Best Science Books 2014: io9

As you all have no doubt noticed over the years, I love highlighting the best science books every year via the various end of year lists that newspapers, web sites, etc. publish. I've done it so far in 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013.

And here we are in 2014!

As in previous years, my definition of "science books" is pretty inclusive, including books on technology, engineering, nature, the environment, science policy, history & philosophy of science, geek culture and whatever else seems to be relevant in my opinion.

Today's list is io9 The Best Science Books of 2014.

• Me, Myself and Why: Searching for the Science of Self by Jennifer Ouellette
• What If? Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions by Randall Munroe
• Lives in Ruins: Archaeologists and the Seductive Lure of Human Rubble by Marilyn Johnson
• Dr. Mütter's Marvels: A True Tale of Intrigue and Innovation at the Dawn of Modern Medicine by Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz
• The Lagoon: How Aristotle Invented Science by Armand Marie Leroi
• Countdown to Zero Day: Stuxnet and the Launch of the World's First Digital Weapon by Kim Zetter
• Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End by Atul Gawande
• The Knowledge: How to Rebuild Our World from Scratch by Lewis Dartnell
• Dodging Extinction: Power, Food, Money and the Future of Life on Earth by Anthony Barnosky
• The Coming Swarm: DDOS Actions, Hacktivism and Civil Disobedience on the Internet by Molly Sauter
• Invisible History of the Human Race: How DNA and History Shape our Identities and Our Futures by Christine Kenneally
• Oxygen: A Four Billion Year History by Donald Canfield
• How Not to be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical Thinking by Jordan Ellenberg
• WTF, Evolution?! A Theory of Unintelligible Design by Mara Grunbaum
• Cosmigraphics: Picturing Space Through Time by Michael Benson
• The Oldest Living Things in the World by Rachel Sussman
• You Are Here: Around the World in 92 Minutes by Chris Hadfield
• The Art of Space: The History of Space Art, From the Earliest Visions to the Graphics of the Modern Era by Ron Miller

And check out my previous 2014 lists here!

Many of the lists I use are sourced via the Largehearted Boy master list.

(Astute readers will notice that I kind of petered out on this project last year and never got around to the end of year summary. The last few years I ended up featuring dozens of lists, virtually every list I could find that had science books on it. While it was kind of cool to be so comprehensive, not to mention that it gave the summary posts a certain statistical weight, it was also way more work than I had really envisioned way back in 2008 or so when I started doing this. As a result, I'm only going to highlight particularly large or noteworthy lists this year and forgo any kind of end of year summary. Basically, all the fun but not so much of the drudgery.)