH DARLING is a scientist in the Center for Nanoscale Materials at Argonne National Laboratory and a fellow at the Institute for Molecular Engineering at the University of Chicago. DOUG SISTERSON is a senior manager at Argonne National Laboratory for the US Department of Energy’s Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Climate Research Facility. 224 pages/2014 – World English Language (The Experiment)
STARMAN The Truth Behind the Legend of Yuri Gagarin Takes us breakneck speed through Gagarin’s strange trajectory… Without books like these to shelter it, history is eroded by propaganda and real heroes fall victim to spin – NEW SCIENTIST JAMIE DORAN is a documentary filmmaker and former BBC producer. With Piers Bizony, he directed and produced the 1998 BBC film about Gagarin, which was shown in more than 60 countries worldwide. PIERS BIZONY is a science journalist and space historian who writes for numerous newspapers and magazines. 248 pages/2011 – World English Language (Bloomsbury), Bulgaria (Ciela Norma), China (China Youth Press – simplified Chinese characters), Japan (Kawadeshobo), Lithuania (De Libris), Poland (Prószyński), Russia (Azbooka Atticus)
29
The Science Factory
Frankfurt Book Fair 2016
BACKLIST TITLES
THE DEVIL’S DERIVATIVES The Untold Story of the Slick Traders and Hapless Regulators Who Almost Blew Up Wall Street… and Are Ready to Do It Again A triumphant romp through a decade of financial mismanagement. A must-read – THE NATIONAL NICHOLAS DUNBAR is the founder of RiskyFinance. A financial analyst, data visualiser and former journalist, he is author of INVENTING MONEY (Wiley, 1999). 320 pages/2011 – World English Language (Harvard Business Review Press), China (China Citic – simplified Chinese characters), Italy (EGEA), Japan (Kobunsha), Taiwan (Wealth Press – traditional Chinese characters)
HOW INTELLIGENCE HAPPENS A wonderfully compact summary of brain architecture and function – WALL STREET JOURNAL JOHN DUNCAN is assistant director of the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit at the University of Cambridge. 244 pages/2010 – World English Language (Yale University Press), Japan (Hayakawa), Russia (Hippo/Kariera)
MINDFIELD How Brain Science is Changing Our World A fascinating exploration of the most intriguing brain experiments so far this century… Her hesitant participation in experiments… along with brutally honest descriptions of the experts add a welcome dose of humour – NEW SCIENTIST LONE FRANK is an award-winning science writer and broadcaster based in Copenhagen. 320 pages/2009 – World English Language (Oneworld)*, Denmark (Gyldendal), Netherlands (Maven), Norway (Spartacus), Sweden (Fri Tanke) *Reissued in paperback in June 2011 as THE NEUROTOURIST: Postcards from the Edge of Brain Science
30
The Science Factory
Frankfurt Book Fair 2016
BACKLIST TITLES
MY BEAUTIFUL GENOME Exposing Our Genetic Future, One Quirk at a Time Shortlisted for the 2012 Royal Society Winton Prize for Science Books An excellent look into the postgenomic world – FINANCIAL TIMES LONE FRANK is an award-winning science writer and TV presenter based in Copenhagen. 320 pages/2011 – World English Language (Oneworld), China (Shanghai Scientific and Technological Education Publishing House), Denmark (Gyldendal), Germany (Hanser), Netherlands (Maven), Norway (Danor), Russia (Marco Polo), Sweden (Fri Tanke)
FLAT EARTH The History of an Infamous Idea An energetic, all-inclusive and amusing account of man’s impressive capacity for self-delusion. Every creationist should read it – Steve Jones, author of THE LANGUAGE OF THE GENES Wonderful . . . dispassionate and understanding – FINANCIAL TIMES CHRISTINE GARWOOD has a BA in history and a PhD in the history of science. Formerly a research fellow at the Open University, she is the author of several articles on Edwardian science and society and a freelance heritage consultant. Length: 436 pages/2007 – UK & Commonwealth (Macmillan), US (Thomas Dunne), Greece (Travlos)
THE IMPROBABILITY PRINCIPLE How To Guarantee Winning the Lottery, Why Lightning Does Strike Twice and Why Other Incredibly Unlikely Things Keep Happening An enlightening book – Jennifer Ouellette, THE NEW YORK TIMES Very engaging… should be, in all probability, required reading for us all – John A. Adams, WASHINGTON POST DAVID HAND is an emeritus professor of mathematics and senior research investigator at Imperial College London and a former president of the Royal Statistical Society.
352 pages/2014 – UK & Commonwealth (Transworld), US (Scientific American/Farrar, Straus & Giroux), Brazil (Companhia das Letras), China (Publishing House of Electronics Industry-Beijing Media Electronic Information), Germany (Beck), Greece (ROPI Publications), Italy (Rizzoli), Japan (Hayakawa), Korea (Gilbut), Netherlands (AmboAnthos), Poland (Foksal), Russia (AST), Taiwan (Locus), Turkey (April)
31
The Science Factory
Frankfurt Book Fair 2016
BACKLIST TITLES
ONLY THE LONGEST THREADS A fictional approach to physics that captures both the substance of the theory and the passion of its practitioners – KIRKUS REVIEWS TASNEEM ZEHRA HUSAIN is a writer, educator and Pakistan’s first female string theorist. She holds a PhD from Stockholm University and did post-doctoral research at Harvard University. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts. 222 pages/2014 – US & Canada (Paul Dry Books)
WOLVES Ings’s return to full-throttle SF is a cause for celebration. His gift for edgy slipstream fiction makes comparisons with both J. G. Ballard and William Gibson apposite. Bleak, brutal and uncompromising – Jonathan Wright, SFX One of the key books of next year… a serious, ambitious and discomforting novel – Christopher Priest SIMON INGS is a novelist, science writer and arts editor of New Scientist. 304 pages/2014 – World English Language (Gollancz)
HEAVEN’S BANKERS Inside the Hidden World of Islamic Finance His message ought to be recited by bankers of every creed – WALL STREET JOURNAL HARRIS IRFAN is one of the world’s leading Islamic finance bankers. He is the founder and managing partner of Cordoba Capital, an independent Islamic finance advisory firm, and was formerly global head of Islamic finance at the Barclays Group. 352 pages/2014 – UK & Commonwealth (Constable), US (Overlook), Korea (Cheomnetworks)
32
The Science Factory
Frankfurt Book Fair 2016
BACKLIST TITLES
WHAT DOESN’T KILL US The New Psychology of Posttraumatic Growth Sounds a hopeful note. Suffering need not destroy – Terry Waite CBE A thorough and common-sense look at the psychology of survival – NATURE STEPHEN JOSEPH is a professor of psychology, health and social care at the University of Nottingham, UK. 288 pages/2011 – UK & Commonwealth (Piatkus), US (BasicBooks), China (Cheers Publishing Company – simplified Chinese characters), Czech Republic (Portal), Germany (Springer Spektrum), Japan (Chikuma Shobo), Korea (Hakjisa), Netherlands (Archipel), Russia (Hippo/Kariera)
THE NAKED SURGEON The Power and Peril of Transparency in Medicine Bold, brilliant…. Nashef’s writing is lucid, free of medical jargon and, unlike many academic books, it is not dry, being strewn with anecdotes and jokes… An essential book for anyone contemplating surgery, medical treatment, or a career in medicine – INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY SAMER NASHEF is a consultant cardiac surgeon at Papworth Hospital, Cambridge, and the world’s leading expert on risk and quality in surgical care. 240 pages/2015 – World English Language (Scribe), China (Shanghai World Publishing)
INCOMING! Or: Why We Should Learn to Stop Worrying and Love the Meteorite Opens a window on the night sky and the marvels that streak across it – GUARDIAN TED NIELD holds a doctorate in geology and works for the Geological Society of London as editor of the monthly magazine Geoscientist. He is the author of several highly praised books including SUPERCONTINENT (Granta/Harvard University Press, 2007). 272 pages/2011 – UK & Commonwealth (Granta), US (Lyons Press)* *Published in the US as THE FALLEN SKY
33
The Science Factory
Frankfurt Book Fair 2016
BACKLIST TITLES
UNDERLANDS A Personal Journey Through Britain’s Lost Landscape Geology is a noble instrument of inquiry and conviction…. In the hands of Ted Nield it edges its way towards art – Jan Morris, LITERARY REVIEW TED NIELD holds a doctorate in geology and works for the Geological Society of London as editor of the monthly magazine Geoscientist. He is the author of several highly praised books including INCOMING (Granta, 2011) and SUPERCONTINENT (Granta/Harvard University Press, 2007). 288 pages/2014 – World English Language (Granta)
REINVENTING DISCOVERY The New Era of Networked Science FINANCIAL TIMES nonfiction favourite in science 2011 BOSTON GLOBE’s best book on science 2011 A survey, an analysis, a how-to, and a harbinger of greater things to come – Robert Schaefer, NEW YORK JOURNAL OF BOOKS MICHAEL NIELSEN is a scientist, writer and programmer, he works on ideas and tools that help people think and create, both individually and collectively. His is currently a research fellow at Y Combinator Research and writes an occasional column for Quanta magazine.. 280 pages/2011 – World English Language (Princeton University Press), China (W E Time DigiTech), Italy (Einaudi), Japan (Kinokuniya), Lithuania (Eugrimas), Russia (AST)
THE SCIENCE OF DOCTOR WHO Foreword by Arthur C. Clarke There should be a copy in the glove compartment of every Tardis – Colin Baker, the sixth Doctor PAUL PARSONS holds a DPhil in cosmology and is the former editor of BBC Focus magazine. He has written for publications ranging from the Daily Telegraph to FHM and is the author of several popular science books. He currently works as a trading solutions analyst at Ladbrokes. 342 pages/2006 – UK & Commonwealth (Icon), US (Johns Hopkins University Press)
34
The Science Factory
Frankfurt Book Fair 2016
BACKLIST TITLES
THE END OF PLAGUES The Global Battle Against Infectious Disease Engaging and expansive – HISTORY TODAY Should be read by politicians and the general public to gain an understanding of the challenges of overcoming infectious diseases – NATURE MEDICINE JOHN RHODES is an eminent immunologist who held research fellowships at the US National Institutes of Health and the University of Cambridge before joining the Wellcome Foundation in London. From 2001 to 2007 he was director of strategy in immunology at GlaxoSmithKline. 256 pages/2013 – World English Language (Palgrave Macmillan)
MASSIVE The Hunt for the God Particle With a new final chapter reporting on the announcement of the discovery of a Higgs-like particle at CERN on 4 July 2012 Shortlisted for the 2011 Royal Society Winton Prize for Science Books Sample’s exciting, easy-to-read narrative captures the collaboration, and competition, among the theorists – WALL STREET JOURNAL IAN SAMPLE has a PhD in biomedical science from Queen Mary, University of London, and is the science editor of the Guardian.
320 pages/2010 – UK & Commonwealth (Virgin), US (BasicBooks), Greece (Travlos), Israel (Books in the Attic), Italy (Il Saggiatore), Japan (Kodansha), Poland (Prószyński), Russia (Azbooka Atticus), Turkey (Arkadas)
THE POPPY A Cultural History from Ancient Egypt to Flanders Fields to Afghanastan Saunders movingly presents the poppy in its beauty, its tragedy and its healing power as a potent symbol every year in our national and global remembrance of loss – SAGA NICHOLAS J. SAUNDERS is honorary reader in material culture in the Department of Anthropology at University College London and the world’s leading authority on the anthropology and archaeology of the First World War. He is the author of several books including ALEXANDER’S TOMB (BasicBooks, 2007). 320 pages/2013 – World English Language (Oneworld)
35
The Science Factory
Frankfurt Book Fair 2016
BACKLIST TITLES
NATURE’S NETHER REGIONS What the Sex Lives of Bugs, Birds and Beasts Tell Us About Evolution, Biodiversity and Ourselves A remarkable book... succeeds in finding exactly the right tone…. Schilthuizen’s entertaining work reminds us not to take ‘the mechanics of sexual intercourse’ for granted – PUBLISHERS WEEKLY MENNO SCHILTHUIZEN is an evolutionary biologist based at the Netherlands Centre for Biodiversity ‘Naturalist’ in Leiden, and the author of two previous books. 256 pages/2014 – World English Language (Viking/Penguin US), China (Shanghai Guo Yue Cultural and Creative Co. Ltd), France (Flammarion), Germany (DTV), Italy (Bollati Boringhieri/Mauri Spagnol), Japan (Hayakawa), Netherlands (Atlas Contact)
DOOMSDAY MEN The Real Dr Strangelove and the Dream of the Superweapon Readable and entertaining – Tibor Fischer, DAILY TELEGRAPH P. D. SMITH is an independent researcher and writer based in the UK. The author of four books, he has taught at University College London where he is an honorary research fellow in the Department of Science and Technology Studies. 576 pages/2007 – UK & Commonwealth (Allen Lane), US (St Martin’s Press), Brazil (Companhia das Letras)
THE GAP The Science Of What Separates Us From Other Animals Beautifully written, well researched and thought provoking – Jane Goodall THOMAS SUDDENDORF is a full professor in the School of Psychology at the University of Queensland, Australia. His 1997 paper on mental time travel is one of the most cited articles in psychology. 352 pages/2013 – World English Language (BasicBooks), China (Shanghai Literature and Art Publishing House), Germany (Berlin), Japan (Hakuyosha), Spain (Ediciones Destino)
36
The Science Factory
Frankfurt Book Fair 2016
BACKLIST TITLES
HOW TO MAKE A ZOMBIE The Real Life (and Death) Science of Reanimation and Mind Control Gripping... reads like a nonfiction version of a Stephen King novel – you’ll stay up all night reading it with goose bumps and the lights on – Michael Shermer, NEW YORK TIMES bestselling author of THE BELIEVING BRAIN and SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN columnist FRANK SWAIN is communities editor at New Scientist and was the founder of SciencePunk, a popular blog devoted to the weird and wonderful fringes of science. 256 pages/2013 – World English Language (Oneworld), Germany (btb/Random House), Japan (Intershift), Netherlands (Paradigma), Sweden (Fri Tanke)
BODY BY DARWIN How Evolution Shapes Our Health and Transforms Medicine Taylor... celebrates the work of Charles Darwin and his successors in this densely packed survey of modern ailments with an evolutionary twist... fascinating territory – PUBLISHERS WEEKLY JEREMY TAYLOR is a former producer and director for BBC Television, where he contributed many films to the BBC’s long-running flagship science series ‘Horizon’. He is also the author of NOT A CHIMP (Oxford University Press, 2009). 304 pages/2015 – World English Language (University of Chicago Press), Germany (Riemann), Japan (Kawadeshobo), Russia (Alpina)
THE EDGE OF THE SKY All You Need to Know About the All-There-Is A poetic primer on the universe… one part children’s book for grownups, one part imaginative exercise in economical yet lyrical language, and wholly wonderful – Maria Popova, BRAIN PICKINGS ROBERTO TROTTA is a theoretical cosmologist at Imperial College London, where he is a reader in astrophysics and the director of the Centre for Languages, Culture and Communication. 144 pages/2014 – World English Language (Basic), Germany (Beck), Korea (Kyobo Book Centre)
37
The Science Factory
Frankfurt Book Fair 2016
BACKLIST TITLES
SELECTED Why Some People Lead, Why Others Follow and Why It Matters An intriguing and subtle account of the clash that results when old instincts meet new conditions – Matt Ridley, author of THE RATIONAL OPTIMIST MARK VAN VUGT is professor of social and organizational psychology at the VU University Amsterdam, Netherlands. ANJANA AHUJA is a contributing writer on science for the Financial Times and a former science features writer at The Times. 272 pages/2010 – UK & Commonwealth (Profile), US (HarperCollins)*, Brazil (Pensamento – Portuguese), Canada (Random House), Indonesia (KPG), China (Intellectual Property Publishing House), Indonesia (Kepustakaan Populer Gramedia), Japan (Hayakawa), Korea (Wooongjin Think Big Co.), Netherlands (Bruna), Russia (Hippo/Kariera), Turkey (Everest Yayinlari) *Published in the US as NATURALLY SELECTED: The Evolutionary Science of Leadership
THE EVOLUTIONARY WORLD How Adaptation Explains Everything from Seashells to Civilization Superb writing… first-rate science… wonderful… This fabulous book deserves widespread attention by specialists and lay readers alike – PUBLISHERS WEEKLY, starred review GEERAT J. VERMEIJ is distinguished professor of geology at the University of California at Davis. 336 pages/2010 – World English Language (Thomas Dunne), China (Zhe Jiang University Press – simplified Chinese characters), Israel (Books in the Attic), Netherlands (Nieuw Amsterdam)
38
The Science Factory
Frankfurt Book Fair 2016
WORLD RIGHTS SALES The Science Factory is also proud to represent a distinguished list of titles in which world rights have been sold. Further details for particular authors can be found on the following pages. For more information, including foreign-rights availability, please contact the publishers directly. ANIL ANANTHASWAMY Science Writer; Consultant, New Scientist, US/India THROUGH TWO DOORS AT ONCE: The Story of the Experiment that Shook Reality (Dutton/Penguin US) DAVID BAINBRIDGE Zoologist; Director of Studies in Veterinary Medicine, University of Cambridge, UK MIDDLE-AGE (Portobello) CURVOLOGY (Portobello) JESSE BERING Psychologist, Science Writer and Columnist, US WHY IS THE PENIS SHAPED LIKE THAT? (Scientific American/Farrar, Straus & Giroux) PERV: The Surprising Science of Sexual Deviance (Scientific American/Farrar, Straus & Giroux) PIERS BIZONY Science Writer and Space Historian, UK THE SCIENCE GUIDE (Quercus) THE SEARCH FOR ALIENS: A Rough Guide to Life on Other Worlds (Penguin UK) DANIEL BOR Psychologist and Science Writer; Visiting Scientist, MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, University of Cambridge, UK; Research Scientist, Sackler Centre for Consciousness Science, University of Sussex, UK RAVENOUS FOR WISDOM: How the New Science of Consciousness Explains Our Insatiable Search for Meaning (BasicBooks) MATTHEW COBB Biologist, Historian, Writer; Professor of Zoology and Associate Dean for Social Responsibility, University of Manchester, UK THINKING MATTER: The Sciences of the Brain – Past, Present and Future (Profile) JULIA COLLINS Mathematics Engagement Officer, University of Edinburgh, UK THE GENIUS TEST: MATHEMATICS (Quercus) MICHAEL C. CORBALLIS Psychologist; Professor of Psychology, University of Auckland, New Zealand THE RECURSIVE MIND; The Origins of Human Language, Thought, and Civilization (Princeton University Press) RICHARD ELWES Popular Mathematics Writer; Visiting Fellow, University of Leeds, UK MATHEMATICS 1001 (Quercus) HOW TO BUILD A BRAIN (Quercus) MATHS HANDBOOK (Quercus) MATHS IN 100 KEY DISCOVERIES (Quercus) 50 MORE MATHS IDEAS YOU REALLY NEED TO KNOW (Quercus) MARIANNE FREIBERGER Maths Writer; Editor of Plus Magazine, UK NUMERICON; A Journey through the Hidden Lives of Numbers (Quercus) MATHS SQUARED: 100 Concepts You Should Know (Quantum Books) SIMON INGS Science Writer and Novelist, UK DEAD WATER (Atlantic) STALIN AND THE SCIENTISTS: A History of Triumph and Tragedy 1905–1953 (Faber)
39
The Science Factory
Frankfurt Book Fair 2016
EHSAN MASOOD Science Writer, Journalist and Broadcaster; Editor, Research Fortnight and Research Europe; Former Editor on Nature and New Scientist; Former Director of Communications, LEAD International, UK SCIENCE AND ISLAM (Icon) MARK MIODOWNIK Materials Scientist and Science Communicator/Presenter; Professor of Materials and Society, and Director of the Institute of Making, University College London, UK STUFF MATTERS: The Strange Stories of the Marvellous Materials that Shape Our Man-made World (Viking/ Penguin UK) LIQUID (Viking/Penguin UK) PAUL PARSONS Science Writer; Trading Solutions Analyst, Ladbrokes; Former Editor, BBC Focus, UK SCIENCE 1001 (Quercus) HOW TO DESTROY THE UNIVERSE: And 34 Other Really Interesting Uses of Physics (Quercus) SCIENCE: In 100 Key Breakthroughs (Quercus) THE ROUGH GUIDE TO SURVIVING THE END OF THE WORLD (Rough Guides/Penguin UK) THE PERIODIC TABLE (Quercus) 3-MINUTE STEPHEN HAWKING (Ivy Press) 50 SCIENCE IDEAS YOU REALLY NEED TO KNOW (Quercus) ANGELA SAINI Science Writer and Broadcaster, UK GEEK NATION: A Journey Through the New India (Hodder) ANDY SCOTT Writer and Historian; Former Diplomat, UK Foreign Office ONE KISS OR TWO? The Art and Science of Greetings (Duckworth) P. D. SMITH Independent Researcher and Writer, UK CITY (Bloomsbury, UK & US) WATCHING THE DETECTIVES: The Birth of a Modern Hero (Bloomsbury, UK & US) TOM STAFFORD Psychologist; Lecture in Psychology, University of Sheffield, UK THE ROUGH GUIDE BOOK OF BRAIN TRAINING (Rough Guides/Penguin UK) IAN STEWART Mathematician; Popular Science and Science Fiction Writer; Emeritus Professor of Mathematics and Digital Media Fellow, University of Warwick, UK PROFESSOR STEWART’S CABINET OF MATHEMATICAL CURIOSITIES (Profile) PROFESSOR STEWART’S HOARD OF MATHEMATICAL TREASURES (Profile) PROFESSOR STEWART’S CASEBOOK OF MATHEMATICAL MYSTERIES (Profile) THE MATHEMATICS OF LIFE (Profile) THE GREAT MATHEMATICAL PROBLEMS (Profile) SEVENTEEN EQUATIONS THAT CHANGED THE WORLD (Profile) INCREDIBLE NUMBERS (App for iPad) (Touch Press/Profile) CALCULATING THE COSMOS (Profile) TRAILBLAZERS (Profile) JEREMY TAYLOR Science Writer and Science Documentary Filmmaker, UK NOT A CHIMP (Oxford University Press) RACHEL THOMAS Maths Writer; Editor of Plus Magazine, UK NUMERICON: A Journey through the Hidden Lives of Numbers (Quercus) MATHS SQUARED: 100 Concepts You Should Know (Quantum Books)
40
The Science Factory
Frankfurt Book Fair 2016
SCIENCE FACTORY FOREIGN LANGUAGE CO-AGENTS JAPAN Hamish Macaskill: hamish@eaj.co.jp Tsutomu Yawata: tsutomu_yawata@eaj.co.jp The English Agency (Japan) Sakuragi Building 3F 6-7-3 Minami Aoyama Minato-ku Tokyo 107-0062 JAPAN tel: +81 3 3406 5385 fax: +81 3 3406 5387
KOREA Duran Kim: duran@durankim.com Duran Kim Agency 2F Taeyang Building 263 Hyoryeong-ro, Seocho-gu Seoul 06653 KOREA tel: +822 583 5724 fax: +822 584 5724
REST OF THE WORLD Louisa Pritchard: louisa@louisapritchard.co.uk Louisa Pritchard Associates Flat 5 81 Battersea Church Road London SW11 3LY UNITED KINGDOM skype: + 44 (0)20 7193 7145 mobile: +44 (0)7714 721
41