Leslie Brunetta

We're grateful to receive such a thorough--and positive--review of Spider Silk from Rachael A. Carmen in the latest issue of Evolution: Education and Outreach. This review may especially interest those of you who teach evolution. Most of the review is behind a paywall, but you can read the first page for free here. Read More 

And even more good news! Spider Silk has been longlisted for the Royal Society Winton Prize for Science Books, which "celebrates the best in popular science writing." Wow!! The judges say, “This book uses an unlikely subject to draw out many of the major principles of biology, drawing the reader into the surprisingly fascinating world of the spider.” Read More 

We're very pleased to announce that ForeWord Reviews has named Spider Silk the Silver Award winner in the Nature Category of its Book of the Year Awards. Because we've had so much support from our publisher, Yale University Press, it's especially nice to get an award "honoring excellence in independent publishing." Read More 

We're proud to announce that the Boston Authors Club--the oldest continuous authors group in the US, founded in 1899--has given Spider Silk a Highly Recommended Book Award. Take a look at the awards page to see the other award winners.

Our publisher, Yale University Press, featured Spider Silk on its blog this week.

We were excited to learn today that Spider Silk is a finalist in the Nature category in ForeWord Review's 2010 Book of the Year Awards list!

We're thrilled with the most recent reviews of Spider Silk from BioScience, the Quarterly Review of Biology, and Choice, the leading review journal for academic librarians. Choice deemed Spider Silk an "Editor's Pick," calling it "wonderfully entertaining." Please take a look at excerpts from these reviews at our press/links page. Read More 

In my experience working with third graders, they all love to get star stickers on their work. I'm not sure what this says about our psychosocial development, but so do we: we just got 6, plus some nice comments, and we're floating. The American Association for the Advancement of Science's Science Books and Film awarded us two out of two stars, and the BBC Wildlife Magazine gave us four out of five (five stars indicates "a classic," and we are first-timers, so we're not disappointed we didn't get full marks). To read excerpts from the reviews, please go to our press/links tab.

And if you want to spread the good cheer contained in these reviews, consider this: Spider Silk makes the perfect gift if you celebrate Christmas, and celebrate it with a Christmas tree. One legend has it that a poor family couldn't afford tree decorations. A spider they had treated gently spun silk all up and down the tree as they slept the night before Christmas. When the sun streaming through the window the next morning hit the threads of silk, they turned into silver. And, supposedly, this explains why people strew tinsel on their trees.  Read More 

It's very exciting for writers when readers fully connect with their work. So it was a thrill to read the opening line of Tim R. New's review in the Journal of Insect Conservation. Check it out on our Press/Links page, please. Read More 

We're really excited that a couple of top-notch reviewers in England have recommended Spider Silk to their readers. For more info, go to the Press/Links tab. But here are the short versions:

Simon Barnes, The Times, 3rd July 2010: "This is a fascinating and readable account of one of the great, overlooked mysteries of life."

Tibor Fischer, Sunday Telegraph, 11th July 2010: "The book is full of amusing facts and observations…Definitely for the general reader with a keen interest in natural history." Read More