Best Science Books 2011: Booklist Online

Another list for your reading, gift-giving and collection development pleasure.

Every year for the last bunch of years I've been linking to and posting about all the "year's best sciencey books" lists that appear in various media outlets and shining a bit of light on the best of the year.

All the previous 2011 lists are here.

This post includes the following: Booklist Online Biography, Environment, Business.

• Galileo by John Heilbron
• American Eden: From Monticello to Central Park; What Our Gardens Tell Us about Who We Are by Wade Graham
• Animal Factory: The Looming Threat of Industrial Pig, Dairy, and Poultry Farms to Humans and the Environment by David Kirby
• Green Gone Wrong: How Our Economy Is Undermining the Environmental Revolution by Heather Rogers
• The Quiet World: Saving Alaska's Wilderness Kingdom, 1879-1960 by Douglas Brinkley
• Running Dry: A Journey from Source to Sea down the Colorado River by Jonathan Waterman
• The Story of Stuff: How Our Obsession with Stuff Is Trashing the Planet, Our Communities, and Our Health--and a Vision for Change by Annie Leonard and Ariane Conrad
• The View from Lazy Point: A Natural Year in an Unnatural World by Carl Safina
• The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires by Tim Wu

I'm always looking for recommendations and notifications of book lists as they appear in various media outlets. If you see one that I haven't covered, please let me know at jdupuis at yorku dot ca or in the comments.

I am picking up a lot of lists from Largehearted Boy.

The summary post for 2010 books is here and all the posts for 2010 can be found here. For 2009, it's here and here.

For my purposes, I define science books pretty broadly to include science, engineering, computing, history & philosophy of science & technology, environment, social aspects of science and even business books about technology trends or technology innovation. Deciding what is and isn't a science book is squishy at best, especially at the margins, but in the end I pick books that seem broadly about science and technology rather than something else completely. Lists of business, history or nature books are among the tricky ones.

And if you wish to support my humble list-making efforts, run on over to Amazon, take a look at Steve Jobs and consider picking that one up or something else from the lists.