Norton & Company), follows the best-selling trail established by Roach’s previous non-fiction books: Stiff (2003), Spook (2005), Bonk (2008), Packing for Mars (2010), Gulp (2013) and Grunt (2016). If Roach can do it, why can’t everyone invent new words?Ĭertainly, Roach writes about science with the fervor of other bards focused-to reference a dictionary definition-on “the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment.” Fuzz (W. Maybe “global word fetishizer” is a more apt descriptor? It’s a made-up term, but she can do it-Roach claims there is one entirely fabricated word in Fuzz and is astounded it snuck past the publisher’s meticulous fact checkers and her copy editor.
What writer, after all, is not a word writer? But it’s how I’ve always thought of her as a lover and master crafter of language who happens to be fond of investigative, participatory science and has a propensity for marvelously efficient sentences, industry jargon, geeky vernacular, odd titles and the ironic names of various scientists and experts involved in whatever topic she is excavating.
I ask Roach 15 minutes into our phone conversation during the week prior to the release of her new book, Fuzz, if it’s OK to call her a “word writer”-which sounds dumb and likely is why the NYTimes and others resort to a more targeted moniker.
Right species-literate mammal-but wrong animal. All sources identify Roach as a science writer. The New York Times Book Review, Washington Post, Boston Globe and Wired along with most national and industry trade publications, social media, Wikipedia and even the website of Bay Area writer Mary Roach have it wrong.
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