Just so that your visual search strategy is correctly callibrated for bookshops and friends’ living rooms, here is the cover of the new and cheaper edition of Bad Science. It features both an index and a new chapter, which I will post for free on the web in a minute. More below.

If you’re wondering why there is a new paperback, the previous was a “trade paperback”, and this is a normal one. Basically I didn’t want to have a hardback as I think they’re stupid fetish items when books should be cheap, convenient devices for transporting words around, but the best I could do was trade paperback first, and I’m pleased to see that this new edition is already turning up for as little as £3.50 on Amazon marketplace.

It’s worth bearing in mind that this isn’t a new edition, and I’ve not run through and updated or changed things, but it does have a new chapter, on Matthias Rath, which I will post in a minute, and which we’re releasing (after a bit of chat) under a creative commons license, so you’re free to post it on your blog or wherever you like. There is also an index, and although the pagination is a bit different I’m thinking around ways to make one for the old edition and bung that online too.

Here’s the publisher review round up blurb:

‘There aren’t many out and out good eggs in British journalism but Ben Goldacre is one of them!Fight back. You could start by reading this book.’ Telegraph ‘Unmissable! Laying about himself in a froth of entirely justified indignation, Goldacre slams the mountebanks and bullshitters who misuse science. Few escape: drug companies, self-styled nutritionists, deluded researchers and journalists all get thoroughly duffed up. It is enormously enjoyable.’ The TImes (Book of the Year) ‘It is an important book and if you were to pick up just one non-fiction book this year you’d do well to make it this one’ Benjamin Beasley-Murray, Daily Mail ‘Duck the health quacks with a brilliant new book that debunks medical nonsense.’ Metro ‘The book’s light-hearted tone is a help to the reader nervous of science and statistics! This is a fundamentally good book.’ Druin Burch, TLS ‘The most important book you’ll read this year, and quite possibly the funniest.’ Charlie Brooker ‘One of the essential reads of the year so far.’ New Scientist ‘From an expert with a mail-order PhD to debunking the myths of homeopathy, Ben Goldacre talking the reader through some notable cases and shows how to you don’t need a science degree to spot “bad science” yourself.’ Independent (Book of the Year) ‘His book aims to teach us better, in the hope that one day we write less nonsense.’ Daily Telegraph (and a Book of the Year) ‘For sheer savagery, the illusion-destroying, joyous attack on the self-regarding, know-nothing orthodoxies of the modern middle classes, “Bad Science” can not be beaten. You’ll laugh your head off, then throw all those expensive health foods in the bin.’ Trevor Philips, Observer (Book of the Year) ‘[A] hugely entertaining book!This isn’t just an essential primer for anyone who has ever felt uneasy about news coverish of faddish scientific “breakthroughs”, health scares and “studies have shown” stories — it should be on the National Curriculum.’ Time Out ‘A fine lesson in how to skewer the enemies of reason and the peddlers of cant and half-truths.’ Economist ‘”Bad Science” introduces the basic scientific principles to help everyone to become an effective bullshit detector.’ Sir Iain Chalmers, Founder of the Cochrane Library ‘This book reawakened my love of science.’ BBC Focus ‘Read this book.’ Sunday Business Post ‘It is an important book and if you were to pick up just one non-fiction book this year, you’d do well to make it this one.’ Daily Mail

For my own use really, there are links to more reviews here:

Time Out, Spiked, Times Higher Education, Student BMJ, International Journal of Epidemiology, British Medical Journal, British Journal of General Practice.

If you’ve reviewed it on your blog, let me know and I’ll try to update the post with a list of those too.