Distinction, drones and drugs

Hello from Corvallis, Oregon, a town in the Willamette Valley that is heavy on leaves, students, and beavers, and is playing host to this year’s edition of the annual Science Writers conference. I’m here to meet up with some friends, colleagues, and peers (some of whom will probably receive this newsletter!) and generally go through a little bit of a since I’m slowly trying to reorient myself as a writer again.

Anyway, the fall colors are a reminder that October is poking its head around the corner, and before we announce our next book of the month on Thursday, I wanted to take a quick look around the extended Curious universe to see what else has been happening since our last checkin.

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First, congratulations to Jennie Erin Smith, author of Valley of Forgetting, (CUR021, January 2026) which is not simply a terrific book about the search for an Alzheimer's cure, but is the winner of the National Science Writers Association Science in Society award for book of the year. The prize is actually being officially awarded here in Corvallis shortly after this email goes out, which is an unexpected piece of synchronicity. If you’ll recall, I called it “a carefully-observed and open-hearted book; detailed and precise, but deeply human and very moving at the same time.” It seems I was not alone. (Here’s my interview with Jennie from earlier this year, and don’t forget that copies are still available through our shop if you want to read it.)

Next up, something to watch: Timothy Snyder has been filming short meditations for his blog while he’s in the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv. Tim is the author of On Tyranny, CUR006 from October 2024, but also an incredible observer of the war Russia is waging on its neighbor.

His first meditation hit home for me: “When you’re sitting in a city or town or in the countryside and someone is lobbing missiles in your direction from hundreds or thousands of kilometers away, sure there’s a physics to that and many ways to talk about it. But I just don’t think you can get out from under the moral dimension of all this. And the moral dimension is cowardice. It’s cowardly to fight wars like this.”

There’s a whole kind of literature about this, including Matthew Powers’ still-vital 2013 piece “Confessions of An American Drone Operator” and a piece by Anthony Swofford that I edited a few years ago about the way that modern warfare allows technology to distance people who are killing others from the consequences of their actions. 

And finally, I urge you to read Alexander Clapp’s astonishing new story about “Chubby Jos,” a Dutch gangster who managed to go from being one of Europe’s most wanted men to apparently gaining sway over the entire country of Sierra Leone. (His secret? Money and cocaine trafficking.) It’s a real jaw dropper, told in the Economist’s 1843 supplement. You may remember Alex as the author of Waste Wars (CUR024, April 2026) which was another lens on how the West continually learns devilish new ways to exploit developing countries. Copies of Waste Wars are still available from us for $25, by the way.

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Anyway. With that I return to the forest and to the conference; you’ll hear from me later this week when our next book, a fascinating scientific journey, is announced.

Onwards

Bobbie