At this January's remarkable Science Onlineconference, the science writer Carl Zimmer, led a discussion of e-books and the future of publishing. And whether the future was, in fact, already here.
Zimmer is one of the most acclaimed science writers working today. He's also has a gift for making things happen. After the meeting, he gathered together a group of especially intrigued science writers and proposed that we launch a new venture - a website dedicated to reviewing science e-books.
To a person we loved the idea. And barely a month after our first discussion, we launched the site, Download the Universe, yesterday with a book-savvy introductionfrom Carl and a review by me of Theodore Gray's gorgeous chemistry-focused e-book/app The Elements. You can read Carl's postabout it at his blog, The Loom, here.
I also want to draw your attention to the other founding editors of the project who are some of the best science writers and bloggers in the country. They include, in no particular order, David Dobbs, Jennifer Ouellette, Brian Switek, Annalee Newitz, Sean Carroll, Maia Szalavitz, Steve Silberman, Ed Yong, Maggie Koerth-Baker, Tom Levenson, Eric Michael Johnson, John Hawks, and John Timmer.
Timmer wrote today's poston the state of the e-book and there are many more in the queue. But if you have an idea of an e-book you'd like to see reviewed, please do share it. We're talking about the universe, after all, and there's a lot of territory to cover.
