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.
“Infectious fungi and fungus-like pathogens are the most devastating disease agents known on the planet,” Emily Monosson asserts. While most of the six million different species of fungi are harmless, some kill their host plants and animals, including humans. In Blight: Fungi and the Coming Pandemic, Monosson offers examples of fungal spread & details scientists’ efforts to stop fungal invasions.
The resurgence of white sharks along the northeastern US seacoast, a conservation success story, has sparked worries about public safety. Fatal attacks, while rare, have occurred. In Chasing Shadows: My Life Tracking the Great White Shark, Greg Skomal, Massachusetts Shark Research Program director, and science writer Ret Talbot, provide perspective on advances in understanding shark biology.
Uncertainties in medicine arise from both what is unknowable and what is missing, Ilana Yurkiewicz, MD, asserts in Fragmented: A Doctor’s Quest to Piece Together American Health Care. Seemingly mundane clinical decisions may have profound effects later on, Yurkiewicz says. She offers vignettes that include care her father received after a cardiac arrest & proposes ways to improve medical culture.
Lifelong Minnesota science writer Marie Zhuikov takes readers along as she explores her state’s peatland bogs on snowshoes, hikes to ice-filled sea caves on the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore, and paddles a canoe around remote lakes. In Meander North, a book of collected blog posts, she also reports on dog-walking despite 30-below windchills, wildlife encounters, and community life.
Two endangered ocelots seeking food and mates attempt a journey between the US and Mexico. The border wall blocks one while the other crosses freely where wall construction is incomplete. In Border Crossings, Sneed B. Collard III explores the border wall’s threat to the survival of native animals and plants, many found nowhere else on Earth. Collard is the author of 85+ children’s science books.
The 130+ national monuments in the US include a 6-mile wide lake in a volcanic caldera; a riverbed with more than 750 types of fossils, some 44 million years old; homes of many of the nation’s heroes, and sites where historically significant events occurred. Cameron Walker describes them all in National Monuments of the U.S.A., a richly illustrated book for readers aged 6-10 & their families.
Baby animals help scientists explore important questions: How do genes influence health? Which environmental factors support—or obstruct—life? Learning how babies grow, Danna Staaf asserts In Nursery Earth: The Wondrous Lives of Baby Animals and the Extraordinary Ways They Shape Our World, will help us understand and treat nearly all health problems, and someday even mend damaged body parts.
Anna, a North Dakota homesteader in the early 1900s, left her family mineral rights to land with potential oil and gas reserves. Anna’s great-granddaughter Erika Bolstad worried about the land-grab behind those rights & their possible environmental impact. In "Windfall: The Prairie Woman Who Lost Her Way and the Great-Granddaughter Who Found Her," Bolstad explores family roots & devises a solution.
In 1938, botanists Elzada Clover and Lois Jotter became the 1st non-native women known to transverse the Grand Canyon by boat. In their 43-day, 600-mile trip down the perilous Colorado River, they collected diverse plant specimens and took notes that set botanical benchmarks, Melissa Sevigny reports in Brave the Wild River, The Untold Story of Two Women Who Mapped the Botany of the Grand Canyon.
