Viking secures Miodownik's book on gas

Viking has secured a deal with University College London (UCL) academic and prize-winning author Mark Miodownik for It’s a Gas: The Magnificent and Elusive Elements that Expand Our World.

Connor Brown, editorial director, bought world rights from Peter Tallack at the Curious Minds Agency. Rights have sold in China, Italy, Korea, Russia, and the US where it will be published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. It’s a Gas will be published in hardback in summer 2024.

The blurb reads: “Why are most gases invisible, odourless and tasteless? Why do some poison us and others make us laugh? And why do some power our engines while others make drinks fizzy? In It’s a Gas, Mark Miodownik reveals an invisible world through his unique brand of scientific storytelling.

“Taking us back to that exhilarating – and often dangerous – moment when scientists tried to work out exactly what they had discovered, Miodownik shows that gases are the formative substances of our modern world, each with its own weird and wonderful personality. From how nitrous oxide affects our neural pathways to the gases that make plants grow and flowers smell through to the carbon-fuelled climate crisis, this is a fact-filled delight of a book.”

Miodownik is the author of the book Stuff Matters (Viking) – a New York Times bestseller which won the Royal Society Winton Prize – and Liquid. He presents BBC TV and radio programmes on science and engineering such as “Everyday Miracles” and “How It Works”.

Brown said: “Fans of Mark’s earlier books, or his television and radio programmes for the BBC, will know that Mark is not only a leading scientist but a wonderful storyteller. It’s a Gas is infused with the fascinating and surprising facts, and fuelled by the warmth and magnetism, for which he is well known.”

Miodownik said: “I have loved working with Connor and the whole editorial team at Viking/Penguin to create a book about invisible gases. It is about the stuff on which we all rely and yet find hard to comprehend. Their invisibility doesn’t make them less powerful or less sensual than the solid and liquid stuff I have written about in previous books. But it does make them even more mysterious and weird.”