The Wavewatcher's Companion

The Wavewatcher's Companion
AuthorGavin Pretor-Pinney
LanguageEnglish
GenreScience books
PublisherBloomsbury
Publication date
2010
Publication placeUnited Kingdom
Media typePrint
Pages336 pp
ISBN978-0-7475-8976-1

The Wavewatcher's Companion is a 2010 science book by Gavin Pretor-Pinney.

The book was the 2011 winner of the Royal Society Winton Prize for Science Books.

Theme

The book is a wide-ranging discussion on waves in all their forms and how waves are such an intimate part of our lives.

The book's topics include:

  • waves that exist within our bodies;
  • the waves that give rise to music and colour;
  • the waves that drive the information age;
  • and the waves of nature, of the earth, sea and air.

As Jennifer Ouellette of the Wall Street Journal describes, Pretor-Pinney 'employs a chatty, conversational tone, with clear technical explanations enlivened by real-world examples, whimsical asides, personal anecdotes and inventive analogies' to explain his subject.[1]

Reception

The book was well received on its publication. Victoria Segal of The Guardian enthused that Pretor-Pinney "has the gifted teacher's knack for finding the right metaphor to hook the attention".[2] Toby Clements of the Daily Telegraph felt it was a worthy sequel to Pretor-Pinney's previous surprise best-seller, 'The Cloudspotter's Guide.[3]

The book was the 2011 winner of the Royal Society Winton Prize for Science Books,[4] the prestigious award for science writing. Richard Holmes, the Chair of judging panel, said it was a 'highly unusual and outstandingly effective piece of popular science writing and that Pretor-Pinney "had managed to use relatively straight-forward science to transform the readers' perspective of the world around them".[5] Richard Holmes noted the importance of the award stating “Popular science is an increasingly important genre, and this is an increasingly important prize".[4]

References

  1. ^ Ouellette, Jennifer. "Book review: The Wave Watcher's Companion". WSJ. Retrieved 2022-12-06.
  2. ^ "The Wavewatcher's Companion by Gavin Pretor-Pinney – review". the Guardian. 2011-06-24. Retrieved 2022-12-06.
  3. ^ The Daily Telegraph Toby Clements, The Daily Telegraph, 13 July 2010.
  4. ^ a b http://royalsociety.org/news/Winner-of-the-Royal-Society-Winton-Prize-for-Science-Books-announced/, Royal Society Science News, 17 November 2011. Retrieved 19 February 2012.
  5. ^ "Expert in idleness is surprise winner of science book prize", The Independent, 18 November 2011

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