Best Science Books 2015: Amazon.com

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, 2013 and 2014.

And here we are in 2015!

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 from Amazon.com. The actual sub-lists I'm using are: Science, Biographies & Memoirs, Business & Investing, History, Nonfiction, Sports & Outdoors.

• Thing Explainer: Complicated Stuff in Simple by Randall Munroe
• Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari
• The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt's New World by Andrea Wulf
• The Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration into the Wonder of Consciousness by Sy Montgomery
• The Master Algorithm: How the Quest for the Ultimate Learning Machine Will Remake Our World by Pedro Domingos
• SuperBetter: A Revolutionary Approach to Getting Stronger, Happier, Braver and More Resilient by Jane McGonigal
• Voices in the Ocean: A Journey into the Wild and Haunting World of Dolphins by Susan Casey
• The Secret Lives of Bats: My Adventures with the World's Most Misunderstood Mammals by Merlin Tuttle
• Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death, and Brain Surgery by Henry Marsh
• The Patient Will See You Now: The Future of Medicine is in Your Hands by Eric Topol
• Life on the Edge: The Coming of Age of Quantum Biology by Johnjoe Mcfadden and Jim Al-Khalili
• Forensics: What Bugs, Burns, Prints, DNA and More Tell Us About Crime by Val McDermid
• How to Raise a Wild Child: The Art and Science of Falling in Love with Nature by Scott D. Sampson
• Beneath the Surface: Killer Whales, SeaWorld, and the Truth Beyond Blackfish by John Hargrove and Howard Chua-Eoan
• Fastest Things on Wings: Rescuing Hummingbirds in Hollywood by Terry Masear
• Resurrection Science: Conservation, De-Extinction and the Precarious Future of Wild Things by M. R. O'Connor
• Tales from Both Sides of the Brain: A Life in Neuroscience by Michael S. Gazzaniga
• What Stands in a Storm: A True Story of Love and Resilience in the Worst Superstorm in History by Kim Cross and Rick Bragg
• The Interstellar Age: Inside the Forty-Year Voyager Mission by Jim Bell
• The Fly Trap by Fredrik Sjöberg and Thomas Teal
• On the Move: A Life by Oliver Sacks
• Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future by Ashlee Vance
• Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction by Philip E. Tetlock and Dan Gardner
• Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future by Martin Ford
• Future Crimes: Everything Is Connected, Everyone Is Vulnerable and What We Can Do About It by Marc Goodman
• Data and Goliath: The Hidden Battles to Collect Your Data and Control Your World by Bruce Schneier
• Becoming Steve Jobs: The Evolution of a Reckless Upstart into a Visionary Leader by Brent Schlender and Rick Tetzeli
• Marissa Mayer and the Fight to Save Yahoo! by Nicholas Carlson
• The Pentagon's Brain: An Uncensored History of DARPA, America's Top-Secret Military Research Agency by Annie Jacobsen
• Digital Gold: Bitcoin and the Inside Story of the Misfits and Millionaires Trying to Reinvent Money by Nathaniel Popper
• The Butterflies of North America: Titian Peale's Lost Manuscript by Kenneth Haltman and Titian Peale
• Fastest Things on Wings: Rescuing Hummingbirds in Hollywood by Terry Masear

And check out my previous 2015 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 a couple of years ago and never got around to the end of year summary since then. Before loosing steam, I ended up featuring dozens and 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.)