Malta-teaser

It's World Book Day, so in celebration here's an answer to "where do books come from?".

In the case of professional science books the answer is that someone like me - a commissioning editor - keeps abreast of who and what is "hot" in science, and tries to convince the former to write a book on the latter. That means attending conferences like this one next week, The 7th World Meeting on Pharmaceutics, Biopharmaceutics and Pharmaceutical Technology (www.worldmeeting.org). A week of interesting talks and interesting people.

Oh, and it just happens to be in Malta. It's a tough job, but someone has to do it!

The photo shows my essential travel kit. Conference programme; passport; guidebook (with those all-important street maps), and iPod.

Next week - assuming I have wifi in my hotel - photos from Malta!