{"id":11583,"date":"2013-11-26T09:44:57","date_gmt":"2013-11-26T17:44:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/?p=11583"},"modified":"2013-11-26T09:44:57","modified_gmt":"2013-11-26T17:44:57","slug":"winton-prize","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/2013\/11\/26\/winton-prize\/","title":{"rendered":"Winton Prize"},"content":{"rendered":"

Greetings from Paris, where we just arrived from London via the technological miracle of the Chunnel<\/a>. I was in London in part to take place in the award ceremony for the Royal Society Winton Prize for science books<\/a>. Which, to my honest surprise, I won<\/a>!<\/p>\n

\"winton\"<\/a> Not to everyone’s surprise, as it turned out. As the big moment approached, with all six short-listed authors and their friends sitting nervously in the audience, President of the Royal Society Paul Nurse took the podium to announce the winner. He played up the tension quite a bit, joking that nobody in the room, not even he, knew what name was written in the sealed envelope he held in his hands. Unbeknownst to Nurse, a slight technical glitch had caused a PowerPoint slide showing The Particle at the End of the Universe<\/em><\/a> to be displayed — with the word “Winner.” So actually, he was the only one in the room who didn’t<\/em> know by that point.<\/p>\n

Other than that amusing diversion, however, it was a great event overall. It’s such a pleasure to experience the strong culture of public science that is thriving in the UK, and the Royal Society deserves a lot of credit in helping to bring science writing to a wider audience.<\/p>\n

I wouldn’t have wanted to be on the prize jury, however. All of the six shortlisted books are fascinating in their own ways, and at some point it’s comparing apples to pears<\/a>. I wouldn’t have been surprised if any of the other contenders had walked away with the trophy:<\/p>\n