The Worst 10 Books I've Read This Year

As suggested by Blake Stacey, here is a list of the 10 most horrible books I've read this past year. Some are widely recognized as being atrocious, but others were either disappointing or served up a side of "woo" without question, which definitely puts the book on shaky ground. So, without further introduction, here's the "bottom ten";

# 10) The Last Dinosaur Book - W.J.T. Mitchell

It was hard putting this one on the list, but I had to pick 10 and so it must be done. Mitchell's book isn't absolutely horrid (it's well-illustrated, which is a plus), but he never really quite "gets it" when it comes to why so many people are interested in dinosaurs. Confessing that he isn't very interested in dinosaurs, Mitchell says he prefers dragons, but has he missed the point that dragons are often born from the discovery of strange bones before science properly identified them? While an outsider's perspective can sometimes be helpful, I think the book would have been better if written by a self-confessed dino-freak.

#9) Life of the Past - G.G. Simpson

I normally like G.G. Simpson's book, but this small introductory text to paleontology is pretty dry and unremarkable. It generally falls under the list of books I wouldn't want to throw away but I doubt if I'll be picking it up again, either.

#8) Moa - Richard Wolfe

I was hoping for a book about, you know, Moas, but I what I got was a somewhat wandering history that didn't discuss the birds themselves very much at all. While the history the author recounts is interesting, Wolfe seems to have a crush on Richard Owen, and the idol worship can be a little over-the-top at times. If you're looking for something about the birds themselves, it'd probably be best to pass this one up.

#7) The Naked Ape - Desmond Morris

I only picked up Morris' brief overview of human evolution because of its connection to the "Aquatic Ape Hypothesis" (see #2 below), and it didn't present much of value. Although Morris decided to look at humans as "animals" (even going so far to try and objective describe mating rituals in parked cars and the like), with a wave of his hand he disregarded any and all clues about our origins from cultural anthropology of cultures that were not "civilized"; modern man must be the pinnacle of evolution and provide the best clues, anything less developed simply being a degenerate group.

#6) Freeing Keiko - Kenneth Brower

Thankfully I've never seen any of the Free Willy movies, but I was still curious about what happened to the whale (Keiko) after people started asking why the star of the movie was still in captivity. Perhaps I can't blame Brower for the events that unfolded, millions spent on what was essentially a big P.R. campaign that ended up with an maladjusted whale being released into the wild, but his inclusion of some psychic-cetacean woo without comment definitely made me want to put this one down.

#5) The Predicament of Evolution - George MacReady Price

This creationist screed had to come in somewhere on the list, although I must say that Price's short pamphlet is little different from the tracts that AiG and other creationist conclaves are still handing out.

#4) Where Darwin Meets the Bible - Larry Whitham

Whitham's book exemplifies what's wrong with mass-media coverage of evolution these days; everyone is allowed to have their say and a writer can't call out crazy claims when they see them. While it might have been a fair overview, Whitham omits plenty of issues from the debate in order to take creationists and evolutionary biologists at their word alone, and it was the inclusion of this book in a catalog of creationist materials that clinched this one as being in the "bottom 10."

#3) Evolution and Christian Faith - Joan Roughgarden

Strangely enough, Whitham does a better job with evolution & religion by just taking notes than Roughgarden does by trying to reconcile the two. While Roughgarden's sketch of natural selection comes off as basically correct, little else in the book was remarkable, at best, and some parts were just nutty. Roughgarden's attempted critique of sexual selection was off the mark, as well as her attempts to reconcile evolution & religion by appealing to apocryphal notions like man & woman being created connected along their backs. This latter subject seems to stem more from Roughgarden's unique personal experiences, and the slim book only manages to shoot itself in the foot.

#2) The Descent of Woman - Elaine Morgan

I had to read the book that "started it all" when I was mulling the problems with the "Aquatic Ape Hypothesis," and I knew I was in trouble as soon as I saw the cover; a full-figured rendition of "Lucy" hold a child on what looked like a beach. What was inside was even worse, Morgan's desire to destroy the "Man the Hunter" narrative of human evolution taking her too far the other way. It's a shame that so many people have been taken in my the AAH on the basis of Morgan's narrative, especially in the case of Daniel Dennett. Morgan's book may be an interesting alternative story, but good science it is not.

And finally...

#1) Fatalis - Jeff Rovin

I'm used to b-movies and I've read a fair number of books that probably could inspire a few cheesy flicks of their own, but this has to be one of the absolutely worst books I've ever read in my life. The storytelling is horrible and the action scenes are usually bland despite the author's attempts to make them exciting. I nearly burst out laughing when Rovin came to his description of a Smilodon attack on a sailboat and some swimmers, and the rest of the book follows the basic story line as predicted. All the characters were there; killer creature from the past, hero scientist, female reporter who is the love interest of the scientist, crotchety old sheriff/sergeant/police officer, and traumatized girl who can't say exactly what she saw eating her parents. Given this formula you would have thought that Rovin could have created a passage piece of fiction, but you'd lose that wager. Even if you have a taste for cheesy monster novels, this is one that is probably best avoided.

Coming soon; the "Top 10" books of the year.