Books
Category archives for Books
Siege of Stars by Henry Gee
Posted by Greg Laden on August 19, 2012 Henry Gee, the Nature editor, has a novel in three parts … Siege of Stars: Book One of The Sigil Trilogy … that I found hit home very closely like maybe Henry was me reincarnated and then transported back through time so his, er, our timeline would cross. This is not surprising since Henry and…
S is for Science Book for Toddlers
Posted by Greg Laden on August 11, 2012 G is for Galaxy: An Out of This World Alphabet (Alphabet Books) is one of a series of kid’s alphabet books with an interesting twist. The pages have the usual big letter, a picture of something that starts with that letter, and a short sentence or two referring to that word. But on the same…
The Linux Command Line
Posted by Greg Laden on July 18, 2012 
I just got a copy of The Linux Command Line: A Complete Introduction. I read one review of it a while back which was quite positive, suggesting that the book was both really useful and really not boring. Here’s the description from the publisher: You’ve experienced the shiny, point-and-click surface of your Linux computer—now dive…
How to Identify Dragonflies and Damselflies
Posted by Greg Laden on July 16, 2012 
I want to tell you about a cool book, but first, here’s something interesting about Dragonflies. Terrestrial animals (like humans) require long chain fatty acids but don’t synthesize them from basic parts. Higher terrestrial plants don’t make the biggest of these molecules either, but plants do make molecules that can be turned into things like…
Music of the Birds. And more!
Posted by Greg Laden on June 20, 2012 
Music of the Birds by Lang Elliott is a classic book and CD combo well over 10 years old, that provided bird lovers with a chance to learn to identify and appreciate the songs of numerous species. Over the last decade or so many other CD-based bird song offerings have become available. More recently, Lang…
The Rocks Don’t Lie (geology and flood myths)
Posted by Greg Laden on June 20, 2012 
The Rocks Don’t Lie: A Geologist Investigates Noah’s Flood by David Montgomery is new book on the Noachian flood. It is by a real life geologist and is not a creationist book. Might be a good gift for your annoying creationist relative. Here is a write-up from the publisher: In Tibet, geologist David R. Montgomery…
Everything You Wanted to Know About Indians But Were Afraid to Ask
Posted by Greg Laden on May 4, 2012 Here in Minnesota, and in surrounding states, there is some real tension between Native and Immigrant communities. The poorest, most drug-ridden, down trodden and repressed communities here are often Native, and conveniently these communities tend to be (but not always are) located far away from urban areas or other places with a lot of white…
Congratulations Shawn Otto!
Posted by Greg Laden on April 16, 2012 Fool Me Twice: Fighting the Assault on Science in America by Shawn Otto has won the prestigious Minnesota Book Award. The award is very well deserved. Here’s my writeup off the book, and here’s a radio interview with the author that we did a couple of months back. Shawn’s book is a critically important analysis…
An Excellent Book on Energy: Before the Lights Go Out…
Posted by Greg Laden on April 2, 2012 On Sunday, I interviewed Maggie Koerth-Baker, the author of Before the Lights Go Out: Conquering the Energy Crisis Before It Conquers Us. The interview was live on radio, but you can listen to it here as a podcast. Maggie is the science editor at Boing Boing, a journalist, and has had an interest in energy…
Spring Break Birding!
Posted by Greg Laden on March 23, 2012 If you are a birder and you are going on Spring Break (from the US), don’t forget that there are birds where you are going. And, probably, there are bird books that cover your destination. One of the really cool things about North American birding is that when you do go down to tye Yucatan,…
Drift by Rachel Maddow: Chapter 1
Posted by Greg Laden on March 20, 2012 I just got my copy of Drift: The Unmooring of American Military Power by Rachel Maddow (signed by the author!) and I’m reading it with great interest, even though I’m totally swamped with other things. Damn you Rachel Maddow for writing such an engaging book! I’m just starting it but wanted to share a couple…
Why are atheists so angry?
Posted by Greg Laden on March 19, 2012 And they are! Just yesterday I was hanging around with a bunch off atheists and they were all pretty angry. They were even getting angry with each other. I could hear “get off my lawn” as a more or less constant droning sound in the background. People who are not atheists, or who may be…
Hiding in the Open: A Holocaust Survivor’s Story
Posted by Greg Laden on February 25, 2012 In September, 1939, Germany invaded Poland, and soon after Jews living in ghettos in Poland’s cities were identified, sequestered, rounded up, shipped off to work camps or concentration camps, and exterminated as part of what we know of today as the Holocaust. Several Jews managed to avoid being arrested by pretending to be something else,…
The State of State Science Standards
Posted by Greg Laden on January 31, 2012 The vast majority of American public school students are not proficient in the level of science learning expected for their age group. The Thomas B. Fordham Institute has issued “The State of Science Standards 2012” as part of an effort to assess the causes of this dismal state of affairs. Here’s a map summarizing their…
The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars
Posted by Greg Laden on January 31, 2012 Michael Mann, famous climate scientist, has released a book called The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars: Dispatches from the Front Lines (also available as a Kindle edition). I’ve not read it yet but I thought you’d like to know about it. Michael Mann is the guy who came up with the Hockey Stick graph…
Petrels, Albatrosses, and Storm-Petrels of North America
Posted by Greg Laden on January 26, 2012 Did you know that there is an entire group of birds called “Tube Noses” because they have tubes on their noses? Well, to be more exact, the term is “tubenoses” and the noses are beaks. The tubes are tubular nostril-like thingies that most (all?) birds have which are extra tube-like in the tubenoses. Thus the…
Wildlife of Southern Africa
Posted by Greg Laden on December 12, 2011 Wildlife of Southern Africa , by Martin Withers and David Hosking, is new (August 2011) and good. If you are planning a trip to South Africa, Namibia, Botswana or anywhere nearby, or if you live there and like to go to the bush sometimes, consider it. This is a pocket guide, it is small, has…
Two New Books on Human Evolution
Posted by Greg Laden on December 10, 2011 The Fossil Chronicles: How Two Controversial Discoveries Changed Our View of Human Evolution and Born in Africa: The Quest for the Origins of Human Life are two very recent books on human evolution, both of which I recommend, depending on your interests. The first is by Dean Falk, who has studied brain endocasts for the…
The Inquisition of Climate Science
Posted by Greg Laden on December 7, 2011 I’m enjoying James Lawrence Powell’s book “The Inquisition of Climate Science” Powell’s book specifically addresses the clilmate change denialist movement and the global warming deniers themselves, and does so severely. He documents and discusses who is paying for climate change denialism documents the lack of scientific credenntials of the denialists, and outlines and describes in…
Harry Potter: Books cf Movies
Posted by Greg Laden on December 3, 2011 Everyone knows that the number of pages per book in the famous series by J.K. Rowlings increased over time, but was this increase steady? Was it consistent? The answer seems to be no. Looking at this graph, is is probably more accurate to say that the early books were a certain length, around 400 pages…
The Manga Guide to Relativity
Posted by Greg Laden on December 3, 2011 The The Manga Guide to Relativity might come in especially handy these days, what with faster than light neutrinos, Republican candidates and other science-defying entities zooming around. And, it is one of those Japanese anime things, which makes it cool. This is a story set in Tagai Academy summer’s school session, where the “plucky” Miss…
Top Science Books of the Last Year
Posted by Greg Laden on December 1, 2011 These are books that I’ve reviewed here, and would like to recommend that you seriously consider picking up if you are looking for a cool present for someone and you think they should read more science. I’m including a couple of bird books in this list, but I also recently wrote up a summary of…
100 Amazing Experiments: Book
Posted by Greg Laden on November 30, 2011 New York Academy of Sciences Children’s Science Book Award Winner Vicki Cobb has a new volume called “See for Yourself: More Than 100 Amazing Experiments for Science Fairs and Projects (Second Edition)” Actually, it isn’t entirely new. It’s a second edition, but updated. This is for 10 year olds and up, and it does in…
Believe It or Not, There is a New Ripley’s Book
Posted by Greg Laden on November 29, 2011 Ripley’s Believe It Or Not! Strikingly True is the kind of book you do not want to open up while your toddler is standing around looking for something to look at. Huxley may never be the same.
A Tutorial in Human Behavioral Biology
Posted by Greg Laden on November 28, 2011 If you read only one book this holiday season, make it all of the following twenty or so! But seriously … I’d like to do something today that I’ve been meaning to do, quite literally, for years. I want to run down a selection of readings that would provide any inquisitive person with a solid…
A Field Guide to ALL of the Carnivores! (Almost)
Posted by Greg Laden on November 27, 2011 Why would you want a field guide to all of the carninvores? They live everywhere, so there is no reason to carry around a field identification guide with ALL of them unless you were going everywhere in the whole world on one trip! Yet, there is such a field guide, Carnivores of the World, and…
New Bird Book: Birds of North America and Greenland
Posted by Greg Laden on November 12, 2011 Face it. Half the time … most of the time, really … you use your Peterson (or some other favorite “field guide”) as a checklist. You see a bird and you pretty much know in your head what it is, but you need to look it up to see what the three or four similar…
The Atlas of Birds: Diversity, Behavior, and Conservation
Posted by Greg Laden on November 11, 2011 How are birds related to dinosaurs, crocodiles, and pterosaurs? Where do birds live, and not live? How many bird species are there, and how many actual birds, and how does this vary across the glob? What about endemics?; Where ate the most local species found? Mike Unwin’s The Atlas of Birds: Diversity, Behavior, and Conservation…
It is time to start thinking about nesting
Posted by Greg Laden on November 10, 2011 Birds don’t live in nests. They make nests for specific purposes, use them for that purpose, then abandon them. Or, sometimes they don’t abandon them, but rather add on and use them again and again, but in between they don’t live in or on them. Well, sometimes they hang out on them a lot. And…
Evolution Surrounded By Creationism? Arm Yourself with Books!
Posted by Greg Laden on October 26, 2011 Suppose you are an intelligent, thoughtful person with a thirst for information, a desire to be challenged, and a tendency to not accept received knowledge at face value. You are embedded in a traditional Christian culture where most of your family, your child’s teachers and friends and those friends’ families, the people where you and…
, which is now available for the 
