Join Eugene Kaplan, author of What’s Eating You?, tomorrow evening at the Pacific Science Center in Seattle, WA.

What’s Eating You?: People And Parasites
Dr. Eugene Kaplan
Wednesday, May 26, 2010 | 7:30 – 9 p.m.
Eames Theater, Pacific Science Center

Our next science lecture may well go down in history as the most uncomfortable we’ve ever presented. Author Eugene Kaplan is coming to detail his new book titled, “What’s Eating You?: People and Parasites.” The book is all about those microscopic organisms that can be found inside the human body and just how important they can be. But along the way, this very funny author uses his wit and sense of humor to make some squeamish topics palatable to just about all of us. As one reviewer put it, “Ever want to know about hirudin, the anticoagulant in leech saliva? This is the book for you.” And so is this presentation. That’s Wednesday, May 26, 7:30 p.m. at Pacific Science Center’s Eames Theater. The lecture is free for our members and students with I.D. General Public $5. →Buy Tickets

http://www.pacsci.org/lectures/

Join EPI’s latest webinar to speak with author Ben Wildavsky on his latest book “The Great Brain Race”!

Author Ben Wildavsky, a senior fellow in research and policy at the Kauffman Foundation and guest scholar at the Brookings Institution, will participate in The Educational Policy Institute’s upcoming Book Club webinar. In The Great Brain Race, Wildavsky presents the first popular account of how international competition for the brightest minds is transforming the world of higher education–and why this revolution should be welcomed, not feared. The webinar is open to the public.

Educational Policy Institute

801 N. Quincy St. Suite 700, Arlington, VA 22203 – www.educationalpolicy.org – 703.875.0701

It’s happened to all of us — we miss a book in its first publication and catch up in the paperback. Diane Coyle recently blogged about reading the The Venturesome Economy at The Enlightened Economist

It’s a couple of years since Amar Bhide’s The Venturesome Economy was first published – the paperback edition is just out. By happenstance it was low down in my pile of books, and again by chance I’ve almost run out of books other than the novels I’m taking on holiday next month. So finally today I started reading it, and am impressed just by the Introduction.

If you’d like to have a peak at this introduction, it is available on our web site here: http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/i8731.pdf

So what grabbed Coyle’s attention?

First of all, I like Bhide’s introduction of the process of reasoning and judgment used in common law trials as a valid process for gathering economic evidence.

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I also thoroughly agree with his main argument which is that globalisation is not a zero-sum game, and especially when it comes to technology.
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Thirdly, I really liked this:

“Effective intervention … requires humility – an appreciation of how difficult it is to fathom the complexity of the modern economy – and alertness to the unintended consequences of policies base on a limited understanding.”

It should be emblazoned on the wall of every meeting room in every ministry around the world.

Read the introduction and see if you agree with Coyle’s assessment.

Even a relatively small number of books can make a difference: A child whose family has 25 books will, on average, complete two more years of school than a child whose family is sadly book-less.

That stunning statistic is found over at The Percolator a Chronicle of Higher Education blog. With stakes that high, it seems a bit silly to quibble over where you might buy your books — independent stores, big box stores, Amazon.com, etc — so just read the article, then go buy a book or two.

Professional sports today have truly become a global force, a common language that anyone, regardless of their nationality, can understand. Yet sports also remain distinctly local, with regional teams and the fiercely loyal local fans that follow them. This new book examines the twenty-first-century phenomenon of global sports, in which professional teams and their players have become agents of globalization while at the same time fostering deep-seated and antagonistic local allegiances and spawning new forms of cultural conflict and prejudice.

Andrei Markovits and Lars Rensmann take readers into the exciting global sports scene, showing how soccer, football, baseball, basketball, and hockey have given rise to a collective identity among millions of predominantly male fans in the United States, Europe, and around the rest of the world.

Chapter one now online:
http://bit.ly/djry7R

Gaming the World:
How Sports Are Reshaping Global Politics and Culture
By Andrei S. Markovits & Lars Rensmann

We are excited to publish Edwidge Danticat’s Create Dangerously: The Immigrant Artist at Work later this year. The book is based on a lecture given here at Princeton as part of the Toni Morrison Lecture Series. You can watch Edwidge’s moving presentation here: http://www.princeton.edu/WebMedia/podcast/20080325_danticat.mp4

Read up on her book here: http://press.princeton.edu/titles/9262.html

From the Chronicle Review’s Brainstorm blog:

It would seem that the apparent decline of traditional academic print publishing (the dramatic decrease in the number of copies purchased by academic libraries faced with mushrooming serials prices), combined with the pressure on universities to restructure their budgets in order to cope with dramatically decreased budgets, would make the typical university press an irresistable target for the bean counters in campus financial planning offices.

But, as Katz notes, this is not the case. Most universities are standing by their presses, weathering rough times–but the most visible exception to this is found at Southern Methodist University. After notice that the university would close its press, administrators were surprised by a ground-swell of support for this vibrant press. SMU Press’s future is still unclear, but the outcry at its closing and our experience at Princeton University Press indicates there is a place for high quality university presses and a need for the types of books we publish. As Katz notes:

Some of the larger academic presses are in fact doing quite well. Peter Dougherty, the director of the Princeton University Press, tells me that PUP is just closing the books on the best financial year it has ever had. I am not sure, but I think the main reason for PUP’s success has been its capacity to sign economics books that continue to sell well as the world economy tanks.

And you say that like it’s a bad thing.

Pick up a copy of The Politics of Happiness and join in the live chat at 5:00 PM EST on May 22nd.

After the jump we’ll provide some essential background reading and viewing for this online chat.

Geeking Out is a great science cafe sponsored by GELF Magazine. Tonight’s event takes place at JLA Studios and will feature Gene and a bed bug expert, so it promises to be a fun and engrossing (ha ha) evening.

The event is free and drinks will be available so invite your friends too!

Details
Date & Time: Thursday, May 20th, at 7:30 pm (doors open at 7:00 pm)
Location: JLA Studios art gallery on 63 Pearl St (between Water St. and Front St.)
DUMBO neighborhood of Brooklyn (Next to the F train. Close to the A,C. Accessible by the 2,3.)

Visit reBar, around the corner, afterward; attendees of Geeking Out and other Gelf events get discounts on food and drink.

Articles have appeared today about Adam Wheeler, a former student at Harvard University who has been accused of many academic misrepresentations including one mentioning he had a book contract with Princeton University Press.  We would like to let our readers know that  this is inaccurate as no such contract exists.

Congratulations to Princeton University Press author Winnifred Sullivan who has been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship according to this press release from University of Buffalo Law School (in which her most recent book Prison Religion: Faith-Based Reform and the Constitution is also mentioned).

Pick up a copy of The Politics of Happiness and join in the live chat at 5:00 PM EST.

After the jump we’ll provide some essential background reading and viewing for this online chat.