Last night my publisher emailed me in high excitement to tell me that I, and my magazine LabLit.com, had received some positive coverage in The New York Times.
Do have a read of this (freely available) piece by Katherine Bouton if you’re interested in lab lit fiction and its place in the grand literary scheme of things. It’s certainly wonderful to see fiction about scientists getting the mainstream airing it deserves. The hook for the piece is Barbara Kingsolver’s new science novel Flight Behavior (reviewed on LabLit’s most recent podcast), which I can highly recommend.
The infiltration of science and scientists into popular culture continues. Onward!
Is the genre actually accurate?
The Sloan Foundation has sponsored a lot of plays on science (broadly defined) that a radio theater group LATW puts on periodically, and usually, they are pretty bad representations of grad life, or lab life in general. I find myself groaning and cringing through these plays.
If I could find fiction that actually represented what our lives look like, even moderately well, I would love to send it off to family members who have no idea what it is that I do.
Hi Barefoot
Like most things, lab lit novels vary in quality – as do readers’ individual tastes. But I can attest to the accuracy of many of the books on the LabLit list. You could start with my latest novel, The Honest Look, or my first, Experimental Heart. 😉 Others that are very accurate (what I like to call ‘hard-core lab lit) include Intuition, State of Wonder and Long For This World. The new novel The Heart Broke In also does a pretty good job, though it’s about other things besides science as well.
Thanks for the recommendations. I’ll check them out.
ah. Exciting with such an article. Doing great there!
I’m off to read the article 🙂
Today, The New York Times… tomorrow, Die Welt
Excellent! And I love the fortuitous appearance of the “Click Here to See Just How Good We Are” banner in your screen capture. 😀
Cheers for LabLit!
In response to Barefoot Doctoral, allow me to add “Mendel’s Dwarf,” and *ahem* my own contributions: Both “Matter Over Mind” and “Welcome Home, Sir,” (in my humble opinion) capture the essence of life in the lab–for student, post-doc and PI.
They are available in paper + Kindle here: http://www.amazon.com/Dr.-Steve-Caplan/e/B006CSULBW/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0
You can even download a sample chapter of “Matter Over Mind” here: https://www.createspace.com/Preview/1072777
Danny Bloom’s ”CLI FI” CENTRAL blog via LAB LIT
Do have a read of this (freely available) piece if you’re interested in CLI FI as a new emerging genre of fiction and its place in the grand literary scheme of things. It’s certainly wonderful to see fiction about climate change, pro and con, but mostly accepting AGW, and rejecting the denialists, getting the mainstream airing it deserves. The hook for the piece Danny Bloom’s ”CLI FI” CENTRAL blog which I can highly recommend.
The infiltration of science and scientists into popular culture continues. Onward!