Surprise yourself with August's book of the month

There’s a moment near the beginning of this month’s book that made me sit up and realize that I wasn’t reading a typical science book.

A team of geologists are trying to learn about melting glaciers in Greenland, which involves trekking to a dolefully remote spot, analyzing the ice, and planting tracking equipment to be retrieved later with data. But nothing goes right. The weather is too bad. The helicopters have been double booked. Team members get Covid at crucial moments. The equipment gets lost deep under the snow.  

Eventually, after months and months of trying, the scientists stumble toward completing their studies… but never quite get what they want. What emerges isn’t a tale of total failure, exactly, but the narrative doesn’t resolve itself in the struggle-to-eventual-success way we’ve been trained to expect.

That’s because most books about science concentrate on big results and the people who deliver them. The writer’s lens typically focuses on the breakthrough, highlights the world-changing discovery: Here’s a biologist finding some cure for a terrible disease in the unlikeliest place; Here’s a mathematician solving a previously-unsolvable problem; here’s an ecologist stumbling across a connection between two seemingly separate incidents with an insight that could change the world.

But our book of the month for August does precisely the opposite, in a fascinating and exciting way. Lost in Curiosity: Field Notes From Scientists’ Adventures Into The Unknown by Roberta Kwok looks at life in the lab and in the field, and shows how weird and messy and irritating science can really be.

This is a wide-ranging book, scanning across disciplines and bedding in with scientists for the long haul. Kwok follows experts in geology and paleontology, as well as ecology, evolutionary biology and climate. She brings us stories of physicists, astronomers, chemists and molecular biologists. Through it all, we see that science is very rarely a straight line, and instead usually a matter of frustration and patience.

Perhaps this sounds narratively unsatisfying to you.

Where is the big reveal? What’s the point if it’s not telling us something groundbreaking?

Somehow though, in showcasing all of the tribulations of scientific research, Kwok manages to capture exactly why science is important and interesting, and why the knowledge that even the smallest project can be so valuable.

Released just last month, Lost in Curiosity has been called “lively and revelatory” by Elizabeth Kolbert, and Science said “the ups and downs are as funny as they are tragic, thrilling as they are painful.” I’m excited to share it with you. 

Books are on their way to subscribers today, and we’ll be catching up with Roberta in a few weeks to hear more about this tremendous piece of work!

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Lost in Curiosity is available now for anyone who signs up to Curious Reading Club before August 24. It’s part of our Eureka strand—6 books per year that are specifically focused on science and technology—but you can also join via our classic one-book-per-month package, paying either monthly or annually.