The Science Factory
London Book Fair 2018
CONTENTS NEW DEALS The Last Stargazers by Emily Levesque 1 Alice and Bob Meet the Wall of Fire edited by Thomas Lin 2 The Prime Number Conspiracy edited by Thomas Lin 3 Live Like a Stoic by Massimo Pigliucci & Gregory Lopez 4 The Angina Monologues by Samer Nashef 5 Wally Funk’s Race for Space by Sue Nelson 6 FORTHCOMING TITLES Dispatches from Planet Three by Marcia Bartusiak 7 This Fatal Game by Jesse Bering 8 Totally Random by Tanya Bub & Jeffrey Bub 9 Now You’re Talking by Trevor Cox 10 Water World by Sarah Dry 11 Once Upon A Time I Lived On Mars And Other Stories by Kate Greene 12 Advantage Play by Steve Haake 13 Dark Data by David Hand 14 The Fear of Doing Nothing by Valery Hazanov 15 Am I Dreaming? by James Kingsland 16 Open World by Alexander Kriss 17 Wondrous Transformations by Alison Li 18 What Are You? by Angela Saini 19 We, The Users by Ramesh Srinivasan 20 RECENTLY PUBLISHED What Is Real? by Adam Becker 21 The Pleasure Shock by Lone Frank 22 The Smoke by Simon Ings 23 Close Encounters With Humankind by Sang-Hee Lee & Shin-Young Yoon 24 Ask Me About My Uterus by Abby Norman 25 Darwin Comes to Town by Menno Schilthuizen 26 BACKLIST TITLES The Edge of Physics by Anil Ananthaswamy 27 The Man Who Wasn’t There by Anil Ananthaswamy 27 Who Killed Professor X? by Thodoris Andriopoulos 27 Atomic by Jim Baggott 28 Farewell to Reality by Jim Baggott 28 The Belief Instinct by Jesse Bering 28 Five Billion Years of Solitude by Lee Billings 29 The Man Who Ran the Moon by Piers Bizony 29 Wetware by Dennis Bray 29 A Piece of the Sun by Daniel Clery 30 The Egg and Sperm Race by Matthew Cobb 30 The Resistance by Matthew Cobb 30 Eleven Days in August by Matthew Cobb 31 Life’s Greatest Secret by Matthew Cobb 31 From Cells to Civilizations by Enrico Coen 31 The Truth About Language by Michael Corballis 32 Sonic Wonderland by Trevor Cox 32 How to Change Minds about Our Changing Climate by Seth Darling & Douglas Sisterson 32 Starman by Jamie Doran & Piers Bizony 33
The Science Factory
London Book Fair 2018
The Devil’s Derivatives by Nicholas Dunbar 33 How Intelligence Happens by John Duncan 33 The Appointment by Graham Easton 34 Mindfield by Lone Frank 34 My Beautiful Genome by Lone Frank 34 Flat Earth by Christine Garwood 35 The Improbability Principle by David Hand 35 Flavor by Bob Holmes 35 Only the Longest Threads by Tasneem Zehra Husain 36 Wolves by Simon Ings 36 Heaven’s Bankers by Harris Irfan 36 What Doesn’t Kill Us by Stephen Joseph 37 Authentic by Stephen Joseph 37 Siddhartha’s Brain by James Kingsland 37 The Perfect Bet by Adam Kucharski 38 The Enlightened Mr Parkinson by Cherry Lewis 38 The Great Invention by Ehsan Masood 38 The Naked Surgeon by Samer Nashef 39 Incoming! by Ted Nield 39 Underlands by Ted Nield 39 Reinventing Discovery by Michael Nielsen 40 The Science of Doctor Who by Paul Parsons 40 How to be a Stoic by Massimo Pigliucci 40 The End of Plagues by John Rhodes 41 Inferior by Angela Saini 41 Massive by Ian Sample 41 The Poppy by Nicholas J. Saunders 42 Ripples in Spacetime by Govert Schilling 42 Nature’s Nether Regions by Menno Schilthuizen 42 Doomsday Men by P. D. Smith 43 The Gap by Thomas Suddendorf 43 How to Make a Zombie by Frank Swain 43 Body by Darwin by Jeremy Taylor 44 Inheritors of the Earth by Chris Thomas 44 The Edge of the Sky by Roberto Trotta 44 Selected by Mark Van Vugt & Anjana Ahuja 45 The Evolutionary World by Geerat J. Vermeij 45 Restless Creatures by Matt Wilkinson 45 Override by Caroline Williams 46 WORLD RIGHTS DEALS* 47–49 FOREIGN LANGUAGE CO-AGENTS 50
For further information about rights in all titles in this catalogue, please contact Louisa Pritchard at table 34f or Peter Tallack at table 34e in the International Rights Centre. Louisa Pritchard (mobile: +44 (0)7714 721 787; email: louisa@louisapritchard.co.uk) Peter Tallack (mobile: +49 (0)151 4246 1109; email: peter@sciencefactory.co.uk) Jeff Shreve (mobile: +44 (0)7735 445 180; email: jeff@sciencefactory.co.uk)
* World rights sales are not detailed in the rights list.
The Science Factory
London Book Fair 2018
NEW DEALS
THE LAST STARGAZERS Surprisingly True Tales from the Colorful, Vanishing World of Observational Astronomy EMILY LEVESQUE
An astronomer pulls back the curtain on the ‘rigors and delights and jerry-rigging absurdity’ of the past century of observational astronomy, while looking ahead to a future in which robots, not humans, peer skyward in pursuit of the Universe’s secrets. Emily Levesque’s 15-year career as an observational astronomer has been full of surprises, hardships, worldwide travel and awe-inspiring discoveries. She’s shared that road with a unique cohort, a group of astronomers braving mountain passes, subzero temperatures, poisonous or otherwise hostile fauna and flora, and the pulse-quickening technical difficulties of telescopes the size and weight of apartment buildings. In THE LAST STARGAZERS, she weaves together the incredible episodes and experiences of over a hundred astronomers and observatory employees to build a narrative history of observational astronomy, offer a tour d’horizon of the research behind our current understanding of the Universe and reveal the transformative developments in the field’s immediate future. That future includes the rise of robotic telescopes such as the LSST – a triumph of modern technology, able to map the Universe in unprecedented detail and generate dozens of terabytes of data in a single night. The LSST will usher in a new age rich in data and potential discoveries, but it will also signal the end of a certain type of human discovery and creativity that has been with us since Galileo. THE LAST STARGAZERS tells these human stories not simply to preserve them but also to remind us that our ingenuity and curiosity should not be wholly sacrificed in the pursuit of gleaming columns of big data. Levesque’s own story shows us that brilliant scientists can do more than move the wheel of scientific progress forward; they can also inspire future generations to take up the effort. EMILY LEVESQUE is a professor of astronomy at the University of Washington. She received her BSc in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Science in 2006 and her PhD in astronomy from the University of Hawaii in 2010. From 2010 to 2015 she was an Einstein Fellow and Hubble Fellow at the University of Colorado at Boulder. In 2014 she was awarded the Annie Jump Cannon Prize by the American Astronomical Society, and in 2017 she was selected as an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow in Physics. Her primary research area is observational stellar astrophysics, with an emphasis on the explosive supernova deaths of massive stars. She has observed for upwards of 50 nights on almost all of the world’s largest optical telescopes, visiting more than a dozen leading observatories (including Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona, the Very Large Array in New Mexico, Mauna Kea Observatory in Hawaii, and the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile). She has also been a principal investigator on the Hubble Space Telescope and has led research using data from the entire breadth of the electromagnetic spectrum, as well as gravitational waves. Her website is at http://emlevesque.com. Agent: Jeff Shreve Publisher: Sourcebooks (Editor: Grace Menary-Winefield) Delivery: 1 September 2019 Publication: Autumn 2020 Status: Proposal and sample chapter Length: 90,000 words All rights available excluding US & Canada (Sourcebooks) 1
The Science Factory
London Book Fair 2018
NEW DEALS
ALICE AND BOB MEET THE WALL OF FIRE A Collection of the Best Quanta Science Stories Edited by THOMAS LIN Foreword by Sean M. Carroll
Accessible and essential coverage of today’s challenging, speculative, cutting-edge science from Quanta Magazine. Quanta, under editor-in-chief Thomas Lin, is the only popular publication that offers in-depth coverage of today’s challenging, speculative, cutting-edge science. It communicates science by taking it seriously, wrestling with difficult concepts and clearly explaining them in a way that speaks to our innate curiosity about our world and ourselves. Bringing together the best and most interesting science stories appearing in Quanta over the past five years, ALICE AND BOB MEET THE WALL OF FIRE reports on some of the greatest scientific minds as they test the limits of human knowledge while revealing the latest efforts to untangle the mysteries of the Universe. In the title story, Alice and Bob – beloved characters of various thought experiments in physics – grapple with gravitational forces, possible ‘spaghettification’ and a massive wall of fire as Alice jumps into a black hole. Another story considers whether, in the light of experimental results at the Large Hadron Collider, the Universe is impossible. We learn about quantum reality and the mystery of quantum entanglement; explore the source of time’s arrow and witness a eureka moment when a quantum physicist exclaims: ‘Finally, we can understand why a cup of coffee equilibrates in a room’. We reflect on humans’ enormous skulls and the ‘brain boom’; consider the evolutionary benefits of loneliness; peel back the layers of the newest artificial-intelligence algorithms; follow the ‘battle for the heart and soul of physics’; and mourn the disappearance of the ‘diphoton bump’, revealed to be a statistical fluctuation rather than a revolutionary new particle. The result is a front-row seat to scientific discovery. THOMAS LIN is the founding editor-in-chief of Quanta Magazine, an online publication that reports on developments in science and mathematics, with content syndicated in such publications as Wired, the Atlantic and Scientific American. Lin previously worked for The New York Times, and has written for the New Yorker, Tennis and other publications. Sean M. Carroll is a theoretical physicist at the California Institute of Technology and the bestselling author of popular science books including The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself. Contributors: Philip Ball, K. C. Cole, Robbert Dijkgraaf, Dan Falk, Courtney Humphries, Ferris Jabr, Katia Moskvitch, George Musser, Michael Nielsen, Jennifer Ouellette, John Pavlus, Emily Singer, Andreas von Bubnoff, Frank Wilczek, Natalie Wolchover, Carl Zimmer Agent: Jeff Shreve Publisher: MIT Press (Editor: Jermey Matthews) Publication: November 2019 Status: Manuscript Length: 100,000 words All rights available excluding World English Language (MIT Press) 2
The Science Factory
London Book Fair 2018
NEW DEALS
THE PRIME NUMBER CONSPIRACY A Collection of the Best Quanta Math Stories Edited by THOMAS LIN Foreword by James Gleick
Quanta Magazine’s stories of mathematical explorations show that ‘inspiration does strike willy-nilly’, revealing surprising solutions and exciting discoveries. Quanta is the only popular publication that offers in-depth coverage of the latest breakthroughs in understanding our mathematical universe. It communicates mathematics by taking it seriously, wrestling with difficult concepts and clearly explaining them in a way that speaks to our innate curiosity about our world and ourselves. These stories from the magazine map the routes of mathematical exploration, showing readers how cutting-edge research is done, while illuminating the productive tension between conjecture and proof, theory and intuition. One researcher thinks of quantum chaotic systems at a bus stop; another suddenly realizes a path to proving a theorem of number theory while in a friend’s backyard; a statistician has a ‘bathroom sink epiphany’ and discovers the key to solving the Gaussian correlation inequality. Readers of THE PRIME NUMBER CONSPIRACY, says Quanta editor-in-chief Thomas Lin, are headed on ‘breathtaking intellectual journeys to the bleeding edge of discovery while strapped to the narrative rocket of humanity’s never-ending pursuit of knowledge’. We learn that prime numbers have decided preferences about the final digits of the primes that immediately follow them (the ‘conspiracy’ of the title); consider whether mathematics is the universal language of nature (allowing for ‘a unified theory of randomness’); discover surprising solutions (including a pentagon tiling proof that solves a century-old maths problem); ponder the limits of computation; measure infinity; and explore the eternal question: ‘Is mathematics good for you?’ THOMAS LIN is the founding editor-in-chief of Quanta Magazine, an online publication that reports on developments in science and mathematics, with content syndicated in such publications as Wired, the Atlantic and Scientific American. Lin previously worked for The New York Times, and has also written for the New Yorker, Tennis and other publications. James Gleick is the bestselling author of several popular books about science and technology, including The Information: A History, A Theory, A Flood and Chaos: Making a New Science. Contributors: Ariel Bleicher, Robbert Dijkgraaf, Kevin Hartnett, Erica Klarreich, Thomas Lin, John Pavlus, Siobhan Roberts, Natalie Wolchover Agent: Jeff Shreve Publisher: MIT Press (Editor: Jermey Matthews) Publication: November 2019 Status: Manuscript Length: 100,000 words All rights available excluding World English Language (MIT Press)
3
The Science Factory
London Book Fair 2018
NEW DEALS
THE ANGINA MONOLOGUES Stories of Surgery for Broken Hearts SAMER NASHEF Praise of THE NAKED SURGEON Takes a Malcolm Gladwell-esque look at what happens in operating theatres…. Nashef’s humanity and compassion shine through – THE TIMES One can't help but think of Henry Marsh when reading Samer Nashef…. Nashef does a fine job of guiding the reader though the surgical and statistical intricacies and he writes clearly, with plentiful moments of humour – THE INDEPENDENT
True stories from the cutting edge of heart surgery. This is a book about heart surgery. Through a series of real-life stories of major heart operations, the pioneering heart surgeon Samer Nashef relates the real-life stories of patients who had major open heart operations to fix their cardiac problems. It tells of the triumphs and disasters of heart surgery, of the places where it is done and the professionals who do it. More importantly, it tells the true stories of those people who are at the centre of it all: the patients. Some of these stories are gory, some are wickedly funny and some have happy endings. But the aim is neither to scaremonger nor to sensationalize, but to provide an honest insight into what happens behind the closed doors of a cardiac operating theatre. This is a world of drama, life and death. It is also a world in which some of the finest attributes of human nature – such as inventiveness, compassion and resilience – shine most brightly both in the patients and in the people who care for them. Finally, it is a world that actually matters directly to everyone because, more likely than not, one day, we or someone we love will need a heart operation. From transplants, bypasses and coronary artery repair to cardiac arrest, dietary fads and international aid, these are illuminating tales that never fail to grip. What’s more, they provide a seamless framework for communicating scientific knowledge about the heart in an eminently engaging and accessible way: how the heart works, what can go wrong with it and how it can be fixed. Along the way we gain an insider's view on how to avoid heart disease, the necessity of calculating risks, the role of decision-making, the challenges of working in a threadbare national health service and much, much more. SAMER NASHEF is a consultant cardiac surgeon at Papworth Hospital, Cambridge, and the world’s leading expert on risk and quality in surgical care. He is the creator of EuroSCORE, the most successful risk model in medicine, used worldwide and credited with saving tens of thousands of lives. The author of more than 200 publications, he has been invited to lecture in more than 30 countries and his research is widely cited. As clinical tutor at the University of Cambridge, he is also a dedicated teacher and public communicator. The author of THE NAKED SURGEON: The Power and Peril of Transparency in Medicine (Scribe, 2015), he is also a regular compiler of cryptic crosswords for the Guardian and Financial Times under a pseudonym. Publisher: Scribe (Editor: Philip Gwyn Jones) Status: Manuscript Publication: Spring 2019 Length: 70,000 pages All rights available excluding UK & Commonwealth (including Canada) 4
The Science Factory
London Book Fair 2018
NEW DEALS
LIVE LIKE A STOIC 52 Spiritual Exercises for Cultivating a Good Life MASSIMO PIGLIUCCI & GREGORY LOPEZ
In a world that’s increasingly uncertain, how can we lead a good life? We live in a modern society characterized by breathtaking scientific discoveries and technological innovations. Yet despite improvements in our material lives, we are an anxious species – faced with impending political, environmental and economic disaster, we can’t help but worry even as we lead lives of relative comfort and ease. In this accessible guide, the philosophers Massimo Pigliucci and Gregory Lopez show how the ancient philosophy of Stoicism offers a solution to this apparent paradox. Stoicism is a pragmatic philosophy that teaches us to focus our attention on what is possible and give us perspective on what is unimportant. Many of our modern woes can be traced to our lack of ability to understand what we can truly control. LIVE LIKE A STOIC offers an introduction to the philosophical underpinnings of Stoicism through a year-long programme of 52 weekly exercises that train us to master this idea of the dichotomy of control, as well as the disciplines of desire, action and assent. The exercises teach us how to grapple with such topics as control (Stoicism helps us discern things that are and are not under our control, internalize the idea of internal goals versus external objectives and apply this principle in our everyday lives), fear of disaster (by mentally rehearsing the possibility that whatever we put our minds to in a given day may go wrong, we can learn to cultivate resilience and gratitude), death (we should not focus on the end and when it may come, but rather on whatever span we are allotted and how to make the best use of it), self-improvement (Stoicism is a philosophy of self-improvement, in the best sense. If you want to make the world a better place, stop criticizing others and set the example). According to Stoicism, our judgements about what’s worthwhile in life are ultimately the only thing under our control. This, in turn, shapes our character and can make us better people. LIVE LIKE A STOIC is an essential guide for practising Stoicism, with the goal not only of improving oneself but also of creating a more just world. MASSIMO PIGLIUCCI is the K. D. Irani Professor of Philosophy at the City College of New York. He has written for publications such as The New York Times, the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal, among others. He is the author or editor of 12 books, most recently HOW TO BE A STOIC: Using Ancient Philosophy to Live a Modern Life (Basic Books, 2017). He lives in New York City. GREGORY LOPEZ is a practIsing secular Buddhist and Stoic. The founder and facilitator of the New York City Stoics meet-up, he is also the co-host of Stoic Camp New York, director of membership for the Stoic Fellowship, co-organizer of Stoicon 2016, and on the team at ModernStoicism.com. After stepping down in 2017 as president of SMART Recovery NYC, a nonprofit organization that uses cognitive behavioural therapy to help overcome addictive behaviour, he co-founded the Stoic Fellowship, which aims to support Stoic communities worldwide. He lives in New York City. Agent: Tisse Takagi Publisher: The Experiment (US)/Rider (Penguin Random House) (UK) (US editor: Batya Rosenblum) Delivery: 1 August 2018 Publication: Spring 2019 Status: Proposal and sample material Length: 60,000 words All rights available excluding UK & Commonwealth (Rider), US & Canada (The Experiment), Italy (Garzanti) 5
The Science Factory
London Book Fair 2018
NEW DEALS
WALLY FUNK’S RACE FOR SPACE The Extraordinary Story of a Female Aviation Pioneer SUE NELSON Wally Funk's story is a textbook study in indefatigable, American, cando spirit – GUARDIAN
•Published to mark the 50th anniversary of the Moon landings. •Wally Funk to be featured in 'The Mercury 13', a Netflix documentary drama series coming in April 2018. •TV series on the Mercury 13 also in development with Amazon.
In 1961, Wally Funk was among the Mercury 13, the first group of American women slated to enter the 'Women in Space’ programme. Like the other participants, she was put through rigorous physical and mental testing by the same doctor who developed tests for the male NASA astronauts. Wally came third, her score beating those of many male candidates, including John Glenn (the first American in orbit). But one week before she was due to enter the final phase of training, the programme was abruptly cancelled. Since then, Wally has travelled the world, flown above it and become one of America’s first female aviation inspectors, air-safety investigators and civilian flight instructors. Still regularly taking to the skies as a pilot, she has clocked up 19,000 flight hours and taught over 3,000 students. All along her dream of being an astronaut has never dimmed. Six decades on, she is waiting to enter Earth’s orbit as a paying passenger. In this offbeat odyssey, the journalist and fellow space buff Sue Nelson travels with Wally as she races to make her giant leap – before it’s too late. Covering their travels across the United States and Europe – taking in NASA’s mission control in Houston and Spaceport America in New Mexico, where Wally’s ride to space awaits – this is a uniquely intimate and entertaining portrait of a true aviation trailblazer, set against the backdrop of space exploration, past, present and future. As Wally approaches her eightieth birthday in 2019, the same year as the fiftieth anniversary of the Moon landings, the time has come to restore this aviation trailblazer to her rightful place in history – and perhaps even in space. SUE NELSON is an award-winning journalist and broadcaster. She produces documentaries for BBC Radio, co-presents the ‘Space Boffins’ podcast and makes short films on science and space. Her award-winning 2016 documentary 'Women with the Right Stuff’, on the history of women in space, was one of BBC World Service’s most-listened-to podcasts. Publisher: Westbourne Press/Saki Books (Editor: Lynn Gaspard) Publication: October 2018 Status: Manuscript Length: 320 pages All rights available excluding World English Language (Westbourne Press)
6
The Science Factory
London Book Fair 2018
FORTHCOMING TITLES
DISPATCHES FROM PLANET THREE Thirty-Two (Brief) Tales on the Solar System, the Milky Way, and Beyond MARCIA BARTUSIAK Praise for BLACK HOLE Astronomers took fifty years to carry the black hole from laughable concept to central importance in every galaxy. Marcia Bartusiak accomplishes the same feat here, in one irresistibly attractive read – Dava Sobel, author of LONGITUDE
In the tradition of Carlo Rovelli’s Seven Brief Lessons on Physics and Neil Tyson’s Astrophysics for People in a Hurry, an anthology of perfectly crafted stories about the discovery of the Universe, based on the author’s ‘Cosmic Background’ columns for Natural History magazine. Early astronomers spent much of their time devoted to our local celestial neighbourhood. They aimed their telescopes at our Solar System and prominent stars in the nighttime sky. Armed with Newton’s law of gravitation, they were able to predict the motions of the Moon, planets and comets and detect new and unexpected objects such as asteroids. They found rings around Saturn and canal-like features on Mars. Could that mean there is water on the red planet? Is their other life in the Solar System or even on planets circling other stars? And what about those stars? They soon found that these ranged in size from huge red giants to tiny white dwarfs no bigger than the Earth. And then there were even weirder possibilities such as neutron stars no bigger than cities. Astronomers then moved outwards. They traced how galaxies are uniquely arranged through the cosmos and evolve over time. They learned what elements reside in both stars and interstellar space, and realized that regular matter – the stuff of stars, planets and us – is not the major component of the Universe. Instead, some unknown ‘dark matter’ is five times more abundant. Meanwhile, Einstein’s theories recast our vision of the Universe as violent rather than serene, powered by objects with amazing energies. New tools arrived for exploring the cosmos, taking us beyond the visible-light spectrum – and recently even allowing us to detect the ripples generated in the very fabric of spacetime as black holes collide more than a billion light-years away. Shortly after learning that the Milky Way is accompanied by billions of other galaxies, cosmologists were astounded to find out that spacetime was expanding, with galaxies surfing outward on the wave. It didn’t take long for them to imagine that ballooning in reverse, leading to the conception of the Big Bang – a prediction not firmly proven for nearly two decades. Since then, we have added new details to the story of our cosmic creation. The Universe may have begun with a brief moment of super-accelerated expansion, called inflation. What’s more, parallel universes might be generated in a similar way, meaning we live in a ‘multiverse’, side-by-side with other universes. But to prove that, theorists must first wrestle with the nature of time. MARCIA BARTUSIAK is a professor in the graduate programme in science writing at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The author of six acclaimed popular books including BLACK HOLE, THE DAY WE FOUND THE UNIVERSE and EINSTEIN’S UNFINISHED SYMPHONY, she has a degree in communications and a master’s degree in physics and has written for numerous publications including Natural History and Discover magazines. She was elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, has twice won the American Institute of Physics Science Writing Prize, and also received the AIP's prestigious Gemant Award for ‘significant contributions to the cultural, artistic, or humanistic dimension of physics’. Publisher: Yale University Press (Editor: Joseph Calamia) Publication: Autumn 2018 Status: Manuscript Length: 70,000 words All rights available excluding World English Language (Yale University Press) 7
The Science Factory
London Book Fair 2018
FORTHCOMING TITLES
SUICIDAL Why We Kill Ourselves 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 I have yet to come away from reading one of [Bering’s] essays and not feel considerably better informed than I was just minutes before – FORBES
What does it feel like to want to kill yourself? For much of his thirties, Jesse Bering thought he was probably going to kill himself. He was a successful psychologist and writer, with books to his name and bylines in major magazines. But none of that mattered. The impulse to take his own life remained. At times it felt all but inescapable. Bering survived. And in addition to relief, the fading of his suicidal thoughts brought curiosity. Where had they come from? Would they return? Is the suicidal impulse found in other animals? Or is our vulnerability to suicide a uniquely human evolutionary development? In SUICIDAL, Bering answers all these questions and more, taking us through the science and psychology of suicide, revealing its cognitive secrets and the subtle tricks our minds play on us when we’re easy emotional prey. Scientific studies, personal stories and remarkable cross-species comparisons come together to help readers critically analyse their own doomsday thoughts while gaining broad insight into a problem that, tragically, will most likely touch all of us at some point in our lives. But while the subject is certainly a heavy one, Bering’s touch is light. Having been through this himself, he knows that sometimes the most effective response to our darkest moments is a gentle humour, one that, although not denying the seriousness of suffering, at the same time acknowledges our complicated, flawed and yet precious existence. Authoritative, accessible, personal, profound – there’s never been a book on suicide like this. It will help you understand yourself and your loved ones, and it will change the way you think about this most vexing of human problems. 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/Transworld* Publication: 5 November 2018/23 August 2018 Status: Manuscript Length: 272 pages All rights available excluding UK & Commonwealth (Transworld), US & Canada (University of Chicago Press), Japan (Kagaku-Dojin), Netherlands (Nieuw Amsterdam) *Published in the UK as A VERY HUMAN ENDING: How Suicide Haunts Our Species 8
The Science Factory
London Book Fair 2018
FORTHCOMING TITLES
TOTALLY RANDOM Why Nobody Understands Quantum Mechanics – a Serious Comic on Entanglement TANYA BUB & JEFFREY BUB What a delight! TOTALLY RANDOM explores some of the strangest features of quantum theory – and introduces some of the most important new devices that exploit quantum weirdness – in a way that is accessible, smart, and funny. An entanglement page-turner! – David Kaiser, author of HOW THE HIPPIES SAVED PHYSICS
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, TOTALLY RANDOM 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 Publication: 26 June 2018 Status: Proofs Length: 280 pages All rights available excluding World English Language (Princeton University Press) 9
The Science Factory
London Book Fair 2018
FORTHCOMING TITLES
NOW YOU’RE TALKING The Story of Human Conversation 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. NOW YOU’RE TALKING 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) Publication: 3 May 2018 Status: Proposal and sample chapter Length: 320 pages All rights available excluding World English Language (Bodley Head), Japan (Hakuyosha), Russia (Atticus)
10
The Science Factory
London Book Fair 2018
FORTHCOMING TITLES
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. 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: 31 March 2018 Publication: Spring 2019 Status: Proposal and sample chapter Length: 95,000 words All rights available excluding UK & Commonwealth (Scribe). US & Canada (University of Chicago Press)
11
The Science Factory
London Book Fair 2018
FORTHCOMING TITLES
ONCE UPON A TIME I LIVED ON MARS AND OTHER STORIES KATE GREENE
Observations and insights on space exploration, as inspired by the author’s experience of living in a simulated Martian environment on the slopes of Mauna Loa in Hawaii. When it comes to colonizing Mars, so often we focus on how to get there: the rockets, the engines, the fuel. Yet once we arrive, what will it actually be like? In 2013, Kate Greene came one step closer to finding out. Along with five fellow crew members, she was chosen for NASA’s first HI-SEAS mission, a simulated Martian environment located on the slopes of Mauna Loa in Hawaii. For the next four months she lived, worked and slept in an isolated white dome, conducting a sleep study on her crew mates but also gaining incredible insight into human behaviour in tight quarters, as well as the nature of the boredom, dreams, isolation and irritation that arise despite the promise of scientific progress and glory. In MARS AND OTHER STORIES, Greene uses her experience to contemplate humanity’s broader impulse to explore and asks: what kind of wisdom will we take to Mars and elsewhere in the Universe? It is an examination of our time in space right now, as a pre-Mars species, poised on the edge, readying for launch. KATE GREENE is an essayist, journalist and former laser physicist whose work has appeared in Aeon, Discover, Harvard Review, the New Yorker, Pacific Standard, Slate, The Economist and Wired, among others. She holds a BS in chemistry and an MS in physics. The co-author with Nathan Eagle of REALITY MINING: Using Big Data to Engineer a Better World (MIT Press, 2014), Greene lives in San Francisco. Her website is at http://www.kategreene.net. Agent: Tisse Takagi Publisher: St Martin’s Press (Editor: Karen Wolny) Delivery: June 2018 Publication: Spring 2019 Status: Proposal and sample writing Length: 80,000 words All rights available excluding US & Canada (St Martin’s Press), China (Ginkgo (Beijing) Book Co. Ltd)
12
The Science Factory
London Book Fair 2018
FORTHCOMING TITLES
ADVANTAGE PLAY Thirteen Technological Breakthroughs That Changed Sporting History STEVE HAAKE
Sports technology isn’t as new as you might think – it’s as old as civilization itself. In an enthralling trip across 2,700 years of sporting evolution, the award-winning sports engineer Steve Haake tells the stories of thirteen technological breakthroughs – from the ancient Greek starting line, though the vulcanization of rubber, to marginal gains – that have transformed the intimate relationship of technology, sport and culture, the delicate balance between tradition and modernity, and sometimes even the rules of sport themselves. Drawing on thirty years of experience as a researcher working for some of the biggest companies in sport, Haake takes readers on a behind-the-scenes tour of the world’s best sports research centres that design, build and test the equipment we take for granted: from javelins, golf clubs, footballs, tennis rackets and swimsuits to goal-line technology, activity trackers, prosthetics and barefoot running shoes. Along the way he describes the science behind the innovations and the ambition and obsession of the charismatic inventors who created them. As with much of science, breakthroughs happen when mistakes are made and an innovator seizes an opportunity. In sport, these moments often come during play: a slight nick on a ball that makes it fly further or an unplayable pitch that helps create a new boot. Now that sporting performance is reaching a plateau, we are relying more and more on technology to improve sport – and bizarrely the ruling bodies of sport are sometimes spending almost as much time on researching how to limit performance as companies do on enhancing it. How do we decide when a technology has overstepped the mark? How do we decide when it’s technical doping? And what if all the performance claims are hype and it’s all about the advertising? Entertaining, authoritative and thought-provoking, ADVANTAGE PLAY addresses these and many other questions and considers what the future might hold, be it the analysis of big data collected at tournaments, new Olympic sports such as skateboarding, or ’steampunk’ experiences that mix modern athletes with old technologies. STEVE HAAKE is director of the Advanced Wellbeing Research Centre at Sheffield Hallam University. An internationally renowned pioneer in sports engineering, he has published six edited books of conference proceedings, authored over 150 journal papers, written articles for magazines such as New Scientist and Times Higher Education, and appeared frequently on television and radio. Among other collaborations, he has been a consultant to Callaway Golf in California, Adidas in Germany and the International Tennis Federation in London. In 2014 Research Councils UK identified him as one of the ten most inspirational scientists in the UK. Publisher: Arena Sport/Birlinn (Editor: Peter Burns) Publication: Autumn 2018 Status: Draft manuscript Length: 80,000 words All rights available excluding UK & Commonwealth (Arena Sport/Birlinn)
13
The Science Factory
London Book Fair 2018
FORTHCOMING TITLES
DARK DATA Why What We Don’t Know Is Even More Important Than What We Do DAVID HAND Praise for THE IMPROBABILITY PRINCIPLE Should be, in all probability, required reading for us all – John A. Adam, WASHINGTON POST A superlative introduction to critical thinking, accessible to everybody – NEW SCIENTIST
A much-need counterpoint to the big-data hype of recent years – and a clarion call for us all to be constantly on the alert to unknown unknowns as well as the known unknowns. A good cartoon captures the important features of a face or behaviour, but there is no guarantee of this. It can easily miss much that matters. Indeed, it can easily miss the most important things. Big data is like a cartoon simplification. Although it’s meant to represent and describe the world, its abundance can mislead people into thinking they know everything. In DARK DATA, the eminent statistician David Hand explores the implications of what we might be missing. He shows, through many real examples, just how serious things can get – how missing data can lead to death and disaster, failed economies and societies, and ruined lives. Hand lays bare the ubiquity of dark data, what causes it and where it is likely to manifest itself. It can arise for many reasons, which themselves may not be obvious – asymmetric information in wars, time delays in financial trading, dropouts in clinical trials and deliberate selection to enhance apparent performance in hospitals, policing and schools. What is clear is that measuring and collecting more and more data are not guaranteed to lead to more relevant information or to better understanding. But there’s also a more positive side to dark data. When approached from the right angle, it can lead to insights that cannot be obtained any other way. Counterintuitive though it might seem, deliberately obscuring some of the data can lead to improved predictions and better understanding – providing, of course, the right data are obscured in the right way. The modern world of big data holds huge potential for improving the human condition as well as for misleading us. DARK DATA shows how to achieve the first and avoid the second. DAVID HAND is a senior research investigator and emeritus professor of mathematics at Imperial College, London. He is also chief scientific advisor to Winton Capital Management. He is a fellow of the British Academy and an honorary fellow of the Institute of Actuaries, and has served (twice) as president of the Royal Statistical Society. He is a non-executive director of the UK Statistics Authority, and is chair of the board of the UK Administrative Data Research Network. He has published 300 scientific papers and 28 books, including THE IMPROBABILITY PRINCIPLE (Scientific American/Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2014). In 2013 he was made OBE for services to research and innovation. Publisher: Princeton University Press (Editor: Ingrid Gnerlich) Delivery: January 2019 Publication: Autumn 2019 Status: Proposal and sample writing Length: 80,000–100,000 words All rights available excluding World English Language (Princeton University Press), China (CITIC), Italy (Rizzoli), Korea (Gilbut), Russia (Alpina), Taiwan (Locus)
14
The Science Factory
London Book Fair 2018
FORTHCOMING TITLES
THE FEAR OF DOING NOTHING Notes of a Young Therapist VALERY HAZANOV
In the spirit of Mikhail Bulgakov’s A Young Doctor’s Notebook and Sandeep Jauhar’s Intern, a deeply honest, searching examination of psychotherapy based on the experiences of a young sceptical trainee in New York City. Born to a family with six generations of doctors, Valery Hazanov knew he was breaking with a long tradition when he decided to pursue psychology. What he didn’t know was that, over the course of his training, his own doubts about his chosen field would overtake his family’s scepticism. Try as he might to seek answers and reassurance, he kept returning to the same fears: therapy is bullshit. It does nothing, and helps no one. Through ten linked stories, we follow Hazanov as he navigates the maze of psychological theories he’s been taught and manages complex, often fraught relationships with his first patients: a dying patient who can’t separate from his family properly because they don’t understand him; a formerly brilliant scientist who becomes psychotic and mistrustful; an older man who finds a first girlfriend at the age of 67, only to be dumped by her a few months later; a couple that loves each other with limitations. What Hazanov eventually realizes is that these patients achieve in psychotherapy not a complete transformation of their lives, but rather a more truthful way to exist. ‘What is the meaning of life?’ asks Lily Briscoe in Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse. She proceeds to answer: ‘The great revelation had never come.... Instead there were little daily miracles, illuminations, matches struck unexpectedly in the dark; here was one.’ In THE FEAR OF DOING NOTHING, Hazanov illuminates the intimacy, vulnerability and messiness of the therapeutic encounter. These moments are – ultimately – his best answer to the question of what psychotherapy is and what it can achieve. Struggling together with his patients, Hazanov discovers his own sense of purpose and in doing so overcomes his biggest fear: the fear of doing nothing. VALERY HAZANOV was born in Moscow in 1982 and raised in Israel. He received his PhD in clinical psychology at Columbia University and trained at Columbia University Medical Center, Weill Cornell Medical College, St Luke’s Hospital and Columbia Psychoanalytic Center, among other institutions. A former fellow of the American Psychoanalytic Association and the Columbia University Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research, Hazanov was awarded the White Institute Psychotherapy Case Presentation Award for his paper ‘The Fear of Doing Nothing’, which was published in Contemporary Psychoanalysis in 2012. He lives in Tel Aviv, Israel. Agent: Tisse Takagi Publisher: Sphinx/Aeon Books Delivery: July 2018 Publication: Autumn 2019 Status: Proposal and sample chapter Length: 80,000 words All rights available excluding World English Language (Karnac Books)
15
The Science Factory
London Book Fair 2018
FORTHCOMING TITLES
AM I DREAMING? Adventures in Altered States of Consciousness JAMES KINGSLAND Praise for SIDDHARTHA’S BRAIN Fascinating… Whether you’re a skeptic or a true believer, exploring SIDDHARTHA’S BRAIN offers compelling insights and invites further questions about the potential of the human mind – CHICAGO TIMES
A guide for anyone wanting to explore altered states of consciousness, not as an escape from reality but as a way to wake up to it. Picture yourself flying high over a beautiful landscape, as free as a bird. Imagine visiting other planes of existence, conversing with alien beings and communing with the spirits of plants and animals. Imagine if all you had to do to feel perfect bliss, happiness and contentment was to close your eyes…. In AM I DREAMING? the science writer James Kingsland provides a scientific travel guide to altered states of consciousness. A growing body of research, in fields ranging from neuroscience and clinical psychology to molecular biology and statistics, shows that the extraordinary realms of experience that can be reached through lucid dreaming, virtual reality, hypnotic trance, meditation, psychedelic drugs and even video games can heighten and refine our capacity for clear-sighted awareness. Drawing on interviews and conversations with many of the most influential and colourful characters studying altered states, he explains how by fostering lucidity and a greater sense of meaning and purpose, regular journeys into alternative realms of consciousness can bolster our mental and spiritual wellbeing – and how research into these adventures of the mind is exposing the unsettling truth about how the brain creates ordinary conscious awareness. JAMES KINGSLAND is a science journalist with 30 years of experience working for publications such as the Guardian, New Scientist and Nature. He is a dreamer, blogger, meditator and psycho-naut, and author of the award-winning SIDDHARTHA’S BRAIN: Unlocking the Ancient Science of Enlightenment (Robinson/Morrow, 2016). Publisher: Atlantic Books (Editor: Mike Harpley) Delivery: August 2018 Publication: Autumn 2019 Status: Proposal and sample chapter Length: 90,000 words All rights available excluding World English Language (Atlantic Books)
16
The Science Factory
London Book Fair 2018
FORTHCOMING TITLES
OPEN WORLD How Video Games Reveal Who We Are and Show Us Who We Could Be ALEXANDER KRISS
A clinical psychologist reveals how video games can reveal who we are and who we could be, and in so doing help us decide the kinds of lives we want to live. What is it about video games? Despite their ubiquity – you can always find a handful of subway riders playing Candy Crush on any commute – there’s something embarrassing about admitting to enjoying them. Moreover, those of us who don’t identify as 'gamers' tend to pathologize what appears to be self-indulgent escapism and a retreat into fantasyland. Frustrated by such dismissals of game-playing behaviour, the clinical psychologist Alexander Kriss began looking more closely at the phenomenon of gaming. What he learned was that video games were not always a mere escape, but rather could be a rich source of psychological and personal growth and insight. For many of us, games can provide a kind of potential space – an open world – outside dreams and reality yet bounded by certain rules and feedback, where we can work out issues that we couldn’t face elsewhere. Drawing on his own history with gaming and his experience with his patients, Kriss illustrates how video games can help us to explore our potential, make sense of our lives’ complexities and even heal our minds. Games, he shows, like the people who play them, are diverse and complicated, and to understand them it is vital to examine not only isolated games but also each individual player– game relationship. OPEN WORLD offers an accessible and empathic framework through which players, parents and curious onlookers can understand our vital and evolving relationship with video games. ALEXANDER KRISS is a clinical psychologist and writer based in New York. He has a private psychotherapy practice, where he specializes in treating adolescents and adults who feel they are suffering from video-game addiction. He is an adjunct professor of psychology at Fordham University and a clinical supervisor at the New School for Social Research and the City College of New York. He writes regularly on the intersections of mental health, politics and popular culture, and his work has appeared in Psychology Today, Kill Screen, Logic and various academic journals and books. Agent: Tisse Takagi Publisher: Robinson/Little, Brown (editor: Andrew McAleer) Delivery: 1 September 2018 Publication: Autumn 2019 Status: Proposal and writing sample Length: 75,000 words All rights available excluding World English Language (Robinson/Little, Brown)
17
The Science Factory
London Book Fair 2018
FORTHCOMING TITLES
WONDROUS TRANSFORMATIONS A Maverick Physician, the Age of Hormones and the Transsexual Phenomenon ALISON LI
The story of hormone therapy told through the fascinating life of Dr Harry Benjamin, who pioneered the use of hormones to assist in gender transitions. Today it’s unexceptional to think of ourselves as hormonal beings. We hold hormones responsible for making our bodies morph through our lifetimes and for sparking quixotic changes in temper. We blame ‘raging hormones’ for the tempests of puberty and midlife and spend our days ‘running on adrenalin’ in ‘testosterone-fuelled' workplaces. Yet this view is relatively recent. In WONDROUS TRANSFORMATIONS, Alison Li tells the fascinating history of the rise of hormones through the life of one of its foremost pioneers. A daring explorer in the areas of sex and ageing, as well as a celebrity doctor in 1920s’ New York, German-born physician Harry Benjamin (1885– 1986) first became acquainted with the science of hormones in 1916. He then devoted his life to using this new technology to help people transform themselves – from old to young, in his famed practice on Central Park West, or, decades later, from male to female. Benjamin’s sympathetic work with those who wanted to transition from one biological sex to another was groundbreaking in mid-century America, when homosexuality and any behaviour that crossed gender lines was not just pathologized but criminalized, too. Li shows how, over the course of the twentieth century, Benjamin helped pave the way for our understanding of ourselves as chemically malleable, exquisitely receptive to hormone manipulations as subtle as the tweaks needed to dial down the symptoms of menopause or as radical as the reshapings undertaken by body builders. In doing so, she traces the development of the influential concept of biological control and the then-revolutionary idea that we can transform our bodies to match our minds. It’s ultimately a tale not only about the chemical transformation of our bodies but also about the transformation of the very concept of identity and self. ALISON LI is an historian of science and medicine. The author of the biography J. B. Collip and the Development of Medical Research in Canada, she has lectured at universities as well as to the public, presented papers at numerous conferences and appeared in a television documentary about the discovery of insulin. She holds an MA and a PhD in the history and philosophy of science and technology from the University of Toronto and completed her postdoctoral studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Previously an assistant professor of science and technology studies at York University in Toronto, she now writes full-time. She lives in Toronto with her husband and two children. Publisher: Beacon (Editor: Helene Atwan) Delivery: June 2018 Publication: Autumn 2019 Status: Proposal and sample chapter Length: 80,000 words All rights available excluding US & Canada (Beacon)
18
The Science Factory
London Book Fair 2018
FORTHCOMING TITLES
WHAT ARE YOU? The Mad Science of Race – and Its Fatal Return ANGELA SAINI Praise for INFERIOR A brilliant approach to a long overlooked topic, INFERIOR is impossible to ignore and invaluable – BOOKLIST
Weaving rich history, on-the-ground reporting and fresh, critical analysis, a book that shines a fresh perspective on one of the most important issues of our time. Behind every racist joke is a scientific fact – alt-right blogger Milo Yiannopoulos, 2016
As the world once more teeters between far-left and far-right ideologies, when race has come into sharp focus through movements such as Black Lives Matter and fresh debates about the legacies of slavery and colonialism, it is more important than ever to recognize the risk of confusing the lived, social and cultural reality of race with the biological myth. In WHAT ARE YOU? the science writer Angela Saini explores how science created the idea of race and fanned the flames of racism, as well as how modern genetics, medicine, psychology and anthropology are failing to destroy these old ideas and sometimes even perpetuating them. It is a sordid, ugly story, one of intellectual failure and abuse. Showing how a catalogue of bad science has shaped all our lives, Saini argues that biological race is an idea that desperately needs to be shelved, both in science and in our everyday lives. Not just because it matters to how we live, but also because good science really does show that there is little to divide us biologically besides individual difference. For a new generation obsessed by identity politics, this is an urgent reminder of a story that has been forgotten. It is an account that desperately needs to be re-told in a clear, accessible, personal way. Using firsthand interviews with race scientists on all sides of the divide, and those who are fighting to have race removed as a way of categorizing people in science, medicine and genetics, WHAT ARE YOU? reveals just what a scientific nonsense race really is, and yet how dangerous a concept it remains. ANGELA SAINI is an award-winning British science journalist and broadcaster. Well known for presenting science programmes on BBC Radio 4 and the BBC 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. She is the author of two books, GEEK NATION: How Indian Science is Taking Over the World (Hodder, 2011) and INFERIOR: How Science Got Women Wrong – and the New Research That’s Rewriting the Story (Fourth Estate, 2017). Publisher: Fourth Estate (UK)/Beacon (US) (Editors: Louise Haines, UK/Amy Caldwell, US) Delivery: January 2019 Publication: Autumn 2019 Status: Proposal Length: 80,000 words All rights available excluding UK & Commonwealth (Fourth Estate), US & Canada (Beacon)
19
The Science Factory
London Book Fair 2018
FORTHCOMING TITLES
WE, THE USERS A New Deal for All in the Global Digital Age RAMESH SRINIVASAN The smartest person around thinking about the impact of digital technology on global society – the first of the next generation of media philosophers who will shepherd humanity through the changes ahead – Douglas Rushkoff, author of THROWING ROCKS AT THE GOOGLE BUS, PRESENT SHOCK and PROGRAM OR BE PROGRAMMED
A rising voice in new technology presents a bold, truly global vision for equality, diversity and justice in our digital age Our world today is dominated by commercial forces from a small region along the West Coast of the United States, where the headquarters of Amazon, Apple, Google and Facebook are situated. These corporations, which dominate retail, hardware, search and social media respectively, have obtained vast amounts of economic, cultural and political power by transforming the data of their users into the oil of the new economy. And as they expand their data-gathering efforts, it is difficult to see how we will live as human beings outside such corporate technology control. There is a reason these tech giants now dominate the world economy: their products and services – from smartphone apps to one-click shopping, to instant search and worldwide friend networks – are free and efficient. As a result, we experience a surface feeling of freedom. Yet behind it all is the ghost in the machine: the engines that determine why we see what we see, and ceaselessly collect our data, to be bought and sold over and over for vast economic and political gain. It is time to pull back the curtain on this corporate dominance, argues Ramesh Srinivasan. We must fight for an Internet that respects and supports all the users it claims to connect. We must take community back online. But change will require more than the ad-hoc developments and decisions of the Internet’s founding era. We need a concerted movement, a broad social contract that involves government legislation, corporate cooperation and increased individual awareness to shift the Internet – and the vast host of networked devices that makes up our world – in a healthier, more just direction. In essence, we need a New Deal for our digital age: one that empowers labour, educates users and embraces community. The New Deal that Srinivasan proposes in this book is not purely philosophical, technical, designoriented or policy-based. Instead it brings together all these facets to shape a unified digital future based on principles of equity, diversity and justice. RAMESH SRINIVASAN studies the relationship between technology, politics and societies across the world. He is an associate professor in the Departments of Information Studies and Design|Media Arts at the University of California, Los Angeles, and the founder of the UC-wide Digital Cultures Lab. His fieldwork and research engagements span Latin and South America, South Asia, West Africa, Papua New Guinea, Australia, New Zealand and indigenous communities in the United States and Canada. He has given keynotes on every continent in the world (except Antarctica), discussing new technology and culture. He is the author of WHOSE GLOBAL VILLAGE? (New York University Press, 2017) and (with Adam Fish) AFTER THE INTERNET (Polity – in the press). He makes regular media appearances on MSNBC, NPR, Al Jazeera, The Young Turks and more. His writing has been published by Al Jazeera English, National Geographic, CNN, Washington Post, Forbes and Huffington Post. Agent: Jeff Shreve Publisher: MIT Press (Editor: Gita Manaktala) Delivery: November 2018 Publication: Autumn 2019 Status: Proposal Length: 70,000 words All rights available excluding World English Language (MIT Press) 20
The Science Factory
London Book Fair 2018
RECENTLY PUBLISHED
WHAT IS REAL? The Unfinished Quest for the Meaning of Quantum Physics ADAM BECKER A fresh debut…. Vivid biographical portraits enliven even dense theoretical explanations with wit and bite…. With his crisp voice, Becker lucidly relates the complicated history of quantum foundations – PUBLISHERS WEEKLY (starred review) Adam Becker’s wonderful book recounts the colorful history of the reality debates, and makes the case that Einstein was right all along – Sean Carroll, author of THE BIG PICTURE Becker’s book is one of the first attempts we have at telling this story in a way that acknowledges how it actually turned out…. He has clearly done extensive and meticulous historical research – David Z. Albert, NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS
The untold story of the heretical thinkers who dared to question the nature of our quantum universe. 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 was no need to worry about how the quantum world can be so strange because the quantum world doesn’t actually exist – it is only an abstract description. For a century, most physicists have followed this ‘Copenhagen interpretation’ and dismissed questions about the underlying reality as meaningless. A mishmash of solipsism and poor reasoning, Copenhagen endured, as Bohr's students vigorously protected his legacy, and the physics community favoured practical experiments over philosophical arguments. As a result, questioning the status quo long meant professional ruin. And yet, from the 1920s to today, physicists such as John Bell, David Bohm and Hugh Everett persisted in seeking the true meaning of quantum mechanics. WHAT IS REAL? is the gripping story of this battle of ideas and the courageous scientists who dared to stand up for truth. ADAM BECKER is an astrophysicist and science writer and a visiting scholar at the Office for History of Science and Technology at the University of California at Berkeley. 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, NPR, Scientific American, New Scientist and the ‘Story Collider’ podcast. He received an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Book Grant for work on WHAT IS REAL?. He lives in Oakland, California. Publisher: Murray (UK)/Basic Books (US) (Editor: TJ Kelleher – US) Publication: 20 March 2018 Length: 352 pages All rights available excluding UK & Commonwealth (Murray), US & Canada (Basic) 21
The Science Factory
London Book Fair 2018
RECENTLY PUBLISHED
THE PLEASURE SHOCK The Rise of Deep Brain Stimulation and Its Forgotten Inventor LONE FRANK A wide-ranging, thoughtful exploration… Frank has written an excellent, balanced portrait of an inventive psychiatrist with a complicated legacy – PUBLISHERS WEEKLY (starred review) Frank has traced and interviewed surviving patients, former collaborators, family members and current DBS scientists. The result is a rarity: a thrilling, well-researched read – NATURE
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) Publication: 20 March 2018 Length: 320 pages All rights available excluding World English Language (Dutton), Japan (Bungeishunju) 22
The Science Factory
London Book Fair 2018
RECENTLY PUBLISHED
CLOSE ENCOUNTERS WITH HUMANKIND A Paleonathropologist Investigates Our Evolving Species SANG-HEE LEE with SHIN-YOUNG YOON Deftly weaving together science and personal observation, Lee proves an engaging, authoritative guide on this nickel tour of the human condition – Kate Wong, SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN Offers additional vistas on our unique plight – ‘The Ideas Driving 2018’, NEW SCIENTIST Lee will inspire even experts with her efforts at elucidating a field often seen as arid and inscrutable – NATURE Lee has posed some of the big questions in human evolution and has written brief, clear, and jargon-free essays about them. Her informal, clear style and commonsense explanations are delightful and engaging. Brava! – Pat Shipman, former professor of anthropology at Pennsylvania State University and author of THE INVADERS
In this captivating international bestseller, a leading researcher in human evolution offers fresh insights into humanity’s dawn, development and destiny. What can fossilized teeth tell us about the life expectancy of our ancient ancestors? Why did farming play a problematic part in the history of human evolution? How can simple geometric comparisons of skull and pelvic fossils illuminate our social nature? And what do we truly have in common with the Neanderthals? In CLOSE ENCOUNTERS WITH HUMANKIND, the internationally renowned palaeoanthropologist Sang-Hee Lee explores some of our greatest evolutionary questions from new and unexpected angles. Through a series of entertaining, bite-sized chapters, we gain fresh perspectives into our first humanlike ancestors and ways to challenge perceptions about the traditional progression of evolution. By combining anthropological insight with exciting, cutting-edge research, Lee’s surprising conclusions shed new light on our beginnings and connect us to a faraway past. For example, our big brains may have served to set our species apart and spur our social development, but perhaps not in the ways we have often assumed. And it’s possible that the Neanderthals were not the primitive beings portrayed by twentieth-century science. With Lee as our guide, we discover that from our first steps on two feet to our first forays into toolmaking and early formations of community, we have always been a species of continuous change. CLOSE ENCOUNTERS WITH HUMANKIND is the perfect read for anyone curious about where we came from and what it took to get us here. As we mine the evolutionary path to the present, Lee helps us to establish where we are heading and tackles one of our most pressing scientific questions: does humanity continue to evolve? SANG-HEE LEE is a professor of anthropology and associate dean of the college of humanities, arts and social sciences at the University of California at Riverside. She earned her MA and PhD in anthropology from the University of Michigan. SHIN-YOUNG YOON is editor-in-chief of Science DongA, the Korea’s leading science magazine. Publisher: Norton Publication: 20 February 2018 Length: 304 pages All rights available excluding World English Language (Norton), Greece (Psichogios), Korea (Minumsa), Spain (Debate)
23
The Science Factory
London Book Fair 2018
RECENTLY PUBLISHED
THE SMOKE SIMON INGS A thrilling thought-experiment on social schisms, technology and the ethics of immortality – Liz Jensen
A novel about love, loss and loneliness in an incomprehensible world. Humanity has been split into three different species. Mutual incomprehension has fractured the globe. As humans race to be the first of their kind to reach the stars, another Great War looms. For you that means returning to Yorkshire and the town of your birth, where factories churn out the parts for gigantic spaceships. You're done with the pretentions of the capital and its unfathomable architecture. You're done with Georgy Chernoy and his questionable defeat of death. You're done with his daughter, Fel, and losing all the time. You're done with love. But soon enough you will find yourself in the Smoke again, drawn back to the life you thought you'd left behind. You're done with love. But love's not done with you. SIMON INGS is the author of eight previous novels (some science fiction, some not) and two works of nonfiction, including the Baillie Gifford-longlisted STALIN AND THE SCIENTISTS. His debut novel HOT HEAD was widely acclaimed. He is the arts editor of New Scientist magazine and splits his time between a sweltering penthouse in Dubai (not his) and possibly the coldest flat in London. Publisher: Gollancz Publication: 22 February 2018 Length: 304 pages All rights available excluding World English Language (Gollancz)
24
The Science Factory
London Book Fair 2018
RECENTLY PUBLISHED
ASK ME ABOUT MY UTERUS A Quest to Make Doctors Believe in Women’s Pain ABBY NORMAN Selected by PUBLISHERS WEEKLY as one of the top ten titles in lifestyle for spring 2018 Required reading for anyone who is a woman, or has ever met a woman. This means you – Jenny Lawson, author of LET’S PRETEND THIS NEVER HAPPENED and FURIOUSLY HAPPY This book deals with such an important subject. Abby Norman’s odyssey with her own health is sadly an all too common story to those of us who suffered in silence for so long. My hope is that anyone involved in women's health will read her story and revisit the way we treat women and their health concerns in our culture – Padma Lakshmi, NEW YORK TIMES bestselling author and cofounder of the Endometriosis Foundation of America A fresh, honest, and startling look at what it means to exist in a woman’s body, in all of its beauty and pain. Abby’s voice is inviting, unifying, and remarkably brave – Gillian Anderson
For any woman who has experienced illness, chronic pain or endometriosis comes an inspiring memoir advocating for recognition of women’s health issues. In the autumn of 2010, Abby Norman’s strong dancer’s body dropped 40 pounds and grey hairs began to sprout from her temples. 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, Norman dropped out of college and embarked on what would become a years-long journey to discover what was wrong with her. It wasn’t until she took matters into her own hands – securing a job in a hospital and educating herself over lunchtime reading in the medical library – that she found an accurate diagnosis of endometriosis. In ASK ME ABOUT MY UTERUS, Norman describes what it was like to have her pain dismissed, to be told it was 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. Putting her own trials into a broader historical, sociocultural and political context, Norman shows that women’s bodies have long been the battleground of a never-ending war for power, control, medical knowledge and truth. It’s time to refute the belief that being a woman is a preexisting condition. ABBY NORMAN is a science writer and editor. Her work has been featured in the Rumpus, Independent, Paste Magazine, Medium, Atlas Obscura, Seventeen, Quartz, Cosmopolitan and Lady Science/The New Inquiry. As a patient advocate and speaker, she has been on the conference faculty of the Endometriosis Foundation of America, spoken at Stanford University’s Medicine X conference and received health literacy training through the Dartmouth Institute. She is currently an associate science editor at Futurism and the host of ‘Let Me Google That’ on Anchor.fm. She lives on the coast of Maine with her dog, Whimsy. Agent: Tisse Takagi Publisher: Nation Books (Editor: Alessandra Bastagli) Publication: 29 March 2018 Length: 320 pages All rights available excluding World English Language (Nation Books)
25
The Science Factory
London Book Fair 2018
RECENTLY PUBLISHED
DARWIN COMES TO TOWN How the Urban Jungle Drives Evolution MENNO SCHILTHUIZEN Schilthuizen is taking on three centuries of literature and polemic that defends the virtues of rural nature against the vices of city life…. This is a spellbinding and important book…. The message is thrilling – Bryan Appleyard, SUNDAY TIMES A lively and fascinating book – Elizabeth Kolbert, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of THE SIXTH EXTINCTION A fun, witty, thoroughly informative read – Robert M. Sapolsky, NEW YORK TIMES bestselling author of BEHAVE: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst
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 is a senior research scientist at Naturalis Biodiversity Center in the Netherlands and professor of evolutionary biology at Leiden University. His research revolves around evolution of biodiversity in insects and land snails. A prolific science popularizer, he has written over 250 articles, including for New Scientist, Time and Science, frequently appears on radio and television and has written three popular books.. Publisher: Quercus (UK)/Picador (US) (Editors: Richard Milner, UK/Stephen Morrison, US) Publication: 8 February 2018/3 April 2018 Length: 304 pages All rights available excluding UK & Commonwealth (Quercus), US (Picador), China (CITIC), Germany (DTV), Netherlands (Atlas Contact), Spain (Turner) 26
The Science Factory
London Book Fair 2018
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), Russia (AST), 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)
27
The Science Factory
London Book Fair 2018
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 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
28
The Science Factory
London Book Fair 2018
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), China (Cultural Development Press) 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)
29
The Science Factory
London Book Fair 2018
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)
30
The Science Factory
London Book Fair 2018
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 (Basic Books), China (Ginkgo (Beijing) Book Co), Greece (ROPI Publications), Korea (Life Science Publishing), 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)
31
The Science Factory
London Book Fair 2018
BACKLIST TITLES
THE TRUTH ABOUT LANGUAGE What It Is and Where It Came From A fine, accessible introduction to a captivating, and still evolving, academic field – KIRKUS REVIEWS MICHAEL CORBALLIS is an emeritus professor of psychology at the University of Auckland. Described by Steven Pinker as a ‘brilliant and witty scientist’, he is the author of several popular books including most recently THE WANDERING MIND (University of Chicago Press, 2015). 288 pages/2017 – World English Language (University of Chicago Press)
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), Russia (Atticus), 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)
32
The Science Factory
London Book Fair 2018
BACKLIST TITLES
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)
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)
33
The Science Factory
London Book Fair 2018
BACKLIST TITLES
THE APPOINTMENT What Your Doctor Really Thinks During Your Ten-Minute Consultation 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… A very engrossing read. I enjoyed reading it very much – Jonathan Ross, BBC Radio 2 Arts Show DR GRAHAM EASTON is a practising doctor, radio broadcaster and senior clinical teaching fellow at Imperial College Medical School, London. 336 pages/2016 – UK & Commonwealth (Robinson/Little, Brown), Japan (Kawadeshobo)
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
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
34
The Science Factory
London Book Fair 2018
BACKLIST TITLES
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. 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)
FLAVOR The Science Our Most Neglected Sense Endlessly fascinating. A terrific book – Bill Bryson 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. 320 pages/2017 – UK & Commonwealth (WH Allen), US & Canada (Norton), Germany (Riemann), Japan (Hara-Shobo), Korea (Cheomnetworks), Netherlands (Atlas Contact), Russia (Alpina), Spain (Lince)
35
The Science Factory
London Book Fair 2018
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)
36
The Science Factory
London Book Fair 2018
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 psychologist and business coach. A leading expert in positive psychology, he is a professor in the School of Education at the University of Nottingham, UK. 288 pages/2011 – UK & Commonwealth (Piatkus), US (Basic Books), China (Cheers Publishing Company – simplified Chinese characters), Czech Republic (Portal), Germany (Springer Spektrum), Japan (Chikuma Shobo), Korea (Hakjisa), Netherlands (Archipel), Russia (Hippo/Kariera)
AUTHENTIC How To Be Yourself and Why It Matters At last, an inspiring book on the important topic of authenticity. Filled with case studies and great exercises, it will support you in your journey towards authenticity. I highly recommend the journey – and this book as your map – Dr Itai Ivtzan, senior lecturer in positive psychology, University of East London STEPHEN JOSEPH is a psychologist and business coach. A leading expert in positive psychology, he is a professor in the School of Education at the University of Nottingham, UK. 256 pages/2016 – UK & Commonwealth (Piatkus/Little, Brown), Czech Republic (Portal), Germany (Kailash), Netherlands (Bruna), Poland (REBIS), Russia (Alpina)
SIDDHARTHA’S BRAIN The Science of Enlightenment Brain science and Buddhist lore combine in this compelling treatise on the benefits of meditation and mindfulness – KIRKUS REVIEWS JAMES KINGSLAND is a science and medical journalist with more than two decades of experience working for Nature, New Scientist and the Guardian. 352 pages/2016 – UK & Commonwealth (Robinson/Little, Brown), US (William Morrow/HarperCollins), Brazil (Pensamento – Portuguese rights), France (Dunod), Italy (Rizzoli ), Korea (Jogye Order Publishing), Netherlands (AmboAnthos), Spain (Profit Editorial), Thailand (Amarin Publishing), Turkey (Ganj)
37
The Science Factory
London Book Fair 2018
BACKLIST TITLES
THE PERFECT BET How Science and Math Are Taking the Luck Out of Gambling 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 ADAM KUCHARSKI is a research fellow in the Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and an awardwinning science writer. 288 pages/2016 – UK & Commonwealth (Profile), US (Basic Books), Brazil (Zahar), China (Beijing Paper Jump Cultural Development Company), Italy (Codice), Japan (Soshisha), Italy (Codice), Korea (Business Books), Russia (Sindbad), Taiwan (Walkers Cultural Co.)
THE ENLIGHTENED MR PARKINSON The Pioneering Life of a Forgotten English Surgeon A fine biography of an unusual East London general practitioner – WALL STREET JOURNAL CHERRY LEWIS is an honorary research fellow at the University of Bristol. She is the author of THE DATING GAME: One Man’s Search for the Age of the Earth (Cambridge University Press, 2000). 320 pages/2017 – UK & Commonwealth (Icon), US & Canada (Pegasus)
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 A welcome cross-examination of a concept that seems as natural as sunlight but that, like every other human construct, is shot through with both politics and flaws – KIRKUS REVIEWS 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.
Ehsan Masood
352 pages/2016 – World English Language (Pegasus), China (People’s Oriental Publishing & Media Co – simplified Chinese characters), Germany (Julius Beltz)
38
The Science Factory
London Book Fair 2018
BACKLIST TITLES
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
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)
39
The Science Factory
London Book Fair 2018
BACKLIST TITLES
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 UP), 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)
HOW TO BE A STOIC Using Ancient Philosophy to Live a Modern Life MASSIMO PIGLIUCCI Highly readable, written in clear and accessible prose, and illuminated with anecdotes of both a personal and an historical nature – WASHINGTON INDEPENDENT REVIEW OF BOOKS MASSIMO PIGLIUCCI is the K.D. Irani Professor of Philosophy at the City College of New York. His books include 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 – 288 pages/2017 – UK & Commonwealth (Rider), US & Canada (Basic), China (United Sky), Germany (Piper), Italy (Garzanti), Japan (Hayakawa), Netherlands (Ten Have), Russia (Alpina), Spain (Ariel), Taiwan (Business Weekly)
40
The Science Factory
London Book Fair 2018
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)
INFERIOR How Science Got Women Wrong – and the New Research That’s Rewriting the Story PHYSICS WORLD’S 2017 Book of the Year Illuminating – THE ECONOMIST ANGELA SAINI is an award-winning British science journalist and broadcaster. Her first book, GEEK NATION: How Indian Science is Taking Over the World, was published by Hodder in 2011. 320 pages/2017 – UK & Commonwealth (Fourth Estate), US & Canada (Beacon), Brazil (Dark Side), Czech Republic (Academia Nakladatelství), Japan (Sakuhinsha), Korea (Hyeonamsa), Netherlands (Ten Have), Spain (Circulo de Tiza), Sweden (Fri Tanke)
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 (Basic Books), Greece (Travlos), Israel (Books in the Attic), Italy (Il Saggiatore), Japan (Kodansha), Poland (Prószyński), Russia (Azbooka Atticus), Turkey (Arkadas)
41
The Science Factory
London Book Fair 2018
BACKLIST TITLES
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 (Basic Books, 2007). 320 pages/2013 – World English Language (Oneworld)
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), Greece (Crete University Press), Italy (Bollati Boringhieri/Mauri Spagnol), Japan (Hayakawa), Netherlands (Atlas Contact)
RIPPLES IN SPACETIME Einstein, Gravitational Waves, and the Future of Astronomy Foreword by Professor Sir Martin Rees The story of the discoveries behind the 2017 Nobel prize in physics A lively and readable account – Graham Farmelo, GUARDIAN GOVERT SCHILLING is an internationally acclaimed astronomy journalist and writer. He has written over 50 books (most published originally in Dutch) on a wide variety of astronomical topics. 340 pages/2017 – World English Language (Harvard University Press), China (CITIC Press Corporation), Germany (Piper), Italy (Codice), Japan (Kagaku-Dojin), Netherlands (Fontaine), Poland (Proszynski Media), Russia (Alpina)
42
The Science Factory
London Book Fair 2018
BACKLIST TITLES
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 (Basic Books), China (Shanghai Literature and Art Publishing House), Germany (Berlin), Japan (Hakuyosha), Spain (Ediciones Destino)
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)
43
The Science Factory
London Book Fair 2018
BACKLIST TITLES
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)
INHERITORS OF THE EARTH How Nature is Thriving in an Age of Extinction A thoughtful, provocative, and improbably hopeful book – Elizabeth Kolbert, author of THE SIXTH EXTINCTION and FIELD NOTES FROM A CATASTROPHE An immensely significant book. It is fluently written, carefully thought through, ruthlessly argued, neatly illustrated with case studies – and shockingly contrarian – Matt Ridley, THE TIMES (Book of the Week) CHRIS THOMAS is a professor of conservation biology at the University of York and one of the world’s most influential ecologists. His research has been covered on the front pages of the Guardian and Washington Post. 320 pages/2017 – UK & Commonwealth (Penguin), US & Canada (Public Affairs), China (Grand China Publishing House), Netherlands (Nieuw Amsterdam)
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)
44
The Science Factory
London Book Fair 2018
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)
RESTLESS CREATURES The Story of Life in Ten Movements Packed with revelations, scholarly but clear, RESTLESS CREATURES carries you from the kinetics of the amoeba to that of the blue whale, from the swim-cycle of spermatozoa, to why skipping works best on the moon. A pop-science treat – Gavin Francis, author of ADVENTURES IN HUMAN BEING MATT WILKINSON is a science writer and biologist in the Department of Zoology at the University of Cambridge and an experienced science communicator. 336 pages/2016 – UK & Commonwealth (Icon), US (Basic Books), Japan (Soshisha), Russia (AST)
45
The Science Factory
London Book Fair 2018
BACKLIST TITLES
OVERRIDE My Quest to Go Beyond Brain Training and Take Control of My Mind A delightful book. Smart, spirited, personal, and stocked with well-researched psychological and neural facts, woven together in an original tapestry – Marc Lewis, author of THE BIOLOGY OF DESIRE CAROLINE WILLIAMS is a UK-based science writer and broadcaster with over 10 years of experience in magazine and radio journalism. 288 pages/2017 – UK & Commonwealth (Scribe), US & Canada (Prometheus),, China (Sunnbook Culture and Art Co.), Russia (Alpina)
46
The Science Factory
London Book Fair 2018
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 information about the availability of foreign rights, please contact the publishers directly. ANIL ANANTHASWAMY Science Writer; Consultant, New Scientist, US/India THROUGH TWO DOORS AT ONCE (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 (Basic Books) 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 GET SMART: MATHS (Quercus) MICHAEL C. CORBALLIS Psychologist; Professor of Psychology, University of Auckland, New Zealand THE RECURSIVE MIND (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 (Quercus) MATHS SQUARED (Quantum Books) THINK MATHEMATICALLY (Quarto) ROGER HIGHFIELD Author and Broadcaster; Director of External Affairs, Science Museum Group, London, UK THE DANCE OF LIFE: How We Become Human (W. H. Allen/Penguin Random House) — co-author, Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz
SIMON INGS Science Writer and Novelist, UK 47
The Science Factory
London Book Fair 2018
DEAD WATER (Atlantic) RUSSIAN DOLLS (Faber) ADAM KUCHARSKI Research Fellow, Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine; Science Writer, UK THE RULES OF CONTAGION: How Outbreaks Happen – From Ideas to Infectious Diseases (Profile) MAGDALENA ZERNICKA-GOETZ Professor in Mammalian Development and Stem Cell Biology, University of Cambridge, UK THE DANCE OF LIFE: How We Become Human (W. H. Allen/Penguin Random House) – co-author, Roger Highfield 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 (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) THE BEGINNING AND THE END OF EVERYTHING (Michael O’Mara Books) 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 THE GREETINGS INSTINCT (Duckworth) P. D. SMITH Independent Researcher and Writer, UK CITY (Bloomsbury, UK & US) WATCHING THE DETECTIVES (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) UNCERTAINTY (Profile) USES OF MATHEMATICS (Profile) 48
The Science Factory
London Book Fair 2018
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 (Quercus) MATHS SQUARED (Quantum Books) THINK MATHEMATICALLY (Quarto) DIMITRIS XYGALATAS
 Anthropologist and Cognitive Scientist, University of Connecticut, US THE POWER OF RITUAL: How Rituals Soothe, Excite, Divide and Unite Us (Profile)
49
The Science Factory
London Book Fair 2018
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
50