Triggered by noticing who was very obviously missing from the most recent Dawkins' book that collects the best essays in modern science writing, Larry has been writing recently about other people who are excellent science writers. I have been a fan, for a long time, of the writings by Richard Lewontin, Niles Eldredge, David Raup, Jacques Monod and Steven Vogel. I am afraid I did not read enough by Eugenie Scott and should also check out Brent Dalrymple, Helena Curtis and David Suzuki.
And of non-modern science writers, I always found Darwin fun to read.
So, who do you like? Carl Sagan, Isaak Asimov, Stephen Jay Gould - those are obvious. Carl Zimmer - absolutely! Who else? Any particular books rather than others?
Education & Careers
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I prefer natural history and environmental science books, and one of my favorite authors is Bernd Heinrich (e.g. Why We Run; Winter World). As a child I loved Victor Scheffer's The Year of the Whale and The Year of the Seal (and I still enjoy them). David Campbell's The Crystal Desert is quite good; Terry Tempest Williams' Refuge, and Annie Dillard's Pilgrim at Tinker Creek are two of my favorite books of any genre.
Almost certainly I'm not defining "science writing" in the same way that Dawkins does. My bad.
Posted by: Barn Owl | July 12, 2008 11:08 PM
I also love Bernd Heinrich - his "Mind of a Raven" was great science writing in every sense of the word.
Posted by: Coturnix | July 12, 2008 11:22 PM
Isaac Asimov ended his first name with a 'c', not a 'k' .
Posted by: llewelly | July 13, 2008 12:54 AM
I agree that Heinrich's "Mind of the Raven" is a classic. I'm also a Carl Zimmer fan, and David Quammen's "The Song of the Dodo" is a book I'll reread one of these days. Islands and biogeography ... I thought his eloquent summary treatment of these topics was masterful.
Lately I've been reading Neil Shubin's "Your Inner Fish". It's a short book, but it is written engagingly and contains more science content than many popular science books twice its size. If you like paleontology and embryology, check this one out!
Posted by: Larry Ayers | July 13, 2008 1:01 AM
On science writers - I've read nearly all of Brian Fagan's books, and loved every one. I'll also mention Joe Romm's Hell and High Water , Spencer Weart's wonderful The Discovery Of Global Warming , and Peter Ward's Under A Green Sky .
Posted by: llewelly | July 13, 2008 1:15 AM
I love Timothy Ferris's Coming of Age in the Milky Way.
Posted by: IBY | July 13, 2008 2:01 AM
Mutants by Armand Marie Leroi is well worth a read. Matt Ridley's books are good, too.
Posted by: Ben | July 13, 2008 8:56 AM
Don't see how any list could be complete without Jacob Bronowski's "Ascent of Man"... This is available both as the book, and also in a DVD of the BBC series run in the '70's.
Posted by: portofinoan | July 13, 2008 10:18 AM
Two who rarely come up: Vaclav Smil is a terrific energy/natural cycles writer for a general audience (and one of the best interviewees in world history); I'm also a big fan of Nick Lane, who's written Oxygen and then Power, Sex, Suicide. I'll third Bernd Heinrich.
Others not yet mentioned: Roald Hoffmann (The Same and Not the Same); David Grinspoon; Matt Ridley; Jim Baggott (Perfect Symmetry); Siobahn Roberts (The King of Infinite Space); David Bodanis; Walter Isaacson; Tom Levenson; Mitch Waldrop; Andrew Knoll; Robert Hazen; Mariana Gosnell (Ice); etc.
If Bora will allow, I'd humbly (and not without awkward self-consciousness) ask friends to consider that I've contributed a rigorous and potentially major tome coming out this week, called The Carbon Age (July 14; Walker/Bloomsbury), that has been endorsed by some of my heroes. David Suzuki, who Bora mentioned, for example, said this: "Eric Roston's wonderful book, The Carbon Age, makes it clear that we have had a gap in popular writing about energy, climate, and the beauty of science..."
Hope I'm not overstepping protocol in posting this, but I believe the book could be of great interest to Clock visitors.
Posted by: Eric Roston | July 13, 2008 1:13 PM
No overstepping - there will be more about The Carbon Age on this blog soon....
Posted by: Coturnix | July 13, 2008 1:43 PM
I can't resist putting in a plug for your local library into this thread. All too often I think folks head off to the bookstore to buy these & other books -- my favorite use of the library is to borrow books that interest me with an eye to seeing if I'd like to buy them. If I like them enough to buy, off I go to my favorite online book site. If not, no harm, no foul, no cost, and no unread, never-to-be read books in my abode.
Remember that if your library of choice doesn't have these or other books you want to borrow, you can often ask the library to get books for you free of charge through Interlibrary Loan.
A public service announcement from your friendly cognitive science librarian (who really likes narrative science writing, like Oliver Sacks, Atul Gawunde, and Jerome Groopman)
Posted by: Stephanie Willen Brown | July 13, 2008 8:06 PM
I love books by Simon Singh. I really enjoyed reading "Fermat's Enigma", "The Code Book", and "Big Bang."
How about James Gleick?
Posted by: kagakuronin | July 13, 2008 8:19 PM
Richard Fortey: "Earth" and "Trilobyte" among others. "Earth" is better, and newer than "Basin and Range" as a guide into modern geology.
Robert Oerter for "The Theory of Almost Everything".
Posted by: Markk | July 14, 2008 12:34 AM
anything in Orion Magazine
and John Polkinghorne
Posted by: mike | July 15, 2008 2:24 AM