Skip to main content

Going all floppy

I am delighted to announce that my book Before the Big Bang is now available in paperback. (To be more precise it is available in paperback in the US - it doesn't reach the UK until next month, so presumably a crate is bobbing its way across the Atlantic as we speak, but you can pre-order it on Amazon.)

I have to confess that this is one of my favourites of my books to date, and I've been really pleased with the way it has sold in hardback, so I hope the paperback version will take off and keep up with its older sister The God Effect.

It's interesting that for the cover (which has that rather nice, silky feel of many modern US paperbacks) they have chosen an image that was rejected for the hardback. I think it was a good move, because the cover on the hardback was a little dark. Okay, this is dark as well, but it does have some colour in it.

This has been a problem with my books for St Martin's Press - I suppose because they often involve space or quantum physics (?) or some such, it's felt that a black background gives the right impression, but the trouble is that the cover doesn't grab your attention if it's face forward - from a distance it's just blackness. (The same thing was going to happen with my next title, about which more later in the year, but I think I've persuaded them to go for a brighter cover.)

One thing about the paperback that really excited me, but might seem strangely 'So what?' if you aren't an author is that my name is above the title on the spine. The reason this feels exciting is that having the name first, rather than leading with the title, seems to suggest 'Hey, here's another book by that excellent author, Brian Clegg,' and you don't need to know any more.

Whether or not this was what St Martin's Press had in mind, it makes me feel rather chuffed.
Labels:

Comments

  1. Sarah Dickson23 February 2011 at 14:24

    The UK paperback version is going straight on my amazon wish list!

    also I just wanted to say I read & really enjoyed "Brief History of Infinity"

    Sarah

    ReplyDelete
  2. Brian Clegg23 February 2011 at 15:57

    Thanks very much, Sarah - I'm glad you enjoyed Infinity, and I hope you find Before the Big Bang equally interesting!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why I hate opera

If I'm honest, the title of this post is an exaggeration to make a point. I don't really hate opera. There are a couple of operas - notably Monteverdi's Incoranazione di Poppea and Purcell's Dido & Aeneas - that I quite like. But what I do find truly sickening is the reverence with which opera is treated, as if it were some particularly great art form. Nowhere was this more obvious than in ITV's 2010 gut-wrenchingly awful series Pop Star to Opera Star , where the likes of Alan Tichmarsh treated the real opera singers as if they were fragile pieces on Antiques Roadshow, and the music as if it were a gift of the gods. In my opinion - and I know not everyone agrees - opera is: Mediocre music Melodramatic plots Amateurishly hammy acting A forced and unpleasant singing style Ridiculously over-supported by public funds I won't even bother to go into any detail on the plots and the acting - this is just self-evident. But the other aspects need some exp...
118 comments
Read more

Is 5x3 the same as 3x5?

The Internet has gone mildly bonkers over a child in America who was marked down in a test because when asked to work out 5x3 by repeated addition he/she used 5+5+5 instead of 3+3+3+3+3. Those who support the teacher say that 5x3 means 'five lots of 3' where the complainants say that 'times' is commutative (reversible) so the distinction is meaningless as 5x3 and 3x5 are indistinguishable. It's certainly true that not all mathematical operations are commutative. I think we are all comfortable that 5-3 is not the same as 3-5.  However. This not true of multiplication (of numbers). And so if there is to be any distinction, it has to be in the use of English to interpret the 'x' sign. Unfortunately, even here there is no logical way of coming up with a definitive answer. I suspect most primary school teachers would expands 'times' as 'lots of' as mentioned above. So we get 5 x 3 as '5 lots of 3'. Unfortunately that only wor...
25 comments
Read more

Why backgammon is a better game than chess

I freely admit that chess, for those who enjoy it, is a wonderful game, but I honestly believe that as a game , backgammon is better (and this isn't just because I'm a lot better at playing backgammon than chess). Having relatively recently written a book on game theory, I have given quite a lot of thought to the nature of games, and from that I'd say that chess has two significant weaknesses compared with backgammon. One is the lack of randomness. Because backgammon includes the roll of the dice, it introduces a random factor into the play. Of course, a game that is totally random provides very little enjoyment. Tossing a coin isn't at all entertaining. But the clever thing about backgammon is that the randomness is contributory without dominating - there is still plenty of room for skill (apart from very flukey dice throws, I can always be beaten by a really good backgammon player), but the introduction of a random factor makes it more life-like, with more of a sense...
6 comments
Read more