Bursts -- a new Barabasi book

At the end of the month, Barabasi's new book, entitled Bursts: The Hidden Pattern Behind Everything We Do, will be released.  Here's the pre-order Amazon link, and he's apparently put a web page up with information about the book.  Barabasi is something of a controversial figure in the networking community, as mentioned previously in this blog here;  for example, there are those that feel he overstates claims without evidence (the power laws on the Internet controversy).  However, his earlier book, Linked: How Everything Is Connected to Everything Else and What It Means, was one of a series of books (including also Watts' Six Degrees: The New Science of Networks) that popularized networks and power laws in the public consciousness a few years ago.  So it will be interesting to see how this book plays out, both in how it does with general audiences, and what scientists think of the content.

I've also still been waiting for the Easley/Kleinberg book Networks, Crowds, and Markets: Reasoning About a Highly Connected World.  It seems to be on pre-order for June.  While this will be a more "academic" book -- it's written as a textbook for an introductory course -- I'm wondering if it will reach the public consciousness.

I've always wondered my more computer scientists don't try to write "popular science" books.  It would seem that we work in an area that should be of more popular interest than physicists, but they seem to write a lot more for widespread public consumption.  It's something I'd like to try -- I started playing with an idea a few years back (after tenure) but the project stalled.  Writing a book like that seems to be a multi-year commitment, and perhaps it's hard in our "get the paper ready for the next deadline" culture.  It certainly was hard for me to keep up momentum, and find the right voice and message.  But perhaps someday.