Best Science Books 2011: Readings, Seattle Times, Book Reporter, Chicago Tribune

Another bunch of lists 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:

Readings Best Non-Fiction of 2011

• The Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson
• Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson

Seattle Times 32 of the year's best books

• Fire Season -- Field Notes from a Wilderness Lookout by Philip Connors
• Never Say Die: The Myth and Marketing of the New Old Age by Susan Jacoby
• Blood Work: A Tale of Medicine and Murder in the Scientific Revolution by Holly Tucker
• The Quest: Energy, Security, and the Remaking of the Modern World by Daniel Yergin

Book Reporter Reviewers Pick Their Favorite Books of 2011

• The Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth: Popularity, Quirk Theory, and Why Outsiders Thrive After High School by Alexandra Robbins

Chicago Tribune

• A More Perfect Heaven: How Copernicus Revolutionized the Cosmos by Dava Sobel
• Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman

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.