The Open Laboratory: The Best Writing on Science Blogs 2006

At last, it's out. The Open Laboratory: The Best Writing on Science Blogs 2006 edited by Bora Zivkovic, aka coturnix. It looks to be an interesting and worthwhile book, Bora leads us through the whole story with his most recent post. I definately will be picking it up (2007.01.17: Done!), both for myself and for the collection at York. I hope Bora (with help of course) continues both upcomming Science Blogging Conference and makes the anthology an annual event to coincide with it.

What I am very interested to see is how it will compare to The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2006 and The Best American Science Writing 2006, both of which are series I read religiously. On the one hand the blogging book will likely be more diverse, not restricting itself to American stories or to stories only of interest to the mainstream media. On the other hand, I am equally curious to see if the non-professional aspect of the bloggers and their stories will show itself in a lack of polish. I suspect not, but I can't wait to find out. The two science writing books are next in line in my reading list and I'll probably read the blogging book right after, giving me the opportunity for a three-part group review. Should be fun.

So let's all show some link love, some collection love and some personal love and make this book a success.

Update 2007.01.17: Bora brings us all up to speed on the book & conference here.

Update 2007.02.05: The book arrived this past Friday, February 3rd. It looks fantastic, with a great cover. I'm in the middle of Best American Science Writing 2006 and I expect to read the science blogging anthology right after that. The three-part review should follow soon after, maybe in a couple of weeks. The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2006 was solid as usual, but I there's quite a contrast with BASW and I expect both of them to contrast markedly with Open Laboratory.