by Ruth Winter
Ken Frazier, a board member of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP), Barry Karr, executive director of CSICOP, and Joe Nickell, an author who serves on the editorial board of the Skeptical Inquirer, certainly had great timing for their book as the Heaven's Gate group took off to meet their space ship. Frazier says the title of the book does not mean alien crafts are landing en masse across the United States. Rather, it means we are literally being invaded by thousands of media reports of everything from abductions to government cover-ups of UFO "evidence"--irresponsible reporting that needs investigation. The book contains forty entries from Skeptical Inquirer of which Frazier is the editor. Is the planet Earth being regularly visited by extraterrestrial spacecraft? Have human beings been abducted by aliens, put through bizarre ceremonies and tests, and lived to tell about it? The book applies a down-to-earth critical intelligence and scientific reasoning to answer such questions. Frazier can be reached by phone at 505-293-6335 and by e-mail at CompuServe 73562,3030. The PR for the book, Christine Kramer, can be reached at 800-853-7545 and by FAX at 716-691-0137.
Prescription For Profits: How the Pharmaceutical Industry Bankrolled the Unholy Marriage Between Science and Business, by Linda Marsa (NASW) published by Simon & Schuster.
Marsa, a Los Angeles freelance, makes the medicine go down without a spoonful of sugar in her expose of the increasingly unholy alliance between researcher-entrepreneurs, NIH, and the American pharmaceutical industry. She says in the foreword to her book: "In the course of doing several stories on AIDS research, I came to an unsettling realization. The search for a cure, for an effective vaccine, even for treatments to ease the symptoms of this deadly disease, was hobbled by the dominance of a tiny network of friends and colleagues at major research universities, and at the National Institute of Health. What was even more disturbing was that many scientists in the AIDS inner circle had become rich off the epidemic, through patent royalties, corporate consulting contracts from drugmakers, and stocks in biotech firms. This was not only a serious conflict of interest; it also meant that the pharmaceutical industry was setting the taxpayer-supported research agenda." She concludes that American science needs to be reorganized from the ground up. Marsa can be reached by phone at 310-839-1982 and by FAX at 310-839-4815. The PR for the book is Liza Maslow by phone at 212-632-4951 and by FAX at 212-632-4957.
The One Best Way: Frederick Winslow Taylor and the Enigma of Efficiency by Robert Kanigel (NASW) published by Viking.
Kanigel, a Baltimore freelance, the recipient of the Grady Stack Award for science writing and author of the highly praised books, Apprentice to Genius and The Man Who Knew Infinity, has written a biography of Frederick Winslow Taylor, the first efficiency expert, the original time-and-motion man. Kanigel, in the prologue to his book says that to organized labor, Taylor was a "soulless, slave driver, out to destroy the workingman's health and rob him of his manhood." To the bosses, he relates, Taylor was "an eccentric and a radical, raising the wages of common laborers by a third, paying colleagues to click stopwatches." Taylor, to himself and his friends, was a "misunderstood visionary, possessor of the one best way that, under the banner of science, would confer prosperity on worker and boss alike, abolishing the ancient class hatreds." The author notes that the subject of this 570-page biography was tactless: "He was a troublemaker. But mostly, this was just theatrical veneer. Deep down, he was a conventional man." Kanigel concludes that though Taylor died relatively young, he lived long enough to take currents of thought drifting through his own time--standards, order, production, regularity, efficiency--and codify them into a system that defines our age. Kanigel's phone is 410-377-6574. To reach a publicity person for Viking, call 212-366-2000.
The Whole Shebang: A State-of-the-Universe(s) Report by Timothy Ferris (NASW), published by Simon & Schuster.
Owen Gingerich, historian of astronomy at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, found much to praise in his New York Times review of this most recent book by Ferris, professor of journalism at the University of California (Berkeley): "...this is a breathtakingly wide canvas, and for a brief description of some of the major conundrums of the quantum universe, Mr. Ferris is admirably lucid."
Stuff: The Materials the World Is Made Of, by Ivan Amato (NASW), published by Basic Books.
Henry Petroski, A.S. Vesic Professor of Civil Engineering at Duke University, said in the Washington Post, "Materials science is the new alchemy, according to Ivan Amato, who has written an enthusiastic overview of the field and its methods.... [T]his book is as much about the people who manipulate atoms of iron and customize grains of steel as it is about the materials themselves...
What Einstein Didn't Know: Scientific Answers to Everyday Questions, by Robert Wolke (NASW), published by Birch Lane Press.
Science writers are curious and presumably they have curious children. All will enjoy this book that answers such questions as:
Why is ice slippery?
Why can we see through air?
Why must waterbeds be heated?
Can pure antifreeze freeze?
What makes cucumbers cool?
Dr. Wolke, professor emeritus of chemistry at the University of Pittsburgh, has written an authoritative yet thoroughly entertaining book. In additions to the questions and answers, it has 48 fun demonstrations that can be done by the reader without any special equipment. It also contains 17 true statements that, he says, "may or may not win a round of drinks, but that will certainly stimulate debate. Dr. Wolke can be reached by phone at 412-481-1620 and by FAX at 412-6302. The PR for the book is Kathy Matthews at 201-583-6531.
A History of Chemistry, by Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent and Isabelle Stengers, translated by Deborah Van Dam published by Harvard University Press.
Bensaude-Vincent, associate professor at the University of Paris and Stengers, a lecturer in the Department of Philosophy of Science at the University of Brussels, have also written a book on chemistry. They present it as a science whose identity has changed in response to its relation to society and other disciplines. The authors describe enthusiastically the conceptual, experimental, and technological complexities and challenges with which chemists have grappled over many centuries. The authors also address the issues of contemporary scientists: whether chemistry has become a service science; whether its status has "declined" because its value lies in assisting the leading-edge research activities of molecular geneticists and material s scientists. The PR for the book is Alison Harris at 617-495-6269 by phone and by FAX at 617-496-2550. You can also reach the Harvard University Press Web site at: http://www.hup.harvard.edu.
American Cancer Society's Informed Decisions: The Complete Book of Cancer Diagnosis, Treatment and Recovery by Gerald Murphy, MD, Lois B. Morris (NASW) and Dianne Lange (NASW)
A comprehensive book for the approximately 1.4 million Americans who will learn for the first time this year that they have cancer. It presents all of the information needed to make critical choices and to simplify the decision-making process from detection to recovery for those diagnosed with cancer and their loved ones. It even provides information of alternative and complementary therapies as well as pain relief, stress reduction and emotional factors. Diet, exercise, and sexuality are also included. Dr. Murphy, former chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society, is now director of research at the Northwest Hospital and the Pacific Northwest Cancer Foundation in Seattle. NASWer Morris is a magazine columnist and editorial director of The Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons Complete Home Guide to Mental Health. She can be reached at 516-749-3349 by phone and 516-749-0763 by FAX. NASWer Lange is a nurse and magazine columnist. She was formerly editor-in-chief of Health Magazine. She can be reached at 310-396-0354 by phone and 310-396-4169. The PR for the book is Carolyn Coleburn 212-366-2270.
Black Holes and Supernovae, by David Newton (NASW) published by Twenty-First Century Publishers.
An Oregon freelance, Newton did not send a copy of the book or any information about it. The title speaks for itself. You can reach him by phone at 503-482-6032 and by FAX at 503-488-1611.
[Once again, the books or sufficient information about them should be sent to me at: 44 Holly Drive, Short Hills, NJ 07078 and not to the NASW office. I know that the publicity people for books are often gone with the wind or maybe gone without any wind...but try to include a PR name and number to make it easy for your colleagues to obtain a review copy or other information about your book.]