Instrumental, With Words (Self Aggrandizement Alert)

Just in case any of y’all might be interested, I’m going to be talking with the really wonderful interviewer, Desiree Schell, about my almost twenty year old book, Measure for Measure, my attempt to retell the history of science through the stories of a series of musical and scientific instruments — from the pipe organ to the digital synthesizer, with stops along the way at the microscope, the scale, chimeric mice (sic!) and the ‘cello:

The conversation will take place on Desiree’s Skeptically Speaking radio show, and can be heard live there at 8 p.m. EDT, 5 p.m. PDT.  It’ll be archived and podcast later too, of course.  (If you are a glutton for punishment, you can catch my earlier chat on the same program with Desiree’s guest host, Marie-Claire Shanahan, on my more recent book, Newton and the Counterfeiter.

In the meantime, I hope everyone is enjoying the first full day of NFL football (Patriots begin as I hope they go on…), and that’s about it.

Image:  Amedeo Modgiliani, Cello Player, before 1920.

Self Aggrandizement Alert: Newton and the Counterfeiter’s UK Paperback is out, Critics Don’t Quail in Horror

Just got my box of paperbacks from Faber, and I have to say, I love the cover — best of the four versions to date:

The book has been well received, especially in the British press — the Sunday Times was pleased enough with it to name it on its best-books-of-the-year list, as did the Library Journal and New York magazine over here.

And now it can be bought in Britain again (Faber had a bit of an inventory control problem with the hardcover, which has been unavailable for some months.  Heck, at least I can say I sold out the British Isles…;)

And a few folks have been kind enough to re-notice the work. Via Faber’s eternally vigilant publicity folks, I learn of these props:

‘Entertaining … Levenson has a good eye for the colourful details that bring 17th-century London to life in all its grimy glory: Newton and the Counterfeiter weaves together the history of the money and a biography of one of our greatest scientists in a readable romp.’ Observer

‘Wonderful book.’ Sunday Times

Should any of this move  you to more curiosity, you can check out the work at your local bookstore, (I hope), or online at the usual suspects:  Amazon, Powells, Barnes and Noble, Indiebound and  across the pond at Amazon.co.uk, Waterstones, Blackwells, Books Etc., and John Smith & Son — not to mention electronically Amazon’s Kindle store, the Barnes and Noble store (Not sure if it’s available yet at Apple’s ibook store, but I’ll check and update.)

Self promotion (at least thus nakedly) now at an end.  As you were.

Another Commercial Interruption: Newton and the Counterfeiter on Audible.com dept.

Just in case you are one of those who can’t resist having books read to you (my son, e.g.; me too), I just got word that Audible.com has included Newton and the Counterfeiter in a “buy bestsellers for cheap” promotion — my humble offering apparently being one of their better sellers in the physics category.

So, if you like audiobooks, and what to pound the gym to the sound of Isaac Newton chasing bad guys through the mean streets of London...it can happen, for the surprisingly (to me) modest sum of $7.49.

Image:  Gerard ter Borch, “The Letter,” c.1660-1662

A self referential post, and thanks

The invaluable Bora over at A Blog Around the Clock has just done this blog the kindness of posting an online interview he conducted with me in the aftermath of the NC Science Blogging Conference.

He’s done the same for a lot of new and established bloggers who attended the conference. You can see all of the interviews here. It’s a great cross section of the science blogosphere, the hows and whys a very diverse group of people have gotten into this strange business.

All of which is to enable this shout-out. My thanks to Bora, not for his interest in what goes on at Inverse Square, but much more for what he does daily on his blog to build the kinds of connections that turn a gaggle into a community. It’s essential work, and he does it seemingly tirelessly, with grace and evident pleasure. I and everyone reading this are in his debt.