Ruth’s Reviews – The Better Angels Of Our Nature

Ruth’s Reviews – The Better Angels Of Our Nature

Ruth Francis, Nature’s former head of press, is reading the shortlist of the Royal Society Winton prize for science books at a rate of one a week. She’s done it before. Will she succeed this year? The winner of the prize will be announced on 26 November.  Read more

Ruth’s Reviews: And the winner is….

Ruth's Reviews: And the winner is….

Last night, at a ceremony in London, Gavin Pretor-Pinney was named as this year’s Royal Society Winton Book Prize winner. His winning book, The Wavewatcher’s Companion, is his second, and followed naturally in the footsteps of The Cloudspotter’s Guide. He told me “many waves are revealed by clouds”, and that the act of watching clouds and waves is “rounding and calming”. When I asked if he had a trilogy in him, Pretor-Pinney said he was uncertain but that: “what interests me is the ordinary, finding what’s exotic in our surroundings, seeing the miraculous in what is around us.” The Wavewatcher’s  … Read more

Ruth’s Reviews: Massive

Ruth’s Reviews: Massive

Forty-eight years ago an unassuming physicist drove to Princeton to present a controversial theory on the origin of mass. His visit triggered a hunt for a particle that has so far taken decades, involved billions of dollars, and simultaneously raised and dashed the hopes of a generation of scientists.