As you all have no doubt noticed over the years, I love highlighting the best science books every year via the various end of year lists that newspapers, web sites, etc. publish. I've done it so far in 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013.
And here we are in 2014!
As in previous years, my definition of "science books" is pretty inclusive, including books on technology, engineering, nature, the environment, science policy, history & philosophy of science, geek culture and whatever else seems to be relevant in my opinion.
Today's list is Scifri – The Best Science Books of 2014.
- The Fantastic Laboratory of Dr. Weigl: How Two Brave Scientists Battled Typhus and Sabotaged the Nazis by Arthur Allen
- On Immunity: An Innoculation by Eula Biss
- The Glass Cage: Automation and Us by Nicholas Carr
- Being Mortal by Atul Gawande
- Stuff Matters: Exploring the Marvelous Materials that Shape Our Man-Made World by Mark Miodownik
- Me, Myself, and Why: Searching for the Science of Self by Jennifer Ouellette
- The Coming Swarm: DDOS Actions, Hacktivism, and Civil Disobedience on the Internet by Molly Sauter
- Dr. Mutter's Marvels: A True Tale of Intrigue and Innovation at the Dawn of Modern Medicine by Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz
- Dodging Extinction: Power, Food, Money, and the Future of Life on Earth by Anthony D. Barnosky
- Oxygen: A Four Billion Year History by Donald E. Canfield
- How Not to Be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical Thinking by Jordan Ellenberg
- The Invisible History of the Human Race: How DNA and History Shape Our Identities and Our Futures by Christine Kenneally
- What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions by Randall Munroe
- This Changes Everything by Naomi Klein
And check out my previous 2014 lists here!
Many of the lists I use are sourced via the Largehearted Boy master list.
(Astute readers will notice that I kind of petered out on this project last year and never got around to the end of year summary. The last few years I ended up featuring dozens of lists, virtually every list I could find that had science books on it. While it was kind of cool to be so comprehensive, not to mention that it gave the summary posts a certain statistical weight, it was also way more work than I had really envisioned way back in 2008 or so when I started doing this. As a result, I'm only going to highlight particularly large or noteworthy lists this year and forgo any kind of end of year summary. Basically, all the fun but not so much of the drudgery.)
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