Best Science Books 2012: The Atlantic, CNNMoney, This is Actually Happening and more

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 2012 lists are here.

This post includes the following:

The Atlantic Books of the Year 2012: The Top 5 and the Runners Up

• Masters of the Planet: The Search for Our Human Origins by Ian Tattersall

 
CNNMoney

• Abundance: The future is better than you thinkby Peter Diamandis
• Inside Apple: How America's Most Admired--and Secretive--Company Really Works by Adam Lashinsky

ExecRank 2012 Distinction Awards

• On Top of the Cloud: How CIOs Leverage New Technologies to Drive Change and Build Value Across the Enterprise by Hunter Muller

This is Actually Happening: My favourite books of 2012

• Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain

Marginal Revolution

• Turing’s Cathedral: The Origins of the Digital Universeby George Dyson
• The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovationby Jon Gertner
• The Revenge of Geography: What the Map Tells Us About Coming Conflicts and the Battle Against Fate by Robert D. Kaplan

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 most of my lists from Largehearted Boy.

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 or The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks or maybe even something else from today's list.