Recent replies to "Are you working on a climate book?"

Reply from Maxine Clarke

Maxine Clarke — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 12:52:12 -0000

Fascinating! It is always so interesting to know how readers use Nature, thanks for the insight.

Reply from Brian Clegg

Brian Clegg — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 14:33:58 -0000

Maxine – sorry, I was using loose language! What I meant is for me, and I suspect many others, it’s primarily an online archive of text (not just papers), which in my case I use to do research for books, and secondarily a printed magazine, which gives me the heads up sometimes on something interesting, but is much less important in the way I use it.

Reply from Maxine Clarke

Maxine Clarke — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 12:04:50 -0000

I am puzzling a bit over your definition of Nature, Brian…yes, it is an online archive of papers, but papers make up just over half of each weekly issue (this has been the case, with proportions shifting a bit over some decades, since 1869). The other half has Reviews, Insights (collections of reviews on one topic), News and Views, News Features, News, Commentary, Correspondence, etc, as well as Books & Arts. So coverage of science outside the research papers is done in all kinds of ways, not “just” via book reviews. We also publish Web Focuses, collections of articles on various areas (maybe a scientific subdiscipline or a topic such as peer-review). And, indeed, for areas where there is a lot of current debate we do publish the Reports series (not just climate change but stem cells and avian flu)—these online publications are free. So yes, Nature is an archive of papers, and it publishes reviews of new books, but it also covers all areas via one or other of these (and other) sections or forums – I think you’d be hard pressed to find an area of science that we aren’t covering for our readers, but if there is one, let us know!

The “blogosphere”/Internet is certainly a great place for discussion of books that is unrelated to their publication dates, I can attest to that from personal experience.

Reply from Anna Barnett

Anna Barnett — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 18:52:14 -0000

Scott: It depends … but many big publishers are geared up for that schedule, probably for the reasons Sara pointed out.

Reply from sara abdulla

sara abdulla — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 09:28:27 -0000

William Skidelsky has a good piece in Feb 08 Prospect on how the web is changing literary criticism. I take Brian’s points, but there are two other important things that we have to take into account as commissioning editors here at Nature. One is that our readers want to be able to consider Nature’s take on, say, the new Venter biog, alogside the NYRB’s take, and the NYT’s take and Scientific American’s take – in other words reviews should emerge quickly enough for them to be part of a cultural conversation about a work. Second, books these days are actually available in the shops for rather a short period of time (in the US it can be as little as 3 months). Even Amazon availability can become flaky after initial print runs. So if we publish a review a long time after a book is published our readers may not be able to get hold of a copy as easily. Obviously these are generalisations, and we’d always be interested in taking a new look at an old book that still has currency.

Reply from Scott Keir

Scott Keir — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 22:24:53 -0000

Just out of interest, Anna, how cooperative or able are publishers to get you a copy of something several months in advance of publication for review? Or can you time something for, say, the paperback release, which is usually several months after the hardback release?

Reply from Brian Clegg

Brian Clegg — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 10:32:51 -0000

For me, reading something like Nature gives me a heads up on what’s happening, but if I want to research a book (or choose a book to buy from reviews) I will search online to get the richer content. I don’t care if a book comes out next month or five years ago – if it looks interesting, then I’ll look for a copy to read.

Reply from Anna Barnett

Anna Barnett — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 11:00:35 -0000

Ah, good system!

The more I think about it, the more I’m interested in your news/archive distinction. This maybe should be a different thread, but – given that the archives of major news media are increasingly accessible, where do you draw the line? Obviously, most people think of the New York Times as a newspaper (if not the newspaper), but its newly open-access online archive makes it look more like a library than it once did.

Reply from Brian Clegg

Brian Clegg — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 10:49:39 -0000

Popular Science reviews are done by volunteers (myself included), who are generally people who would have bought the book themselves, so are grateful to get it free!

Reply from Anna Barnett

Anna Barnett — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 10:12:32 -0000

Interesting points. Unlike Nature itself, Nature Reports Climate Change is online only and publishes just news, opinion, and context on current issues (no primary research papers) – so topicality is definitely crucial. Even so, we value our archive (and I’m working on improving them).

But aside from the question of what content we should have, we’ve found it’s hard to commission reviews of older books. If books have already been reviewed elsewhere – or just don’t have the pull of being hot off the press – higher-profile reviewers (climate scientists, mostly) may not find it worthwhile to add their two cents. Do you find this at Popular Science, or are your reviews done by staff?

I suppose we might review an older book (or other media – we also review movies, art exhibits, etc.) if we could convincingly peg it to a current story, or maybe an anniversary. I could see us doing something like ‘Inconvenient Truth: five years later’, for example.

Reply from Brian Clegg

Brian Clegg — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 08:57:24 -0000

Maxine,
I take your point, but increasingly I’d suggest Nature is not a topical magazine, it’s an online archive with a paper extract highlighting what’s new in it. Archives are better if they are complete – so I would argue you should (especially in an area like Anna’s) be filling in the gaps in your information. Clearly this can’t be done with scientific papers, but there’s no reason why it can’t be done with book reviews.

Reply from Maxine Clarke

Maxine Clarke — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 12:50:58 -0000

The answer for Nature, at least, is that we are a topical magazine, reporting on what is “news” in science, or making the news.
But, that having been said, we have a keen interest in reporting history too, even recent history (;-) ). In the case of book reviews, for example, we have a feature called “In Retrospect”, in which a scientist writes about a book that influenced him or her in some way (negative or positive), as far back in the past as the writer wishes. We even had Jane Austen once! (In connection with the unusual weather in Emma, Anna—which brings me round full circle to a climate-related book!).

Reply from Brian Clegg

Brian Clegg — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 08:27:06 -0000

Anna -
Good to hear from you, and I hope you have a deluge of books!

Just one query in the good scientific vein of challenging methodology – why do you need to review books when fresh? On the Popular Science website (shameless plug) we review books that could have been in print for years if we haven’t already reviewed them, as long as they are still available.

I know it’s traditional in print media only to review the very latest stuff, but I’m not sure if that’s a good model, and it certainly breaks down once you are in electronic media…