Best Science Books 2011: SteveReads, Richmond Times-Dispatch, Todd Sattersten, The Bygone Bureau

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:

Stevereads 2011 Best Books of the Year: Nonfiction!

• The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood by James Gleick
• Worm: The First Digital World War by Mark Bowden

Richmond Times-Dispatch: Jay Strafford's 10 favorite books of 2011

• Founding Gardeners: The Revolutionary Generation, Nature, and the Shaping of the American Nation by Andrea Wulf
• The Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President by Candice Millard

Todd Sattersten: 11 Best Business Books of 2011

• Steve Jobs by Walter Issacson
• Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World by Jane McGonigal
• The Big Thirst: The Secret Life and Turbulent Future of Water by Charles Fishman
• Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kanheman

The Bygone Bureau: Best Books of 2011

• Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking by Nathan Myrhvold, Chris Young, and Maxime Bilet

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.