science books
jdupuis | January 11, 2010Two items in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's list.
The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper and Fairer Health Care by T.R. Reid
The Invention of Air: A Story of Science, Faith, Revolution And The Birth Of America by Steven Johnson
jdupuis | January 7, 2010Nice list of coffee table books, biographies and other books from Scientific American.
Galápagos: Preserving Darwin's Legacy edited by Tui de Roy
Far Out: A Space-Time Chronicle by Michael Benson
The Heart of the Great Alone: Scott, Shackleton, and Antarctic Photography
by David Hempleman-Adams, Emma Stuart and Sophie Gordon
No Small Matter: Science on the Nanoscale by Felice C. Frankel and George M. Whitesides
Perfect Rigor: A Genius and the Mathematical Breakthrough of the Century by Masha Gessen. (A biography of Grigory Perelman)
The Passage to Cosmos: Alexander von Humboldt and the…
jdupuis | January 6, 2010A nice list from the SF Chronicle:
Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer
Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer by Novella Carpenter
A Fiery Peace in a Cold War: Bernard Schriever and the Ultimate Weapon by Neil Sheehan
Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford's Forgotten Jungle City, by Greg Grandin
Googled: The End of the World As We Know It by Ken Auletta
The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution by Richard Dawkins
Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth by Apostolos Doxiadis and Christos H. Papadimitriou
Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon by David…
jdupuis | January 5, 2010The New Scientist's CultureLab blog asked a whole slew of editors and contributors to name a notable 2009 book. It's quite an extensive list.
Catching Fire: How cooking made us human by Richard Wrangham
Codes of the Underworld: How criminals communicate by Diego Gambetta
The Natural History of Unicorns by Chris Lavers
Darwin's Sacred Cause: Race, Slavery and the Quest for Human Origins by Adrian Desmond and James Moore
Confabulation: Views from neuroscience, psychiatry, psychology and philosophy edited by William Hirstein
Bad Science by Ben Goldacre
Reading in the Brain: The science and…
jdupuis | January 4, 2010The New Zealand Listener has a few good suggestions from two different categories: Science and Journalism & Essays.
The Art Instinct: Beauty, Pleasure and Human Evolution by Denis Dutton
The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution by Richard Dawkins
Innocents in the Dry Valley: An Account of the Victoria University of Wellington Antarctic Expedition, 1958-59 by Colin Bull
On the Origin of Stories: Evolution, Cognition and Fiction by Brian Boyd
The Best of New Zealand Geographic: Exploring our Land and Culture
jdupuis | December 31, 2009I did this last year and the year before and it seemed like an interesting and maybe even useful thing to continue this year.
Trends in my reading this year? An increase in books on social media and a bit down in terms of science and fantastic fiction. A lot of that has to do with working on the My Job in 10 Years book and the reading I've been doing for that. A lot of it also has to do with the reading I did for the Sunburst Award. I was on the jury for the 2009 award (winners!) and so I did a ton of reading for that in the first half of the year. That didn't leave me that much time for…
jdupuis | December 24, 2009Not surprisingly, a very fine list from the AIP's Physicsworld website:
The Physics of Rugby by Trevor Davis
First Principles: The Crazy Business of Doing Serious Science by Howard Burton
Oliver Heaviside: Maverick Mastermind of Electricity by Basil Mahon
Atomic: The First War of Physics and the Secret History of the Atom Bomb by Jim Baggott
Lives in Science by Joseph C Hermanowitz
13 Things That Don't Make Sense by Michael Brooks
Deciphering the Cosmic Number: The Strange Friendship of Wolfgang Pauli and Carl Jung by Arthur I Miller
Perfect Rigor by Masha Gessen
Plastic Fantastic: How the…
jdupuis | December 23, 2009A nice list from a bunch of categories from the Washington Post, although some of items in the the science section seem strangely unscientific:
Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth by Apostolos Doxiadis and Christos Papadimitriou
The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science by Richard Holmes
The Art and Politics of Science by Harold Varmus
A Brain Wider Than the Sky: A Migraine Diary by Andrew Levy
The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care by T. R. Reid
The Fatal Strain: On the Trail of Avian Flu and the…
jdupuis | December 22, 2009One of the five non-fiction books chosen by Salon was a science book.
The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science by Richard Holmes
jdupuis | December 19, 2009A nice list of technology/business books:
Googled: The End of the World as we Know it by Ken Auletta
Inside Larry & Sergey's Brain by Richard L. Brandt
The Twitter Book by Tim O'Reilly and Sarah Milstein
The Accidental Billionares: The Founding of Facebook: A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius and Betrayal by Ben Mezrich
Stealing MySpace: The Battle to Control the most Popular Website in America by Julia Angwin
Behind The Cloud: The Untold Story of How Salesforce.com Went from Idea to Billion-Dollar Company-and Revolutionized an Industry by Marc Benioff and Carlye Adler
Smasher by Keith Raffel
jdupuis | December 18, 2009I've cobbled together this list from three lists from The Independent: Nature & Environment, Biography and History.
The Running Sky: A bird-watching life by Tim Dee
Say Goodbye to the Cuckoo by Michael McCarthy
Edible Seashore: river cottage handbook no. 5 by John Wright
Logicomix: an epic search for truth by Apostolos Doxiadis, Christos H Papadimitriou, Alecos Papadatos and Annie di Donna
Darwin's Sacred Cause: Race, Slavery and the Quest for Human Origins by Adrian Desmond and James Moore
The Strangest Man: The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Quantum Genius by Graham Farmelo
Blood, Iron…
jdupuis | December 17, 2009From Time's Top 10 Non-Fiction books:
The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science by Richard Holmes
Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth by Apostolos Doxiadis, Christos H. Papadimitriou, Alecos Papadatos and Annie Di Donna
As usual, if you've seen any best book of the year lists out there that you think I should mention, please let me know.
jdupuis | December 16, 2009A nice list from The Barnes & Noble Review:
Denialism: How Irrational Thinking Hinders Scientific Progress, Harms the Planet, and Threatens Our Lives by Joseph Kanon Michael Specter
The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon by David Grann
Ivory's Ghosts: The White Gold of History and the Fate of Elephants by John Frederick Walker
The Fallen Sky: An Intimate History of Shooting Stars by Christopher Cokinos
A Brilliant Darkness: The Extraordinary Life and Mysterious Disappearance of Ettore Majorana by João Magueijo
jdupuis | December 15, 2009Not surprisingly, being a science magazine Seed has a very fine list of books for science enthusiasts:
Boyle: Between God and Science by Michael Hunter
A Brilliant Darkness: The Extraordinary Life and Mysterious Disappearance of Ettore Majorana, the Troubled Genius of the Nuclear Age by João Magueijo
NurtureShock: New Thinking About Children by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman
Moyasimon 1: Tales of Agriculture by Masayuki Ishikawa
Nature's Patterns: a Tapestry in Three Parts (Shapes, Flow, Branches) by Philip Ball
Science as a Contact Sport: Inside the Battle to Save Earth's Climate by…
jdupuis | December 14, 2009A short list from the Christian Science Monitor:
The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon by David Grann
The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and the Terror of Science by Richard Holmes
Green Metropolis: Why Living Smaller, Living Closer, and Driving Less Are the Keys to Sustainability by David Owen
The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind by William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer
jdupuis | December 10, 2009Yet another solid list from the Globe and Mail, assembled from a few different categories. This list focuses on gift/coffee table-style books; I've left out a few of the many science and nature books that seem a bit more peripheral to my main mission.
Aviation in Canada: The Formative Years by Larry Milberry
Gil Cohen: Aviation Artist by Gil Cohen
Eco House Book by Terence Conran
Illustrated Birds of North America by Jon L. Dunn and Jonathan Alderfer
Whole Green Catalogue: 1,000 Best Things for You and the Earth edited by Michael W. Robbins
Birds of North America: The Complete…
jdupuis | December 9, 2009A good selection from The Economist.
The British Industrial Revolution in Global Perspective by Robert C. Allen
Why We Disagree About Climate Change: Understanding Controversy, Inaction and Opportunity by Mike Hulme
Remarkable Creatures: Epic Adventures in the Search for the Origin of Species by Sean B. Carroll
The Strangest Man: The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Mystic of the Atom by Graham Farmelo
Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human by Richard Wrangham.
Direct Red: A Surgeon's Story by Gabriel Weston
By the way, is anybody else noticing that the Dirac bio is shaping up to be the book of…
jdupuis | December 8, 2009A few nice items from the Canadian book industry magazine, Quill & Quire:
Why Your World Is About to Get a Whole Lot Smaller: Oil and the End of Globalization by Jeff Rubin
Grass, Sky, Song: Promise and Peril in the World of Grassland Birds by Trevor Herriot
Slow Death by Robber Duck: How the Toxic Chemistry of Everyday Life Affects Our Health by Rick Smith and Bruce Lourie, with Sarah Dopp
jdupuis | December 7, 2009A nice selection from the Financial Times, spread across a few categories.
Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth by Apostolos Doxiadis and Christos H Papadimitriou
Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century by PW Singer
Waste: Uncovering the Global Food Scandal by Tristram Stuart
Remarkable Creatures: Epic Adventures in the Search for the Origins of Species by Sean Carroll
The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution by Richard Dawkins
Seasons of Life: The Biological Rhythms That Living Things Need to Thrive and Survive by Russell Foster and Leon…
jdupuis | December 2, 2009Boing Boing has some very cool scitech suggestions in their annual gift guide for non-fiction books.
If Your Kid Eats This Book, Everything Will Still Be Okay: How to Know if Your Child's Injury or Illness Is Really an Emergency by Lara Zibners
The Whuffie Factor: Using the Power of Social Networks to Build Your Business by Tara Hunt
The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind: Creating Currents of Electricity and Hope by William Kamkwamba, Bryan Mealer
Wicked Plants: The Weed That Killed Lincoln's Mother and Other Botanical Atrocities by Amy Stewart
How We Decide by Jonah Lehrer
The Math Book: From…