{"id":11112,"date":"2013-04-22T14:34:34","date_gmt":"2013-04-22T21:34:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/?p=11112"},"modified":"2013-04-22T17:14:37","modified_gmt":"2013-04-23T00:14:37","slug":"volumes-of-science","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/2013\/04\/22\/volumes-of-science\/","title":{"rendered":"Volumes of Science"},"content":{"rendered":"

This weekend featured the latest edition of the LA Times Festival of Books<\/a>, the largest book festival in the U.S., and a great celebration of the written word. The Saturday and Sunday festivities feature a bounty of author events, especially conversations between different writers, and it’s always a treat to see huge numbers of people (with lots of kids included) come out to hear about words and ideas. Good to be reminded that there really is a community of readers out there.<\/p>\n

\"booksbooksbooks\"<\/a> The festival kicked off on Friday night with the annual Book Prizes<\/a>, which cover categories from history to mystery. For the last couple of years, Jennifer<\/a> has been on the jury for the Science and Technology prize, which is a lot of work but a good way to become familiar with the science books written during the year. I bet you wouldn’t think it would be possible to become dismayed when more free books were mailed to your door, did you? But when over a hundred come your way over the course of a couple of months, it can get overwhelming pretty fast.<\/p>\n

The bad news about being married to a judge is that your own book<\/a> doesn’t have a chance to get considered. But that meant I was an easy choice to be the presenter of this year’s prize, which was a lot of fun. Got to meet both Margaret Atwood and Jonathan Lethem, so that was a treat. And I got to announce the finalists and winner, which were some great popular science books. Here’s what I said about each of the finalists:<\/p>\n