For this column, NASW book editor Lynne Lamberg asks NASW authors to tell how they came up with the idea for their book, developed a proposal, found an agent and publisher, funded and conducted research, and put the book together. She also asks what they wish they had known before they began working on their book, what they might do differently the next time, and what tips they can offer aspiring authors. She then edits the A part of that Q&A to produce the author reports you see here.
NASW members: Will your book be published soon? Visit www.nasw.org/advance-copy-submission-guidelines to submit your report.
Publication of NASW members' reports in Advance Copy does not constitute NASW's endorsement of their books. NASW welcomes your comments and hopes this column stimulates productive discussions.
Over billions of years, life forms from microbes to mammoths transformed continents, oceans, and the atmosphere, Ferris Jabr reports in Becoming Earth: How Our Planet Came to Life. To explore this process, Jabr visited a former gold mine a mile underground, now a science lab; an Arctic region once home to megafauna; and a 1066-ft tall observatory for global climate studies in the Amazon rainforest.
The Australian platypus, though a mammal, lays eggs. Whale sharks, the world’s longest fish, may be 60 ft long. New Zealand’s kakapo, the world’s largest parrot, can’t fly, Sneed B. Collard III reports in Like No Other: Earth’s Coolest One-of-a-Kind Creatures. Collard, author of nearly 100 science books for young readers, includes additional resources and exercises in this amply-illustrated book.
Introducing a puppy or traumatized rescue dog to your home often presents unexpected challenges: some are nippy, fearful, or constant barkers. Tactics that help at-risk kids also may improve dog behavior, Wendy Lyons Sunshine asserts in Tender Paws: How Science-Based Parenting Can Transform Our Relationship with Dogs. To change behavior, she says, one first needs to assess a dog’s unmet needs.
While science and marketing are separate disciplines, effective science communication draws on knowledge and skills from both, Sheeva Azma asserts in Science X Marketing, a book summarizing her experiences studying neuroscience and working as a science writer, educator, marketer, and policy advisor. Azma also explores ethical challenges that people who work in science marketing may face.
Despite extinction of nearly 600 seed plant species since the 18th century, the number of top US universities offering botany degrees continues to fall, Erin Zimmerman reports in Unrooted: Botany, Motherhood, and the Fight to Save an Old Science. Protected maternity leave, pumping space, remote work options, and childcare at conferences, she asserts, could keep more highly trained women in science.
All tortoises are turtles, but not all turtles are tortoises, herpetologist George R. Zug and NASW member Devin A. Reese report in Tortoises of the World: Giants to Dwarfs. Tortoises may converse via low-frequency vocalizations, this illustrated guide to 47 tortoise species relates. They can feel tactile stimulation of their shells. Habitat change and direct exploitation threaten their survival.
Solitude, often disparaged, linked to loneliness, or thought an unattainable luxury, offers many benefits for everyday life, Netta Weinstein, NASW member Heather Hansen, and Thuy-vy Nguyen write in Solitude: The Science and Power of Being Alone. Solitude can boost creativity, reflection, and resilience, the authors say. Surprise: it also often fosters improvements in social relationships.
More than a century after Einstein published his theory of general relativity, physicists and mathematicians still strive to unravel its implications and expand upon it, NASW member Steve Nadis and Shing-Tung Yau write in The Gravity of Math: How Geometry Rules the Universe. Continual exchange and spillover of ideas across disciplinary boundaries, they note, advance our understanding of the universe.
“Cosmic rays remain one of the most intractable scientific puzzles of all time,” Mark Wolverton asserts. Debate between two physicist superstars over what cosmic rays are and how they came to be roiled scientific, religious, and philosophical groups in the 1930s, Wolverton writes in Splinters of Infinity: Cosmic Rays and the Clash of Two Nobel Prize-Winning Scientists over the Secrets of Creation.
