{"id":4798,"date":"2022-06-07T13:16:29","date_gmt":"2022-06-07T12:16:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/?p=4798"},"modified":"2022-06-08T09:00:40","modified_gmt":"2022-06-08T08:00:40","slug":"in-which-lab-lit-escapes-its-little-box","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/2022\/06\/07\/in-which-lab-lit-escapes-its-little-box\/","title":{"rendered":"In which ‘Lab Lit’ escapes its little box"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s been many moons since I published an article in Nature<\/a> featuring my graph illustrating the apparent year-on-year increase in frequency of novels with scientists as central characters – or ‘lab lit<\/a>‘. The trend had looked compelling, but coming from such sparse beginnings it was difficult to be sure, as the only way was up.<\/p>\n

\"Increase

The only way is up?<\/p><\/div>\n

Twelve years on, is the trend holding up? You bet. Due to my hectic academic existence, I’m sadly more than a year behind in updating the database on LabLit.com<\/a>, but I don’t need to run the numbers to tell you that this once-rare genre is rare no more. Years ago, my Royal Institution book group<\/a> struggled to find titles to read each month; now we are spoilt for choice, with suitable novels coming out all the time. In due course I will update the graph, and I confidently expect it to show exponential growth.<\/p>\n

Part of the trend has seen science transcend its ‘normal’ intellectual\/arty\/historical boundaries and invade territories that delight me. Case in point is the increasing frequency of the glorious mash-up of “chick lit” and “lab lit” – spawning deliciously awful back-cover blurbs such as, Jess Davis is a numbers genius, but when it comes to love she’s had to accept there is no magic formula<\/em> (Christina Lauren, The Soulmate Equation<\/a>).<\/p>\n

\"two

Chick lit meets lab lit<\/p><\/div>\n

And why not <\/em> have a bit of romance in the lab? A lot of published lab lit has been, for want of a better description, terribly worthy and too esoteric to interest a wider swathe of people. But once your story has made you a Tik Tok sensation (as for Ali Hazelwood and The Love Hypothesis<\/a>), you know your geeky cult classic fringe element is going mainstream. <\/p>\n

And that’s all I’ve ever wanted.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s been many moons since I published an article in Nature featuring my graph illustrating the apparent year-on-year increase in frequency of novels with scientists as central characters – or ‘lab lit‘. The trend had looked compelling, but coming from … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4798","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lablit","category-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4798","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4798"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4798\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4798"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4798"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}