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German readers have shifted their interest from popular science to politics.
The Munich publisher Pieper Verlag reports that sales of popular science
books have fallen by 20 per cent since the beginning of last year. ‘We’re
not exactly sure why people are reading less about science, but sales of
books about international politics – books about the war in the Gulf, for
example – have risen,’ says Ralf Alkenbrecher, Pieper’s sales manager.

Although sales have fallen, Pieper can still boast that 15 Nobel prizewinners
write for it. In 1991, books about chaos theory and brain research were
leading sellers. ‘One of the best-selling books we had in 1991 was Aus dem
Nichts (Out of Nothing) by Gerd Binning,’ says Alkenbrecher. The book’s
subject is human creativity as an expression of chaos. According to Alkenbrecher,
Binning’s theory is that true creativity is a result of disordered thoughts.
Last year, Pieper sold 4000 copies of Binning’s book.

Pieper aims to make sure that its popular science books are written
in a way that everyone can understand. Other top sellers included books
about astronomy and Diane Fossey’s research on gorillas. Rohwohlt, another
German publisher printed the year’s bestseller: Stephen Hawking’s A Brief
History of Time.

Deciding what will sell well this year is difficult, said Alkenbrecher.
One book for which Pieper has high hopes, however, is about nuclear fusion
Heisser als das Sonnenfeuer (Hotter than the Fire of the Sun) by Eckhard
Rebhan.

The German publishing giant Springer Verlag aims its books more at the
scientist than the general reader, but several of its books have been successful
in the general market. ‘We published a coffee-table book about ant behaviour
called The Ants, which was one of our best sellers this year but chaos theory
books, for example Heinz-Otto Peitgen’s The Beauty of Fractals also sold
well,’ said an editor.

Books on chaos also sold well for Hanser Verlag, another Munich-based
house. In 1991, said Hanser editor Hartmut Schickart, John Briggs and David
S. Peat’s book Die Entdeckung des Chaos sold more than 50 000 copies. Stephen
J. Gould’s book on evolution, In Zufall Mensch, was another hit.

Author and themes are chosen by staying in touch with what’s new and
who’s writing about it. ‘With certain authors,’ said Schikart, ‘you know
before you even get a manuscript that a book will be good. We’re looking
not only for people that write about important discoveries, but also have
a style that nonscientific readers can understand.’

In 1992 Hanser has high hopes for a book on cosmology by French-Canadian
author Hubert Reeves, Schmetterlingen und Galaxien. Schikart says Reeves
as a scientist is unique: ‘He is someone who can still look at a flower
or enjoy a sunset after learning Maxwell’s equations and researching topics
like black holes and the big bang.’

Spektrum Akademischer Verlag’s best-seller in 1991 was Roger Penrose’s
The Emperor’s New Clothes (called Computer Denken in Germany). As well as
publishing translations from English, Spektrum also welcomes suggestions
for books from the entire European scientific community, not only for popular
books but also for textbooks and for a series called Spektrum Library. Each
year, four titles for this series are published from a broad range of topics.

One book last year was Dimension by Thomas F. Banchoff, on four-dimensional
mathematics. Titles and themes come from authors who write for the Scientific
American Library. Spektrum also published John Wheeler’s Gravity (published
by W. H. Freeman in Britain).

Spektrum plans to continue its long-term agreement with the Moscow scientific
publishing houses Mir and Nayuka. ‘We published two books from Mir in October
1991: one, an introduction to geology, the other a book on experimental
physics,’ says a spokesman. But he was unwilling to make a prediction for
the coming year: ‘It’s hard to tell which of our books are going to sell.’