Best Science Books 2012: The Hill Times

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 2012 lists are here.

This post includes the following: The Hill Times' List of Top 100 Best Political, Government, Public policy and Canadian History Books in 2012

• The Energy of Slavery: Oil and the New Servitude by Andrew Nikiforuk
• The End of Growth: But Is That Bad? by Jeff Rubin
• Save The Humans by Rob Stewart
• Access to Medicines as a Human Right: Implications for Pharmaceutical Industry Responsibility edited by Lisa Forman and Jillian Clare Kohler
• Canadians and the Natural Environment to the Twenty-First Century by Neil S. Forkey
• Dreams & Due Diligence: Till and McCulloch’s Stem Cell Discovery and Legacy by Joe Sornberge
• Making Medicare: New Perspectives on the History of Medicare in Canada edited by Gregory P. Marchildon
• Our War on Ourselves: Rethinking Science, Technology, and Economic Growth by Willem H. Vanderburg
• Phoenix: The Life of Norman Bethune by Roderick Stewart and Sharon Stewart
• The Great Reversal: How We Let Technology Take Control of the Planet by David Edward Tabachnick
• The Universe Within: From Quantum to Cosmos by Neil Turok
• Three Bio-Realms: Biotechnology and the Governance of Food, Health, and Life in Canada by G. Bruce Doern and Michael J. Prince

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.