There is no time like the summer to make a dent in my reading list. I am by no means a speed reader, but during this time of the year I can usually get through the average trade book in about 2-3 days. This year is a little different, though. I am digging deep in my research for my book about transitional fossils (now tentatively called Written in Stone), so this is not the time to get too distracted by titles unrelated to my work.
Still, it is good to take a step back and read works that I enjoy every now and then, no matter how unrelated to my work they might be. I'm working up a list of books to recharge my love for pop-sci writing after slogging through page after page of technical descriptions, but since this is a Friday (i.e. a slow blogging/traffic day), I wanted to ask what science books you plan on reading this summer. Whether they are new titles, classics, or personal favorites, please post your picks in the comments.
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Here are a few I got around to this summer and recommend:
"Darwin's Lost World" by Martin Brasier
"Hunt for the Dawn Monkey" by Chris Beard
"A New Human: The Startling Discovery and Strange Story of the "Hobbits" of Flores, Indonesia" by Mike Morwood
"Extinction: How Life on Earth Nearly Ended 250 Million Years Ago" by Douglas Erwin
"How to Build a Dinosaur: Extinction Doesn't Have to Be Forever" by Jack Horner
"Snowball Earth: The Story of a Maverick Scientist and His Theory of the Global Catastrophe That Spawned Life As We Know It" by Gabrielle Walker
"Feathered Dinosaurs: The Origin of Birds" by John Long
I just finished Jerry Coyne's Why Evolution is True and started Carl Zimmer's Soul Made Flesh. Lyle Campbell's Historical Linguistics is queued up on that, and I'm planning on taking an assortment of Darwin's works to the beach in a few weeks.
@Dom -
I read John Long's book a few weeks back, and found it to be very enjoyable. Peter Schouten's artwork was amazing.
I have several books I intend to read, but only two of them are scientific in nature. I have a few of Terry Pratchett's Discworld series to read as well as The Problems of Evolution by Mark Ridley (I liked his Evolution textbook). I also want to reread and critique Evolution and Ethics edited by Clayton and Schloss.
Have just finished "Consider the Birds" by Colin Tudge. Pretty good.
Well, so far I have promised to review Phil Plait's Death from the Skies!, Jason Rosenhouse's The Monty Hall Problem, Leonard Mlodinow's The Drunkard's Walk, Shin Takahashi's The Manga Guide to Statistics and — oh, yes — Sean Carroll's Remarkable Creatures. Those are just the ones I've already read and have to figure out interesting things to say about. . . been meaning to finish Douglas Hofstadter's I Am A Strange Loop one of these days, too.
I like your new book title, by the way. Classy, and for a book about the way scientific knowledge has changed and advanced over time, subtly ironic.
this very meme went through geology blogosphere this past week ... see my list and links to others here: http://tinyurl.com/npc2f5
Brian; I just saw. Interesting to see what books popped up more than once.
When it arrives, I plan on listening to many of the ASM General Meeting symposium which I was unable to attend (because I was attending a different one).
Other than that, the dozens of peer reviewed journal articles that I need to read so I can reference them, and consider them in the context of our own lab results for my next manuscript. I wish I had time for leisure reading at the moment, but it's dwindling fast. I'll probably finish Flyboys (James Bradley) this weekend and then it's lockdown mode for the rest of the summer (until September). *sigh*
I'm looking forward to reading The Lizard King: The True Crimes and Passions of the World's Greatest Reptile Smugglers by Bryan Christy, about smuggling reptiles into the US for the pet trade.
The dozens of papers I've printed but have yet to read. I'm brushing up on my caesids and rhynchosaurs!
Why Evolution is True by Jerry Coyne
Death from the Skies by Phil Plait(bought it for a friend, but am going to borrow it from him when he's done. Ha!)
Only a Theory by Ken Miller
Why Evolution Works (and Creationism Fails) by Matt Young and Paul K. Strode
Death by Black Hole by Neil DeGrasse Tyson
Billions and Billions by Carl Sagan
I have other non-science books on my list, too, so I have a lot of reading to do to get through everything on my list!
Flotsametrics and the Floating World by Curtis Ebbesmeyer and Eric Scigliano
Fascinating discussion of ocean currents, snarks, and gyres, plus: there is a rubber duckie on the cover.
I just finished Decoding the Heavens : a 2,000-year-old computer--and the century-long search to discover its secrets by Jo Marchant.
Part science, part detective story!
First off, I just wanted to say, I recently found your blog.
As a 16 year old aspiring to become a paleontologist, I sometimes have trouble finding time to read the literature. However, I do have slated for the summer a new 2009 release that will be published the first of July (and will hopefully arrive soon after that); The Age of Dinosaurs in South America. I also hope to also get finished Tyrannosaurus rex: The Tyrant King by Kenneth Carpenter.
Right now I'm reading Big Bang by Simon Singh and skimming a college introductory geology book (while I wait for college to actually be able to happen, I've taken to collecting used textbooks and skimming/referencing/working through them).
Other books I have and intend to read this summer:
A Traveler's Guide to Mars by William K. Hartmann
The Mathematical Experience by William Hersh and Phillip J. Davis.
When I'm able to get them, I intend to buy:
Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex by Mary Roach
The Superorganism: The Beauty, Elegance, and Strangeness of Insect Societies by Bert Hölldobler and Edward Wilson.
Right now I'm freezing in the middle of winter, and summer's far too far away for me to be thinking about such things. But my current list includes:
The Beginner's Guide to Winning the Nobel Prize (Peter Doherty)
Why Evolution is True (Jerry Coyne)
Science: A History (John Gribbin)
And a few somewhat more technical books:
Nonlinear Dynamics And Chaos: With Applications To Physics, Biology, Chemistry, And Engineering (Steven Strogatz)
Genetic Programming II: Automatic Discovery of Reusable Programs (John Koza)
I am about 1/3 of the way through Richard Fortey's 'Dry Store Room No.1', and am really enjoying it: behind the scenes at the London Natural History Museum.
Other ideas at: http://friendsofdarwin.com/books/
I'm planning to read quite a lot, actually. To name but a few. Darwin on expression; Frans de Waal's Bonobo, the forgotten ape; Dunbar on Grooming, gossip and the evolution of language; Dennett's Freedom evolves; Neil Shubin, your inner fish; The origins of music (Wallin, Merker, Brown, eds.). I'm sure the summer is over before I've finished these, but positive thinking leads me to hope there's still time for some more.
Since I don't have the resources to be buying new books at the moment, I'll have to satisfy myself with my existing library (which is fairly extensive.) I have 32 books on the subject of dinosaurs, as well as books on the age of mammals, many of the works of Gould and Dawkins, the collaborations of Mauricio Anton with Turner and Agusti, a couple of volumes by Donald Prothero, and some out of print classics like Kurten's "The Age Of Mammals", and Martin and Klein's "Quaternary Extinctions". I'll make do with the old library until I can add some new additions!
Just picked up 'Discovering Dorothea' by Karolyn Shindler, the only existent biography on Dorothea Bate, and 'A sheltered life: the unexpected history of the giant tortoise' by Paul Chambers whilst in Cambridge today. I aim to start reading the former book tonight!