{"id":737,"date":"2009-09-10T21:29:14","date_gmt":"2009-09-10T21:29:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/2009\/09\/10\/in_which_we_move_from_above_to_below\/"},"modified":"2009-09-10T21:29:14","modified_gmt":"2009-09-10T21:29:14","slug":"in_which_we_move_from_above_to_below","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/2009\/09\/10\/in_which_we_move_from_above_to_below\/","title":{"rendered":"In which we move from above to below"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s a pretty rare Fiction Lab<\/a> that sees us reading brand-new lab lit novels two months in a row, but fortune has smiled upon our Royal Institution<\/a> book group for September and October. (And thank goodness for the odd economical reality that can make hardcover books roughly the same price as the paperback on Amazon \u2013 and often cheaper. What is that all about, anyway? Probably the same fluctuation in space-time that priced my last eBook purchase at \u00a33 more than the hardcover price. Yes, they saw me and my Sony Reader coming.)<\/p>\n

\nCould this be the start of a genuine trend<\/a>? Let’s hope so. Nonetheless, in our September gathering, last Monday, a good many people had a lot of less-than-flattering things to say about Turbulence<\/a> by Giles Foden, the tale of a randy meteorologist who rather unconvincingly becomes a mathematical genius to help predict the weather for the D-Day Landings \u2013 oh, and he also, bizarrely, garrotes someone with a weather balloon along the way. The premise, based on real events, couldn’t have been more promising, but the main complaints were about craft: foreshadowing about as subtle as a solar eclipse, clunky transitions between present-day and flashbacks, and characters that you just didn’t quite believe in. And as is common for some science novels written by non-scientists, the overarching science-as-life metaphors were just a little too breathless.<\/p>\n

\nIf the previous novel put our heads in the clouds, the next promises to embed them firmly in the sand. Or at the very least, shale. On 12 October we’ll be discussing Remarkable Creatures<\/a> by Tracy Chavalier, yet another novel based on historical reality. In this case, the fictional lens is turned on two Victorian fossil hunters (huntresses?), Mary Anning and Elizabeth Philpot, as they struggle to be respected as natural scientists in a man’s world. If the previous book was one for the lads, this is definitely something for the girls, and I have high hopes because this author is usually very enjoyable. <\/p>\n

\nIf that’s not enough excitement for one post, I can report that we’ll all be heading over en masse on 5 October to the Royal Society to hear Ms. Chevalier discuss her book<\/a> with Richard Fortey, paleontologist extraordinaire, thereby getting us properly warmed up for the discussion to follow. There might, also, be the odd libation afterwards at my favorite post-RS watering hole<\/a>. Do join us if you can!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s a pretty rare Fiction Lab that sees us reading brand-new lab lit novels two months in a row, but fortune has smiled upon our Royal Institution book group for September and October. (And thank goodness for the odd economical … 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":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-737","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/737","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=737"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/737\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=737"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=737"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=737"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}