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This is not about self-expression, self-promotion or product placement - even if it looks like it - but about a look behind the scenes of writing books together. As the author of around 50 books and more than 30 years of publishing, questions occasionally arise: What is it like when two people write one (!) book? Who does what? How is the division? Time to talk more about what's going on.
First of all, projects like this don't work for everyone. With Mathias Harzhauser they always succeed. A lot of things have to fit, power struggles and know-it-alls have no place. Competence is important, humility is good. Criticism of the other person's text? Yes, absolutely! But please be constructive and appreciative, ideally with a concrete text suggestion. Caustic comments are poison in a group of people writing a book together. Texts are played back and forth – like in table tennis. The author in first place sets the tone and usually writes the majority of the text. The other person adds, adds, comments, optimizes, or writes certain passages and chapters as needed. Ideally, one person's weak points will be eliminated by the other without saying much. Mathias has been director of the Geological-Paleontological Department of the Natural History Museum Vienna since 2004. His research into living creatures over the last 30 million years can be read in hundreds of publications. In addition to high-ranking specialist journals (for example: Science), “popular science” is an honest concern for him.
Different characters are no problem. Mathias is not a man of long speeches; I tend to be a chatterbox. He has the expertise and infrastructure of the entire museum behind him. I use the one from GeoSphere Austria. This interdisciplinary pool of knowledge is a good basis for books.
In mid-2023, Mathias contacted me. Over the past few years, he had located all of the fossils in the Vienna area spatially and temporally; At the museum alone there were around 23,000. Many findings have already been the subject of scientific work. Now “popular science” was the order of the day.
He had largely finished the manuscript. A panopticon of wonderful habitats from the last 18 million years, an unimagined diversity of fossils, including a directory of the Viennese brick pit owners ("brick barons and baronesses"). We looked for a publisher with two suggested titles. Mathias rushed forward with "Vienna on the Sand! - About Prinz Eugen, the Lido of Pötzleinsdorf and Schneckenscheiße", I had a more poetic version: "Vienna like never before - Wonderful scientific features - a geological journey through time through 15 million years". But nobody wanted to dare. Maybe we should have included the book cover, St. Stephen's Cathedral with palm trees and a white sandy beach. Ultimately, the book became a home game for the Natural History Museum publishing house.
I had nothing to contribute in terms of paleontological expertise. But I was able to contribute to the content structure. The names of the Vienna suburbs, from Nußdorf to Hernals to Liesing, all well-known fossil sites, suggested a (time travel) guide starting on page 78 ("Getting started: Next stop"). The Vienna suburban line S45 provided inspiration, so chapters begin as follows: "Next stop: The seal beach of Hernals" (page 122). The introductory history of the development of the Vienna Basin (page 44) is now available under: “Vienna by the Sea – A Countdown”. Starting 18 million years ago with the first sea advance to Lake Pannon (10 million years), the changes in the landscape are shown on maps every million years. In addition, I contributed historical maps from GeoSphere Austria, numerous original text passages from the 19th century and some bon mots. "If Rome was built on seven hills, Vienna consists of three seas and one lake" (page 44).
My book “Science Adventure – Explorers between the Alps, the Orient and the Polar Sea” (Böhlau) was published in autumn 2020. The fact that the book became a science book in the natural sciences and technology category in 2021 surprised and pleased the publishing team as much as I did. I wanted to build on my success; I dreamed of a double in the science book. My concept also convinced Böhlau Verlag: well-founded research, Vienna-related topics and Mathias Harzhauer as co-author, who also brought the renowned Natural History Museum on board.
With the title “Vienna Natural History – From the Museum to the Stratosphere” we wanted to take off. Alice Schumacher, the museum's photographer, took the cover. She had the lion, in front of which Lotte Tobisch had already posed, brought into the domed hall of the Natural History Museum especially for us. With this book, we pulled out all the stops with the network of our two institutions, we put all our efforts into it, we wanted to surprise, amaze and make you smile. I wrote the text; Mathias added, contributed and established contacts with the various departments in the museum. The variety of content was correspondingly wide. "Vienna Peaks" (page 33) brings together little-known records from the natural sciences in Vienna. "When scientists become politicians" (page 59) sheds light on the careers of Michael Häupl, a biologist with a doctorate, and Alexander Tollmann, a geologist. The former was successful as mayor of Vienna, the latter failed as a federal presidential candidate, but helped prevent the Zwentendorf nuclear power plant. With “Vienna consists of itself – the raw material perspective” we showed that the building materials of the former imperial capital and residential city largely came from the Viennese terrain. And so forth …
Conclusion: We believe that science communication can also be entertaining. (Thomas Hofmann, December 6, 2024)