Best Science Books 2016: Brain Pickings The Greatest Science Books of 2016

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, 2013,2014 and 2015.

And here we are in 2016!

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

Today's list is .

• Black Hole Blues and Other Songs from Outer Space by Janna Levin
• Time Travel: A History by James Gleick
• Felt Time: The Psychology of How We Perceive Time by Marc Wittmann, Erik Butler (Translator)
• When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi
• The Confidence Game: Why We Fall for It . . . Every Time by Maria Konnikova
• The Gene: An Intimate History by Siddhartha Mukherjee
• The Polar Bear by Jenni Desmond
• The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself by Sean Carroll
• The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate―Discoveries from A Secret World by Peter Wohlleben
• Being a Dog: Following the Dog Into a World of Smell by Alexandra Horowitz
• I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life by Ed Yong
• Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race by Margot Lee Shetterly
• The Glass Universe: How the Ladies of the Harvard Observatory Took the Measure of the Stars by Dava Sobel
• Women in Science: 50 Fearless Pioneers Who Changed the World by Rachel Ignotofsky

And check out my previous 2016 lists here!

You can also check out my appearances on the Science for the People Gifts for Nerds podcasts for the last few years: 2014, 2015, 2016.

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.)