Books
grrlscientist | May 22, 2008tags: Oology And Ralph's Talking Eggs, conservation, ornithology, oology, Carrol L. Henderson, book review
People's methods for learning about the lives of birds have varied throughout the decades. Today, birders learn about their feathery subjects by using binoculars, telescopes, sound recording devices and cameras, while ornithologists and molecular biologists add further insight by analyzing avian DNA, transponder data and satellite information. But such powerful technologies have not always been available, so people have relied on other methods to learn about birds. For example, between…
grrlscientist | May 21, 2008tags: online books, ornithology, birds, anatomyAvian Anatomy books
I have been informed that the previous link for one of the avian anatomy books has been deactivated. I am not surprised by this since my source warned me that this would likely happen. But there is still demand for this book, so I have downloaded it, along with the other one, to RapidShare, where you can get your free copies. I have updated the link on the previous blog entry, too.
The first book, The Anatomical Atlas of Gallus by Mikio Yasuda is the English edition of the Japanese book published by the University of Tokyo in…
grrlscientist | May 20, 2008tags: online books, ornithology, birds, anatomyAvian Anatomy books
A reader of mine sent me the links to two more avian anatomy books that are available for download from FlipDrive. How long these two downloads will last is anyone's guess, though. But I know that my overseas readers, particularly those two of you who are working on your dissertations, will be interested in these. Both books are important additions to your bookshelf, for different reasons. One book is in full color and both books are more up-to-date than the Baumel book I made available to you for download earlier (However,…
pharyngula | May 19, 2008I've been sent two lists of "10 Books That Screwed Up the World", and I'm not very impressed with either of them. The first is from a new book by Benjamin Wanker Wiker of the same title, published by Regnery Press, the imprint of right-wing wackaloons everywhere. Here's Wiker's list:
The Prince, Machiavelli
Discourse on Method, Descartes
Leviathan, Hobbes
Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels
The Descent of Man, Darwin
Beyond Good and Evil, Nietzsche
Mein Kampf, Hitler
Coming of Age in Samoa, Mead
Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, Kinsey
Here's another list, which seems to be inspired by…
grrlscientist | May 18, 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:
Rodd, Tony and Jennifer Stackhouse. Trees: A Visual Guide. 2008. University of California Press. Hardcover: 304 pages. Price: $29.95 U.S. [Amazon: $19.77]. SUMMARY: A nicely illustrated introduction to the biology…
grrlscientist | May 18, 2008tags: birding, bird books, Bird Field Guide, The Young Birder's Guide to Birds of Eastern North America, Bill Thompson III, book review
One of the most common questions that I am asked is "how can we get our internet- and video game-addicted kids interested in the out-of-doors?" Since I am an internet-addicted semi-adult, I can say that one way to get kids interested in nature is to make it accessible to them, and perhaps the best way to do this is through books. A new field guide was just published whose target audience is kids between the ages of 8 and 12 years old. This remarkable book,…
grrlscientist | May 17, 2008tags: online books, ornithology, birds, anatomyAvian Anatomy Handbook, Julian Baumel
I know several of my overseas readers have wanted a free PDF of Julian Baumel's celebrated Handbook of Avian Anatomy: Nomina Anatomica Avium, 2nd Edition, published in 1993 by the Nuttal Ornithological Club, but I have been unable to email it to you due to its large size (400 pages; 49MB). Thanks to the suggestion of one of my readers, I uploaded a copy of this PDF to RapidShare, which hosts large files of up to 100 MB. Now, you can download this PDF to your computer -- but the file must be downloaded at…
laelaps | May 17, 2008
Blake Stacey has a review of The Oxford Book of Modern Science Writing that is, simply put, and unalloyed pleasure to read. Indeed, it's so good that I have only two alternatives; try to improve my own reviews or commission Blake to start writing more of them!
Michael has the scoop about a Royal Society podcast about the "true Darwin." Even during his own time Darwin's views were sometimes twisted or misrepresented, and it is certainly important to ask the question "Which Charles Darwin are we talking about?" Have a listen, and then why not pick up On the Origin of Species or The…
pharyngula | May 17, 2008One century, you've got Bach, another century, you've got Li'l Markie. Christianity has really gone downhill from its prior status as the font of funding for culture and art and intellectual endeavor to being the being the bottom of the barrel source for kitsch and crap. Case in point: Denyse O'Leary's hideous, horrible, talentless hackery has been nominated for a Canadian Christian Writing Award. Even setting aside the fact that I disagreed vehemently with the content of the book, if you judge it on the quality of the writing, it doesn't deserve recognition, it warrants condemnation — it's…
laelaps | May 16, 2008During the past two weeks I've read a number of books, but few of them have been as enjoyable as those written by Martin Rudwick (The Meaning of Fossils) and David Quammen (The Boilerplate Rhino). Serendipitously, there are new articles out about both authors; the History of Science Society has a biographical sketch of Rudwick honoring his reception of the Sarton Medal, and on the Montana State University website you can find an interview with Quammen.
The works of both authors have been highly inspirational and enlightening to me in my own quest to become a more professional writer, and if…
laelaps | May 16, 2008I'm sorry to say that things with Rutgers are still a mess, but the spring semester is over and now I've got about three months to work on some of my projects. There's a lot I want to do, but most importantly I want to become a better writer and photographer. Towards that end I have set a few goals for this summer, and even though I've stated them before I thought that I would re-iterate what I want to accomplish;
#1) Finish my book. - I haven't added anything new to my book in a long time, mostly because final exams were much more of a priority. Now that I have much more time to devote to…
clock | May 15, 2008My regular readers are probably aware that the topic of adolescent sleep and the issue of starting times of schools are some of my favourite subjects for a variety of reasons: I am a chronobiologist, I am an extreme "owl" (hence the name of this blog), I am a parent of developing extreme "owls", I have a particular distaste for Puritanical equation of sleep with laziness which always raises its ugly head in discussions of adolescent sleep, and much of my own research is somewhat related to this topic (see the bottom of this post for Related Posts).
So, I was particularly pleased when Jessica…
grrlscientist | May 15, 2008tags: Columbia University Press, books
Books, books, beautiful books! One of the several presses whose books I love is Columbia University Press. Today, I learned that Columbia is having a "white sale" where they are offering more than 1000 of their titles for sale at prices that are between 20-80% off the original price. I already browsed through the science section and I would be thrilled to read 1/3rd of the titles listed there. But in addition to science, they have a huge number of subject areas that you can choose from, ranging from general interest and best sellers, current events and…
clock | May 15, 2008I got an interesting e-mail yesterday:
Columbia White Sale goes through May 31st. For more information, please visit: http://cup.columbia.edu/sale/23. We are offering up to 80% off on more than 1,000 titles in all subjects. (There are some really great deals). I hope this will be of interest to you and your readers. Please feel free to pass the word to friends and colleagues.
Hmmmmm, shiny!
omnibrain | May 15, 2008 There is a huuuuge sale on science books (and other categories...literature theory, anthro, whatever) at Columbia Press. They are all well above 50% off. It looks like there are a bunch of interesting titles. Check it out!
laelaps | May 15, 2008Columbia University Press is presently having it's "White Sale" until May 31, and there's a lot of good books going on sale for cheap. The "Science" section has some particularly good stuff, like Slotten's The Heretic in Darwin's Court: The Life of Alfred Russel Wallace, Agusti and Anton's Mammoths, Sabertooths, and Hominids: 65 Million Years of Mammalian Evolution in Europe, Laporte's George Gaylord Simpson: Paleontologist and Evolutionist, and even some more technical material like The Eocene-Oligocene Transition: Paradise Lost by Prothero and New Approaches to Speciation in the Fossil…
grrlscientist | May 14, 2008tags: bird watching, Bill Thompson
Thanks to the good people at Houghton Mifflin Publishing House, I am meeting Bill Thompson, the editor of Bird Watcher's Digest and author of several books, tomorrow afternoon. Needless to say, I am excited to meet Bill and to see Houghton Mifflin's offices, and to attach faces and voices with the names of those people who mail me their lovely beautiful books and email me appreciative and encouraging messages about my book reviews (Thanks, you guys!)
Houghton Mifflin recently published a book by Bill Thompson, The Young Birder's Guide to Birds of Eastern…
grrlscientist | May 14, 2008tags: books, field guides, bird watching, birding, birds
Image: Bill Thompson, III.
There are a variety of field guides to the birds, for English-speaking parts of the world at least, each with their own particular qualities. I have an extensive collection of these books on my shelves that I use as references. But my own choice of my primary in-the-field guide has changed as my skills have improved throughout my lifetime. So this prompts me to ask you two questions (below the fold);
First; how has your field guide choices changed throughout your lifetime? Would you list the guides you…
pharyngula | May 11, 2008Today, I briefly emerged from my little academic cocoon and stepped outside. I was shocked to discover that the snow had all melted, the lakes were all thawed out, there were birds in the air, and the sun was shining — I think I somehow missed the appearance of spring. Don't worry, I'm buckling back to work in my oubliette now, but it was a bit of a surprise.
But that's not what I wanted to mention. It was another surprising bit of weirdness. The reason I was dragged out of the dungeon of academe was to run an errand, and I was at Wal-Mart (don't ask)…and while I was there, bored and awaiting…
grrlscientist | May 11, 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 bird and natural history books that are (or will soon be) available for purchase.
FEATURED TITLE:
Mearns, Barbara and Richard. John Kirk Townsend: Collector of Audubon's Western Birds and Mammals. 2007. Mearns Books. Hardcover: 389 pages. Price: $108.00 U.S. [Amazon: $151.36]. SUMMARY: Covers the life and travels of John Kirk…