State of science biography
Joanne Baker
Wednesday, 08 October 2008 15:54 UTC
Why aren’t scientists’ biographies in the bestseller list?
Does our picture of science take enough notice of the characters and life stories of individual scientists? What do you get out of reading scientists’ biographies?
In an essay in the 16 Oct issue of Nature (p871), biographer Georgina Ferry asks why the life stories of so few scientists make it into the bookshops.
She finds that no scientist makes it into the top 100 biographies on Amazon; and of those that do appear, most are about well known figures like Einstein and Darwin. And publishers see scientist subjects as being too remote for normal people to relate to.
What do you think?
Updated 16 October 2008 14:30 UTC
-
Replies
Jump to resultsResults
-
Although Brief History of Time was not a(n auto) biography, I wonder if part of the reason for it being such a massive bestseller was because of interest in Hawking the man?
-
The character and life story of the geneticist William Bateson forms a major part of the biography recently released by Springer (New York):Treasure Your Exceptions. The Science and Life of William Bateson by Alan. G. Cock and Donald R. Forsdyke. Predictably, none of the major publishing houses – even that associated with William Bateson’s own university (Cambridge) – would agree to consider it for publication. A major USA university press would only agree to look at a text reduced to less than 150,000 words – a length that could only trivialize, given the rich complexity of Bateson’s life. I think in her article Joanne Baker partly answers her own question. Publishers play it safe (would that those on Wall Street were equally prudent!). Click for more information on our book
-
I have noticed there are quite a few books appearing on “tales from the field”, including personal stories from many younger scientists who would not be targetted by biographers, and the “diary” format is popular. Perhaps these accessible day to day stories offer up more “ordinary” scientists as role models, not just rare geniuses.
-
I think that people seem to be interested in people they have already heard of and know a little about. It is sad in some ways because some of the more obscure figures have amazing lives which I believe can teach us a great deal.
-
Clare is being too modest here: her fictional biography of Albrecht Wegener, the discoverer of continental drift but a polymath, is wonderful. I don’t know how many people (outside the Nature editorial office!) have heard of Wegener but Clare’s book is wonderful. I loved it.
-
That should be Alfred Wegener, of course – my memory was at fault. Here is a link to the US and UK editions of the book (Wegener’s Jigsaw and One Day the Ice Will Reveal all its Dead are the respective titles.)
-
I’ve written a couple of biographies of scientists, and they have been my worst selling books. I’d have said there are two types of biography that sell well – celebrities and literary biographies.
I suspect we don’t see much in science because from the first camp there are hardly any celebrities (expect those famous for what they did after leaving science). In fact probably the only living scientific celebrity is Hawking, which might explain part of the sales of his book.
From the second camp, while there are some very literate scientific biographers, Ms Ferry included, their subjects aren’t literary. The people in charge of book reviews (and the biography sections of bookshops) will mostly be arts graduates who are terrified of any scientific content (and most scientific biographies touch on the science), and believe being anguished over your poems (or whatever) to be much more significant than being a good scientist.
Finally (sorry this is going on so long), the trend in history of science is against effective biographies. It’s the current vogue to de-emphasize the towering individual and emphasize team effort and everyone making small incremental contributions. But for a good biography, we want to read about the individual triumphing over the odds (or whatever) and making a huge personal breakthrough.
-
Good points, Brian, if a bit depressing.
My husband is a scientist who enjoys reading scientific biographies (as well as other types of book!). I gave him Andrew Brown’s bio of J. D. Bernal, the Sage of Science for Christmas last year (based on the positive Nature book review I think!) which he enjoyed. He thought the first part was most successful (for him) which was the scientific part, and which relates in some ways to the history of my husband’s own field. The latter parts, which were more social (political ideologies, sexual indfidelities) were of less interest to him. But perhaps what Brian says would mean that a non-scientist reader would have exactly the opposite reaction?
Another bio my husband loved (a birthday present I think!) was John Gribbin’s The Fellowship. Although ostensibly a bio of the Royal Society, apparently it focuses on one or two of the early founders, rather than being a “bio of the Royal Society from 16hundred and something to the present day”.
-
There have been a few that have broken into the best seller lists. Longditude comes to mind at once, also the Dinosaur Hunters by Deborah Cadbury got exposure in newspaper reviews, as did The Map that Changed the World. However, I may be attracted to scientist (or pre-scientist) biographies and so notice them more often.
-
Scientific biographies, mine included, have received extensive coverage in the books pages of the national press and in literary weeklies – I even had a spot on Start the Week. I don’t have any complaint about literary editors, even if they do have arts degrees: they give more space to scientific biographies than New Scientist does, for instance. It seems that even the most favourable review (and my Perutz biography had some very gratifying ones, mostly written by non-scientists) does not necessarily translate into sales.
Brian Derby’s examples of The Map that Changed the World, The Dinosaur Hunters and Longitude suggest that it is a mistake to put the subject’s name in the title!
Results
-
