Paparazzi and bored sportswriters are not the only ones to profit off the troubles of Tiger Woods and his wife Elin Nordgren — no those greedy bastards who write physics books in layman’s terms also profit. This is disgusting.
It’s not as illustrious as having the president publicly declare he’s reading your book — as Barack Obama did with Joseph O’Neill’s “Netherland” — but a paperback called “Get a Grip on Physics” is in the spotlight after a minor cameo in the Tiger Woods saga. The book, a layman’s guide to physics by British science writer John Gribbin, appeared in a photo of Woods’ crashed SUV, lying on the vehicle’s floor. Since yesterday, the book’s Amazon sales rank has jumped from 396,224 to 2,268 — a fortuitous turn for the author. “Anytime a book gets highlighted, you get a spike of a day or two,” Jim Milliot, a senior editor at Publishers Weekly, said. “It happened when President Bush was carrying some books on vacation. It happened with Obama.” Asked if there was an industry term for such a notoriety-induced sales boost, Milliot replied, “dumb luck.”
That’s more or less how the book’s author is viewing the situation. Reached at his home near Brighton, England, Gribbin said he knew about Woods’ crash but was unaware his book featured in the story; he’d been in Oxford for the last few days researching a new book on the search for intelligent life in space. “Actually, I’m delighted,” he said upon hearing his book’s latest sales rankings. “I write books about science for people who aren’t scientists so he’s exactly my target audience.”
What’s next Barack Obama carrying around a copy of Global Warming For Dummies (For Dummies (Math & Science))
on Marine One? Exploitation of rich and helpless celebrities by science popularizers must be stopped.
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