Upasana Sarraju’s new book called Unruly: The Ig Nobel Prizes and The Science That Refuses to Behave dives into, swims and surfs through a universe (our universe, in fact) full of unexpected science. Published by India Penguin [ISBN 9780143470403], the book’s official debut date is February 28, 2026.
Here’s how Sarraju describes the book:
After several years of research, interviews, rewrites, and more proofs than I care to count (or publicly confess to), my debut book UNRULY is now available for pre-order.
UNRULY: The Ig Nobel Prizes and The Science That Refuses to Behave.
Twelve extraordinary scientists, one Antarctic station, several ducks, and a human heart trying to make sense of science.
In the words of the brilliant and wonderful Subhra Priyadarshini, one of the earliest readers, “If you’ve ever suspected that the universe is stranger, funnier and more unruly than our textbooks admit… this book is for you.”
Using the Ig Nobel Prizes — founded by Marc Abrahams — as a lens, UNRULY wanders through the strangest ideas you’ve never heard of…about chickens who like people, plants with their own manifesto, quantum something, nose-picking adolescents and more.
UNRULYS asks two other inconvenient questions:
🚨⁉️Who decides what counts as real science?
🚨⁉️Who decides which versions of science stories prevail?
Along the way, I spoke with scientists affiliated with NIMHANS, Bangalore, ISRO – Indian Space Research Organization, Centre For Cellular and Molecular Biology (https://lnkd.in/g3qiFQJc), National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS), Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Georgia Institute of Technology, Lehigh University, Kerala Agricultural University (KAU), University of Southern California (https://lnkd.in/gwCfZTMW) and others
…working across psychiatry, AI, Antarctican secrets, ecology, molecular biology, fluid dynamics, and mathematics.
Some have won Ig Nobels. Some haven’t. All of them convinced me that curiosity has no hierarchy — even if grant committees sometimes pretend it does.
The book will be released on February 28.
If this sounds like something you’d enjoy (or mildly debate over coffee), please pre-order or share it. Pre-orders genuinely help — and they make authors sleep slightly better at night.
Pre-orders available on Padhega India (https://lnkd.in/g2TCy9ag).
Also available on a certain website whose name refers to a Scythian female warrior.
More soon.
Update: Interview with the author, in The Scientist magazine
Update: A non-Amazonian way for readers outside India to purchase the book.