 | |
| Author | Gavin Pretor-Pinney |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Genre | Science books |
| Publisher | Bloomsbury |
Publication date | 2010 |
| Publication place | United Kingdom |
| Media type | |
| Pages | 336 pp |
| ISBN | 978-0-7475-8976-1 |
The Wavewatcher's Companion is a 2010 popular science book by Gavin Pretor-Pinney.
The book was the 2011 winner of the Royal Society Winton Prize for Science Books.
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:
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]
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]