Popular science is a strange genre in publishing. Every now and then, a book takes off - for instance, The Selfish Gene way back in 1976 (which which I betted would not sell 5000 copies) or A Brief History of Time which must rate as one of the most bought least read books of all time.

Immediately following one of these success there is a flurry of popular science publishing, large advances are paid, marketing campaigns are launched and most of the books sink with little trace.

There are, in my view, two reasons for this. The first is to do with a flaw in the industry itself. There is an assumption that a talented publisher can publish almost any genre successfully. This may be true on the arts and humanities but it is not true in science (or quite a few other genres for that matter) where understanding of the subject and the market is essential. Simply paying big advances for famous names doesn't work.

The second reason is less easily fixable - a general distrust and lack of interest in science.

Fortunately, the Royal Society has made the public understanding of science one of its priorities and has taken over sponsorship of the Booker Prize of science, what was known as the Aventis/Rhone-Poulenc and is now more straightforwardly known as Royal Society Prizes for Science Books.

The judges have just announced their longlist and I am delighted that Macmillan has two titles in the running for the world's most prestigious award and they are both favourites of mine which I've mentioned here before.

We published Giant Leaps in November in asociation with the Science Museum and The Sun newspaper, together with the marketing support of a once powerful politician. If you're at a loose end over the holiday weekend why not try the Giant Leaps quiz?

The second is less in-your-face but none the worse for that. Lonesome George by Henry Nicholls is the story of a bachelor giant tortoise in the Galapagos who is the last of his line and has yet to find love. Here he is, and very handsome too. And check out some of the reviews at this link.

Both of these books saw the light of day through the efforts of people who care about the dissemination of scientific knowledge rather than the traditional lemming-like me-too publishing we all see too much of. Thank goodness quality publishing still exists.