Best Science Books 2008: Royal Society Prize for Science Books

Every year starting in November or so, I start to highlight various "year's best science books" lists I find around the web.

Typically, one of the last is the long list for the Royal Society Prize for Science Books. Since it's a juried award, they need time to actually read the darn things. Yes, I know what that's like.

In any case, here's their list:

  • What the nose knows: The science of scent in everyday life by Avery Gilbert
  • Bad science by Ben Goldacre
  • The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic generation discovered the beauty and terror of science by Richard Holmes
  • Living with Enza: The forgotten story of Britain and the great flu pandemic of 1918 by Mark Honigsbaum
  • Quantum: Einstein, Bohr and the great debate about the nature of reality by Manjit Kumar
  • Strange fruit: Why both sides are wrong in the race debate by Kenan Malik
  • Decoding the heavens: Solving the mystery of the world's first computer by Jo Marchant
  • The drunkard's walk: How randomness rules our lives by Leonard Mlodinow
  • Physics for future presidents: The science behind the headlines by Richard A Muller
  • Your inner fish: The amazing discovery of our 375-million-year-old ancestor by Neil Shubin
  • Ice, mud and blood: Lessons from climates past by Chris Turney
  • Microcosm: E. coli and the new science of life by Carl Zimmer
  • The universe in a mirror: The saga of the Hubble Space Telescope and the visionaries who built it by Robert Zimmerman

This is definitely a list I'll use for some collection development.

More like this

I found Your Inner Fish fascinating, but not scintillating prose. What the Nose Knows is a lot of fun to read, on the other hand.