Today, the National Book Foundation (NBF) and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation have announced the titles selected for the fourth year of the Science + Literature program, which is made possible by a three-year $525,000 renewal grant from the Sloan Foundation.
Each year since its inception, the program has honored three books—one fiction, one nonfiction, and one poetry title—that deepen our understanding of science and technology. The books’ authors are awarded $10,000 each, celebrated at a ceremony in March, and featured in national public programming. To qualify, books must have been published in English by US publishers within the last three years. Winners are chosen by a committee that operates independently of the National Book Foundation staff.
This year’s committee consisted of authors and scientists, and included science journalist and author Sara Goudarzi (The Almond in the Apricot), journalist and author Elizabeth Kolbert (The Sixth Extinction), biologist and author Beronda L. Montgomery (Lessons From Plants), eco-poet and National Book Award winner Craig Santos Perez (from unincorporated territory [åmot]), and neuroscientist, artist, and writer Joshua Sariñana. Craig Santos Perez served as the committee’s chair.
This year’s selections are below:
What the committee had to say:
“With tremendous skill, Ramona Ausubel shows how a newly-single mother and her two teenage daughters survive while trying to help save the planet. Sharp and delightful, the novel explores how science works—and doesn’t work—and the sexism so pervasive that even those not working in the field understand the need to navigate its imposed limitations. The Last Animal is a tour de force that takes readers around the world and asks if we should resurrect those we’ve lost, how to move on without them, and to which part of this globe we belong.”
Meltwater by Claire Wahmanholm, Poetry
What the committee had to say:
“Meltwater is a collection of poetry that powerfully expresses what it feels like to live, love, and mother during a time of climate chaos. Throughout, Claire Wahmanholm creates free verse, serial structures, prose poems, and erasures to create an aesthetic diversity that embodies the biodiversity that our planet is sadly losing. Woven into the poems is a wealth of environmental knowledge, multispecies assemblages, and climate data. This book brings together literature and science in a way that is innovative, emotive, and compelling.”
What the committee had to say:
“Ed Yong’s An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us challenges readers to regard the world through different eyes—not to mention sensory hairs, electroreceptors, and lyriform organs. It is an exemplary work of science writing—prodigiously reported, sharply crafted, and packed with information. Like all the best works of nonfiction, An Immense World is rigorously grounded in fact and, at the same time, invites us all to be open to the great mysteries of life.”
To learn more about the selected titles and the program itself, visit the Science + Literature program page.
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