The Envelope Please

There's that old cliché that makes the rounds whenever award season arrives: "It's an honor to just be nominated," say the finalists with joyful assurance. Can they possibly mean it?

I just learned that I am a nominee for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in the science and technology category for my latest work The Day We Found the Universe.  I'm competing with Graham Farmelo for The Strangest Man: The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Mystic of the Atom; Bill Streever for Cold: Adventures in the Worlds’ Frozen Places; Richard Wrangham for Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human; and Carol Kaesuk Yoon for Naming Nature: The Clash Between Instinct and Science. 

So, now I have my answer. It is a pleasure to be grouped among such accomplished writers.  The envelope will be opened on April 23.  Maybe we can hope for a five-way tie.