Books
grrlscientist | August 3, 2008tags: Birdbooker Report, bird books, natural history books, ecology books
"One cannot have too many good bird books"
--Ralph Hoffmann, Birds of the Pacific States (1927).
Here's this week's issue of the Birdbooker Report by Ian "Birdbooker" Paulsen, which lists ecology, environment, natural history and bird books that are (or will soon be) available for purchase.
FEATURED TITLE:
De Roy, Tui, Mark Jones and Julian Fitter. Albatross: Their World, Their Ways. Due out: Sept. 2008. Firefly Books. Hardbound: 240 pages. Price: $49.95 U.S. [Amazon: $32.97]. SUMMARY: A well-illustrated account on…
gregladen | August 2, 2008From a press release from the NCSE:
Kenneth R. Miller's new book, Only a Theory: Evolution and the Battle for America's Soul, is reviewed in the July 31, 2008 issue of
Nature. Reviewer PZ Myers writes that "Miller is a fine writer who sharply
addresses the details of the arguments about intelligent design
creationism. When tackling old chestnuts such as the 'only a theory'
complaint, or Michael Behe's argument for a maximum limit for the number of
genetic mutations, or William Dembski's rehash of William Paley's
watchmaker argument for complexity, Miller discusses the contemporary…
laelaps | August 2, 2008I'm a bit ambivalent about what I wrote yesterday. On the one hand I'm glad I finally got down to covering early tetrapods and think I came up with a pretty good foundation for the chapter (I wrote ~6 pages). On the other hand I'm not happy with most of what I wrote. I was writing away from my library so everything I generated was vague (and I'm sure some of it is wrong). At least I've got a place to start from, though.
Rather than continue adding to the list I had created, dropping clues, I've decided to make a new Wordle for each update so I can see how the book evolves as I keep working on…
aardvarchaeology | August 1, 2008Having read what I had to say about Orsinian Tales, Ursula K. LeGuin's 1976 collection of short stories set in an alternative Balkans, Dear Reader Tty suggested that I read Avram Davidson's Doctor Eszterhazy stories. For this I thank him warmly: I have just finished the 1975 collection The Enquiries of Doctor Eszterhazy, and I loved every word of it.
As we meet him in the early 1900s, Engelbert Eszterhazy, seven times a doctor (counting two honorific titles), lives in the city of Bella, imperial capital of the Triune Monarchy of Scythia-Pannonia-Transbalkania. This realm covers parts of our…
grrlscientist | July 31, 2008tags: Harry Potter, Tales of Beedle the Bard, books, JK Rowling, book news
[larger view]
The Harry Potter news has been pouring in so fast that fans like me can hardly keep track of what keeps them awake at night due to excited anticipation. This time, the news is that the book of fairy tales, The Tales of Beedle the Bard, that was first mentioned in the seventh and last Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, is being published and will be released to the public on 4 December of this year -- just in time for the holidaze! This book's release date will no doubt make…
pharyngula | July 31, 2008I published a review in Nature this week, of Ken Miller's Only a Theory(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), and boy, was that a tough one. The catch was that I want the book to do well, and I definitely think it has a place as an appeal to the religious majority to support good science (you know, all those people who see my demonic visage leering out at them from the top left corner of this page and want to call for an exorcist), but it also irritated me greatly on several important points.
I think it's a much better book than his previous, Finding Darwin's God(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll). That book had one…
clock | July 30, 2008PZ just had a book review published in Nature:
Science and evolution have an advocate in Kenneth Miller, one of North America's eminent knights-errant, a scientist who is active in defending evolutionary theory in the conflict between evolution and creationism. He has been at the centre of many recent debates about science education, most prominently testifying against intelligent design creationism in Pennsylvania's Dover trial, which decided that intelligent design was a religious concept that should not be taught in public schools. He is also a popular speaker, offering the public a grass-…
grrlscientist | July 29, 2008
I receive a fair number of books to review each week, so I thought I should do what several magazines and other publications do; list those books that have arrived in my mailbox so you know that this is the pool of books from which I will be reading and reviewing on my blog. You may have noticed that some weeks, I am at the top of my game and read one book per day and review it within two or so days after I've finished it. Other weeks, like this one, I am unable to concentrate long enough to read a paragraph, so obviously, reading these books, all of which are worthy of a careful reading…
clock | July 29, 2008There was a glowing review of Andrew Keen's book in 'Vreme' (Serbian equivalent of TIME magazine) a couple of weeks ago and a friend of mine asked me if it was worth translating into Serbian language. I told him it was the worst book on the topic ever and sent him this link to explore (links within links within links, in an infinite journey through the blogosphere).
So, he asked me - which book on blogging, New Media and the struggles of the Old Media would be the best to translate. So, which one?
sheril | July 28, 2008
I love books. Some of my favorite authors are Robbins, Allende, Homer, Vonnegut, Sagan, Burroughs, Tan, and on and on...
Lately I've been reading and reading and reading, but it's been awhile since getting lost in a good story.
Intersection readers are encouraged to make recommendations here in an open thread. Share the titles you couldn't put down, tell us why (without giving too much away!), and together let's come up with ideas for embarking on the next great literary adventure!
grrlscientist | July 27, 2008tags: Birdbooker Report, bird books, natural history books, ecology books
"One cannot have too many good bird books"
--Ralph Hoffmann, Birds of the Pacific States (1927).
Here's this week's issue of the Birdbooker Report by Ian "Birdbooker" Paulsen, which lists ecology, environment, natural history and bird books that are (or will soon be) available for purchase.
FEATURED TITLE:
Huxley, Robert (editor). The Great Naturalists. 2007. Thames and Hudson. Hardbound: 304 pages. Price: $39.95 U.S. [Amazon: $26.37]. SUMMARY: Covers the naturalists from Classical times to the end of the 19th…
jlynch | July 26, 2008(This review appeared in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology in 2005)
As human beings, we like to tell stories--we are story-telling apes. As scientists, however, we tend not to see ourselves as telling stories for, we are led to believe, stories are mere fiction. Yet when faced with answering the question of why or how we became story-telling apes, we are often presented with a series of hypotheses with little empirical evidence to distinguish between them. In many ways, Wiktor Stoczkowski claims that it is because we are storytelling apes, and that because stories often represent…
jlynch | July 26, 2008(A review from Journal of the History of Biology 2004)
In the years following the publication of Origin of Species, George Romanes developed his theory of physiological selection in which he posited that "physiological peculiarities" lead to hybrid sterility between individuals and thus isolation which would allow natural selection to "promote diversity of character, and thus to evolve species in ramifying branches instead of linear series" (Romanes, 1886, qtd. p. 46). He felt that these physiological peculiarities may involve the reproductive system and in a series of works that received a…
jlynch | July 24, 2008(Another book review, this time from 2002 and the Journal of the History of Biology. Both books are still in print and worth reading)
The simplicity (and adversarial nature) of the phrase "science versus religion" belies the diversity of ways in which these two fields of knowledge can, and do, interact. Thanks to the work of Ian Barbour, four modes of interaction are now generally accepted (conflict, independence, dialogue, and integration). It has been realized that in these post-1859 times, religion has had to face the radical reconfiguration of the human experience that appears to be…
laelaps | July 24, 2008That long list of books is making the rounds again (Jennifer, Chad, Jessica, John, and Bora have already jumped in), yet I can't bring myself to join in the fun.
The list reminds me of something one of my high school English teacher once told my class. He was very concerned that we be "cultured" (no, not that way) and steeped in the classics, having us cut our teeth on Shakespeare and Dostoyevsky before hopefully starting up subscriptions to The New Yorker someday. I didn't particularly care; his culture was not my culture, then or now. Indeed, glancing over the selections putting the book…
clock | July 24, 2008Go here and here for context, then discuss the idiosyncrasy of such lists. There are books there I have not touched, but I have read equally long and boring ones by the same authors. I have read parts of some, or kids/abridged versions of others. Here are those I read from beginning to end in original, unabridged versions:
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
29…
laelaps | July 24, 2008Just for the hell of it (and because Jennifer did it first) here's a Wordle of my manuscript to date. I'll post new ones periodically to see if any evolution can be spotted as I continue to write.
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It's too big to fit here but click on through if you want to take a peek.
jlynch | July 24, 2008There's another one of those book lists circulating - a list of 100 works of which it is claimed that the average American has read only six. Whether that is true or not (and Chad doesn't believe it), the list contains the usual mixed bag of works.
Below the fold is the list; bolded works were read and finished (31), italicized were either not finished or are compilations (8).
1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen 2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien 3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte 4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling 5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee 6 The Bible…