science books
jdupuis | December 13, 2012Another bunch of lists for your reading, gift-giving and collection development pleasure.
Every year for the last bunch of years I’ve been linking to and posting about all the “year’s best sciencey books” lists that appear in various media outlets and shining a bit of light on the best of the year.
All the previous 2012 lists are here.
This post includes the following:
The Atlantic Books of the Year 2012: The Top 5 and the Runners Up
Masters of the Planet: The Search for Our Human Origins by Ian Tattersall
CNNMoney
Abundance: The future is better than you thinkby Peter Diamandis
Inside…
jdupuis | December 7, 2012Another list for your reading, gift-giving and collection development pleasure.
Every year for the last bunch of years I’ve been linking to and posting about all the “year’s best sciencey books” lists that appear in various media outlets and shining a bit of light on the best of the year.
All the previous 2012 lists are here.
This post includes the following: Kirlus Reviews: Current Affairs & Social Sciences, Biography, History, Science & Nature.
Wait: The Art and Science of Delay by Frank Partnoy
Visit Sunny Chernobyl: And Other Adventures in the World's Most Polluted Places by…
jdupuis | December 5, 2012Another list for your reading, gift-giving and collection development pleasure.
Every year for the last bunch of years I’ve been linking to and posting about all the “year’s best sciencey books” lists that appear in various media outlets and shining a bit of light on the best of the year.
All the previous 2012 lists are here.
This post includes the following: Booklist Online Top 10 Science and Health Books.
The Bluebird Effect: Uncommon Bonds with Common Birds by Julie Zickefoose
Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness by Susannah Cahalan
An Epidemic of Absence: A New Way of Understanding…
jdupuis | December 4, 2012Another list for your reading, gift-giving and collection development pleasure.
Every year for the last bunch of years I’ve been linking to and posting about all the “year’s best sciencey books” lists that appear in various media outlets and shining a bit of light on the best of the year.
All the previous 2012 lists are here.
This post includes the following: Financial Times Best Books of 2012.
Makers: The New Industrial Revolution by Chris Anderson
The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do and How to Change by Charles Duhigg
The Particle at the End of the Universe: The Hunt for the Higgs and…
jdupuis | December 3, 2012Another list for your reading, gift-giving and collection development pleasure.
Every year for the last bunch of years I’ve been linking to and posting about all the “year’s best sciencey books” lists that appear in various media outlets and shining a bit of light on the best of the year.
All the previous 2012 lists are here.
This post includes the following: Amazon.ca Top 100 Editors' Picks.
The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail-but Some Don't by Nate Silver
Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain
The Power of Habit: Why We Do What…
jdupuis | November 30, 2012Another list for your reading, gift-giving and collection development pleasure.
Every year for the last bunch of years I’ve been linking to and posting about all the “year’s best sciencey books” lists that appear in various media outlets and shining a bit of light on the best of the year.
All the previous 2012 lists are here.
This post includes the following: Boing Boing Gift Guide.
The Where, the Why, and the How: 75 Artists Illustrate Wondrous Mysteries of Science by Matt Lamothe, Julia Rothman, Jenny Volvovski and David Macaulay
Hallucinations by Oliver Sacks
Illustrated Guide to Home…
jdupuis | November 27, 2012Another list for your reading, gift-giving and collection development pleasure.
Every year for the last bunch of years I’ve been linking to and posting about all the “year’s best sciencey books” lists that appear in various media outlets and shining a bit of light on the best of the year.
All the previous 2012 lists are here.
This post includes the following: New York Times 100 Notable Books.
Belzoni: The Giant Archaeologists Love to Hate by Ivor Noël Hume
Breasts: A Natural and Unnatural History by Florence Williams
Darwin's Ghosts: The Secret History of Evolution by Rebecca Stot
The Folly…
jdupuis | November 27, 2012Ignorance: How It Drives Science by Stuart Firestein is a short book. I wish I could say it was also a sharp shock of a book, but not quite. This is a classic case of a book that cries out to be shorter -- in this case from a decent slim hardcover reduced down to probably what could have been a terrific Kindle Single-sized book, something we're finally able to produce, consume and reward appropriately in the Internet age.
So what's the book about? It's basically a philosophy of science book designed for a mass audience, making the core and very valid point that science doesn't advance from…
jdupuis | November 26, 2012Another list for your reading, gift-giving and collection development pleasure.
Every year for the last bunch of years I’ve been linking to and posting about all the “year’s best sciencey books” lists that appear in various media outlets and shining a bit of light on the best of the year.
All the previous 2012 lists are here.
This post includes the following: The Globe and Mail 100.
The Last Viking: The Life of Roald Amundsen by Stephen R. Bown
Survival of the Beautiful: Art, Science and Evolution by David Rothenberg
Turing’s Cathedral: The Origin of the Digital Universe by George Dyson…
jdupuis | November 21, 2012Another list for your reading, gift-giving and collection development pleasure.
Every year for the last bunch of years I’ve been linking to and posting about all the “year’s best sciencey books” lists that appear in various media outlets and shining a bit of light on the best of the year.
All the previous 2012 lists are here.
This post includes the following: Brain Pickings.
Internal Time: Chronotypes, Social Jet Lag, and Why You’re So Tired by Till Roenneberg
The Where, the Why, and the How: 75 Artists Illustrate Wondrous Mysteries of Science by Matt Lamothe, Julia Rothman, Jenny Volvovski…
jdupuis | November 20, 2012Another list for your reading, gift-giving and collection development pleasure.
Every year for the last bunch of years I’ve been linking to and posting about all the “year’s best sciencey books” lists that appear in various media outlets and shining a bit of light on the best of the year.
All the previous 2012 lists are here.
This post includes the following: Barnes & Noble Best Books 2012: Art, Architecture & Photography; Computer; Medical & Nursing; Professional & Education; .
Life in Color: National Geographic Photographs by Annie Griffiths
Turing's Cathedral: The Origins…
jdupuis | November 19, 2012It is time. The season of lists begins again!
Every year for the last bunch of years I've been linking to and posting about all the "year's best sciencey books" lists that I can find around the web in various media outlets.
From the beginning it's been a pretty popular service so I'm happy to continue it.
For my purposes, I define science books pretty broadly to include science, engineering, computing, history & philosophy of science & technology, environment, social aspects of science and even business books about technology trends or technology innovation. Deciding what is and…
jdupuis | September 29, 2012This past Thursday evening I was honoured to attend the awards ceremony for the 2011 Lane Anderson Award which celebrates the best science writing in Canada.
The winners were announced at the end of the evening. This is from the press release, which doesn't seem to be online yet:
Toronto. 2thth September, 2012: The two winners of the 2011 Lane Anderson Award were announced today by Hollister Doll and Sharon Fitzhenry, Directors of the Fitzhenry Family Foundation, at an intimate dinner in Toronto. The annual Lane Anderson Award honours two jury-selected books, in the categories of adult and…
jdupuis | September 10, 2012You know the old saying about the weather -- everybody complains but nobody does anything about it! Well, the same can be said about climate change -- everybody complains but nobody does anything about it. And that's partly because of political gridlock, denial and inaction at the highest levels across numerous jurisdictions around the world. But it's also because most of us really don't have a clear idea what we can do about it.
In other words, what actions can we as individuals take to fight climate change?
I think we all have a sense that if we could aggregate millions and billions…
jdupuis | August 28, 2012I saw an article in the Quill and Quire announcing the shortlist for the Lane Anderson Award, celebrating the best in Canadian science writing.
The Lane Anderson Award honours the very best science writing in Canada today, both in the adult and young-reader categories. Each award will be determined on the relevance of its content to the importance of science in today’s world, and the author’s ability to connect the topic to the interests of the general trade reader.”
The annual Lane Anderson Award honours two jury-selected books, in the categories of adult and young-reader, published in the…
jdupuis | August 8, 2012I feel a little weird reviewing this book.
It's a TED book, you see.
What's a TED book, you ask. I'll let TED tell you:
Shorter than a novel, but longer than an magazine article -- a TED Book is a great way to feed your craving for ideas anytime.
TED Books are short original electronic books produced every two weeks by TED Conferences. Like the best TEDTalks, they're personal and provocative, and designed to spread great ideas. TED Books are typically under 20,000 words — long enough to unleash a powerful narrative, but short enough to be read in a single sitting.
TED talks, in other words…
jdupuis | July 5, 2012I'm on my annual summer hiatus for the month of July so I'll be only publishing my weekly Friday Fun posts as well as re-posting some of the interviews I did a few years ago on the old blog with people from the publishing, library and science worlds. Not that my posting of late has been particularly distinguishable from the hiatus state, but such is the blogging life after nearly ten years: filled with ups, downs, peaks, valleys.
This interview, with Eugene Wallingford, is from July 9, 2008.
I'm hoping to get these out weekly, but we'll see. They're mostly cobbled together in odd moments…
jdupuis | June 22, 2012The title of this post might be a bit misleading. I don't really think it's much of a question.
Of course it's ok to get paid to promote open access.
My university pays me to be a librarian. I have faculty status. I can decide what I think are the most important issues in my field. I can advocate for solutions to those issues. I have decided that one of the most important issues in my field of science librarianship is the broken scholarly communications system. I have come to the conclusion that a system of open access to the scholarly literature is much fairer and probably ultimately much…
jdupuis | June 11, 2012John MacCormick's new book, Nine Algorithms That Changed the Future: The Ingenious Ideas That Drive Today's Computers, is very good. You should buy it and read it.
Among all the debates about whether or not absolutely everybody must without question learn to program (pro, con), it's perhaps a good idea to pause and take a look at exactly what programs do.
Which is what this book does. It starts from the premise that people love computers and what they can do but don't have much of an idea about what goes on inside the little black box. And then, what MacCormick does is take nine general types…
jdupuis | June 8, 2012This past week one of the true giants of fantastic literature died: Ray Bradbury.
I like what Gregory Benford had to say on the Tor.com blog:
Nostalgia is eternal for Americans. We are often displaced from our origins and carry anxious memories of that lost past. We fear losing our bearings. By writing of futures that echo our nostalgias, Bradbury reminds us of both what we were and of what we could yet be.
Like most creative people, he was still a child at heart. His stories tell us: Hold on to your childhood. You don’t get another one. In so many stories, he gave us his childhood—and it…