As we were coming to the end of last night’s after-dinner dog walk, we spotted a box on the porch of Chateau Steelypips. “I wonder what that is?” Kate said, and I replied “I think it might be ARC’s of my book.” And indeed, it was:
The arrival of review copies— basically nicely bound versions of the page proofs— is an important stage in the life cycle of a book. It means the author’s active contribution to the contents of the book are just about done. In fact, after opening the box, one of the first things I did was to send an email signing off on the final corrections of small errors spotted in the page proofs.
The book in question, as you can see from the title and cover (which, for the record, I am really pleased with, the designers did a great job) is a look at the history of methods for tracking time. This covers something like five thousand years, from Neolithic solstice markers like Newgrange in Ireland (or Stonehenge in England, which is more recent but also more famous and thus makes it into the subtitle…) to state-of-the-art atomic clocks based on single trapped ions or ensembles of neutral atoms held in optical lattices. It also spans the globe, covering not just the direct lineage of modern timekeeping (the Julian and Gregorian calendars, mechanical clocks in Europe, the development of the quantum physics behind atomic clocks), but also the extremely impressive timekeepers of medieval China, and the fascinatingly intricate calendar of the Maya in Central America. There’s even a bit of philosophy about the role of time and timekeeping in the development of relativity. A bit of something for everyone, as they say in the business.
I’m in the usual state of an author at this stage of the process: both utterly sick of re-reading the text (final line edits, then copyedits, then page proof review…), and very proud of the end product. Finishing this during the pandemic was a slog, but I’m extremely happy with how it’s come out, and you should totally pre-order it for delivery in January. (Insert boilerplate here about how pre-orders are exceptionally helpful for authors and publishers, and you’re a wonderful person if you pre-order any book you’re expecting to like.)
I’m also a bit apprehensive, because very late in the process, I discovered that someone else was writing a very similar book:
That’s About Time: A History of Civilization in Twelve Clocks by David Rooney, which is also working from the idea of timekeeping as a central preoccupation of human civilization. Rooney is a writer and curator who has specialized in the history of time, so he’s got great credentials to write about the subject, and more importantly, his book is already out, released five months before mine.
As an author, that’s terrifying, because I’m a bit afraid that media outlets who write about his book now will think “Been there, done that” when the promotion cycle for mine rolls around. And the whole point of this operation is to sell books, which requires people to be interested in reading and talking about my book.
So I had a brief flurry of panic when I learned about the existence of Rooney’s book. That’s mostly passed, and with a calmer eye, I can see that we’re taking very different approaches to similar material, and there ought to be room for both. Based on the table of contents, it looks like he’s defining “clock” less expansively than I am— my book includes calendars as well, but he seems to be focusing in on devices used to divide a single day into shorter intervals. More than that, though, I suspect we’re on different sides of a key divide in pop-science with a historical inclination.
Somewhat loosely speaking, I would say that there are two main kinds of books about science of the past: those that are using the science part as a hook to get people to read about history, and those that are using the history part as a hook to get people to read about science. Rooney’s book looks like it’s pretty firmly in the former camp, while I would place myself in the latter. This is not to say that I’ve been in any way perfunctory about the history, mind— I have a stack of 600-page books that I’ll be taking back to the Union College library that would say otherwise— but for me, the historical elements are more for color, and my real goal is to get people to appreciate a bit of the science behind how the various timekeeping systems work. Rooney seems to be more interested in the social and political aspects of time and timekeeping than the (astro)physics of how and why clocks work.
I say “seems to be,” though, because I haven’t read beyond the table of contents and the introduction available to preview on Amazon. And, honestly, I’m sort of torn about whether I should, or even want to. Partly this is because I’m kind of burned out on the subject right now, having spent the last couple of years researching and writing the book. But it’s also that if I read it, I’ll likely feel compelled to say something about it, and that’s prone to misinterpretation. I’m honestly a little iffy about posting even this (and have deliberately avoided looking at even the Amazon preview until today, after everything is done on my own book)…
On the other hand, I probably ought to have some deeper knowledge of his book, just to be able to say exactly how they differ when and if I get asked about it in the promotion cycle in the early part of next year. Based on the introduction, it looks like a good example of the form, the sort of thing I would likely enjoy.
So, as I said: torn. I’ll probably end up waiting a few months, so the burned-out feeling passes, and then pick up a copy to read over the holidays.
I’d be a whole lot happier if my book had come out first, though…
So, there’s some Neurotic Author Guy content for your Tuesday. This will not be a super regular feature, though there will likely be a bunch of book-related content here as we approach the publication date. If that sounds appealing, here’s a button:
and if you know anybody who would like this specific post, here’s another:
If you’d just like to offer advice about whether to read the other guy’s book, the comments will be open.