science books
jdupuis | November 27, 2010If The New York Times list is the big one in the US and probably over all, then the Globe list is the big one in Canada. Interestingly, it's another list that's been a bit spotty on science coverage in the past but that seems to have reformed it's ways.
The Mind's Eye by Oliver Sacks
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
The Emperor of all Maladies: A Biography of Cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee
Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void by Mary Roach
The Tiger: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival by John Vaillant
The Wave: In Pursuit of the Rogues, Freaks…
jdupuis | November 27, 2010I have a whole pile of science-y book reviews on two of my older blogs, here and here. Both of those blogs have now been largely superseded by or merged into this one. So I'm going to be slowly moving the relevant reviews over here. I'll mostly be doing the posts one or two per weekend and I'll occasionally be merging two or more shorter reviews into one post here.
This one, of A Short History of Nearly Everything, is from September 25, 2006.
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I'm a bit of two minds on this book. Really, I almost consider it two different books that I could review separately. The first, a book I…
jdupuis | November 26, 2010Another list, this time from the Chapters.Indigo.ca site.
The Tiger: A True Story Of Vengeance And Survival by John Vaillant
The Wave: In The Pursuit Of The Rogues, Freaks And Giants Of The Ocean by Susan Casey
The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to our Brains by Nicholas Carr
The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee
The Grand Design by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow
The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
Packing For Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void by Mary Roach
Atlantic: Great Sea Battles, Heroic Discoveries,…
jdupuis | November 25, 2010It's the big one, probably the most important "best of" list of the year -- The New York Times. Often a bit spotty on it's science-y coverage, let's see how they fare this year:
Common as Air: Revolution, Art, and Ownership by Lewis Hyde
Country Driving: A Journey Through China From Farm to Factory by Peter Hessler
The Emperor of all Maladies: A Biography of Cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee
Four Fish: The Future of the Last Wild Food By Paul Greenberg
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
Insectopedia by Hugh Raffles
Long for this World: The Strange Science of Immortality by…
jdupuis | November 24, 2010A couple more shorts lists.
HistoryNet
Rival Rails: The Race to Build America's Greatest Transcontinental Railroad by Walter Borneman
DC-3: A Legend In Her Time-A 75th Anniversary Photographic Tribute by Bruce McAllister
Air Power: The Men, Machines, and Ideas that Revolutionized War, from Kitty Hawk to Iraq By Stephen Budiansky
O Magazine
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee
I'm always looking for recommendations and notifications of book lists as they appear in various media outlets. If you see…
jdupuis | November 22, 2010A few lists with only a few relevant items each.
Cleveland Plain Dealer
The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right by Atul Gawande
The Tiger: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival by John Vaillant
The Telegraph (History)
Engines of War: How Wars Were Won and Lost on the Railways by Christian Wolmar
Chasing the Sun: the Epic Story of the Star that Gives Us Life by Richard Cohen
Library Journal (Notable books) & Top 10
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
The Tiger: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival by John Valliant
Packing for Mars: The Curious Science…
jdupuis | November 20, 2010I have a whole pile of science-y book reviews on two of my older blogs, here and here. Both of those blogs have now been largely superseded by or merged into this one. So I'm going to be slowly moving the relevant reviews over here. I'll mostly be doing the posts one or two per weekend and I'll occasionally be merging two or more shorter reviews into one post here.
This one, of The Science of Evolution and the Myth of Creationism: Knowing What's Real and Why It Matters, is from June 8, 2007.
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The whole raison d'etre of this book is to counter creationists' arguments against…
jdupuis | November 19, 2010Another list for your reading and collection development pleasure. This one concentrates on more business-y books so I've only chosen the ones that relate more to social media/technology. It's 10 Business Books In 2010 from Cloud Computing.
Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age by Clay Shirky
Open Leadership: How Social Technology Can Transform the Way You Lead by Charlene Li
The New Polymath: Profiles in Compound-Technology Innovations by Vinnie Mirchandani
The Facebook Effect: The Inside Story of the Company That Is Connecting the World by David Kirkpatrick…
jdupuis | November 18, 2010Another list for your reading and collection development pleasure, drawn from Amazon UK Business, Amazon UK History and Amazon UK Science & Nature.
The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves by Matt Ridley
Map of a Nation: A Biography of the Ordnance Survey by Rachel Hewitt
The Secret Life of Bletchley Park: The History of the Wartime Codebreaking Centre by the Men and Women Who Were There by Sinclair McKay
Wonders of the Solar System by Brian Cox
The Grand Design by Stephen Hawking
The Natural History Book by DK
The Butterfly Isles: A Summer in Search of Our Emperors and Admirals by…
jdupuis | November 14, 2010I have a whole pile of science-y book reviews on two of my older blogs, here and here. Both of those blogs have now been largely superseded by or merged into this one. So I'm going to be slowly moving the relevant reviews over here. I'll mostly be doing the posts one or two per weekend and I'll occasionally be merging two or more shorter reviews into one post here.
Since I did a science/religion review earlier this week, I thought I'd continue the theme this weekend with a couple of older reviews of books by Matthew Chapman.
This one, of 40 Days and 40 Nights: Darwin, Intelligent Design,…
jdupuis | November 13, 2010I have a whole pile of science-y book reviews on two of my older blogs, here and here. Both of those blogs have now been largely superseded by or merged into this one. So I'm going to be slowly moving the relevant reviews over here. I'll mostly be doing the posts one or two per weekend and I'll occasionally be merging two or more shorter reviews into one post here.
Since I did a science/religion review earlier this week, I thought I'd continue the theme this weekend with a couple of older reviews of books by Matthew Chapman.
This one, of Trials of the Monkey: An Accidental Memoir, is from…
jdupuis | November 11, 2010Another list for your reading and collection development perusal, this time from Publisher's Weekly:
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
About a Mountain by John D'Agata
The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee
Yellow Dirt: An American Story of a Poisoned Land and a People Betrayed by Judy Pasternak
Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margins of Error by Kathryn Schulz
The Tiger: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival by John Vaillant
The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires by Tim Wu
Origins: How the Nine Months Before…
jdupuis | November 10, 2010It has begun. The annual year's best science books posting orgy!
Every year for the past 4 or 5 years I've been linking to and posting about all the "year's best books" lists that appear in various media outlets and highlighting the science books that are mentioned. 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…
jdupuis | November 8, 2010Warning: I generally don't post about religion/atheism/new atheism or any of those similar topics. I also don't generally post about my own views on such subjects. This post clearly will be breaking those habits. Don't say I didn't warn you.
Now on to the review proper...
First of all, let's get the elephant in the room out of the way. Yes, I'm an atheist. I don't believe in any god, old- or new-fashioned. I have no spiritual feelings at all really, including any vague "search for a higher meaning or sense of transcendence." I tend to find those sorts of feelings a little odd and…
jdupuis | November 4, 2010More for your reading and collection development pleasure.
The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires by Tim Wu (ISBN-13: 978-0307269935)
As Wu's sweeping history shows, each of the new media of the twentieth century--radio, telephone, television, and film--was born free and open. Each invited unrestricted use and enterprising experiment until some would-be mogul battled his way to total domination. Here are stories of an uncommon will to power, the power over information: Adolph Zukor, who took a technology once used as commonly as YouTube is today and made it the exclusive…
jdupuis | November 3, 2010For your reading and collection development pleasure. It's been so long since I last did one of these listings, I actually have another one coming up in a day or so.
Good Faith Collaboration: The Culture of Wikipedia by Joseph Michael Reagle Jr. (ISBN-13: 978-0262014472)
Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, is built by a community--a community of Wikipedians who are expected to "assume good faith" when interacting with one another. In Good Faith Collaboration, Joseph Reagle examines this unique collaborative culture.
Wikipedia, says Reagle, is not the first effort to create a freely shared,…
drorzel | September 2, 2010"Hey, dude, whatcha doin'?"
"Signing these contracts. I'm not sure why they need four copies, but they do."
"Contracts for what?"
"The new book. Remmeber, the one we've been talking about these last few weeks? Sequel-of-sorts to How to Teach Physics to Your Dog? About relativity?"
"Oh, yeah, that's right! We're doing another book! Where do I sign?"
"What do you mean, 'Where do I sign?' You're a dog."
"I could, you know, put a paw print on the line, or something."
"I suppose you could, but it wouldn't be legally binding. Dogs aren't allowed to sign contracts."
"You know that's horribly…
jdupuis | August 25, 2010The latest issue of ISTL has just been released and, as usual, it's filled with very interesting-looking articles.
The table of contents is below:
Metrics and Science Monograph Collections at the Marston Science Library, University of Florida by Michelle F. Leonard, Stephanie C. Haas, and Vernon N. Kisling, Ph.D, University of Florida
Zoo and Wildlife Libraries: An International Survey by Linda L. Coates and Kaitlyn Rose Tierney, San Diego Zoo
How Much Space Does a Library Need? Justifying Collections Space in an Electronic Age by Nancy J. Butkovich, The Pennsylvania State Universitty…
jdupuis | August 21, 2010From the Eligibility and Submission Requirements page:
The annual Lane Anderson Award will honour two jury-selected books, adult and young reader, published in the field of science by Canadian-owned publishers, and authored by Canadians. The winner in each category will receive $10,000.
Two three-person jury panels drawn from the Canadian academic, publishing, creative and institutional fields will review submissions in the two categories, and the jury will be announced with the winners at an event in Toronto on the 15th September.
The two shortlists will be announced on August 16th, 2010.…
drorzel | August 18, 2010We picked up a used copy of Charles Mann's pop-archeology book 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus a while back. I didn't read it at the time, because I was a little afraid that it would be rather polemical in what I think of as the Neil Young mode-- wildly overstating the awesomeness of pre-Columbian cultures, and exaggerating the evil of the European invaders (Neil's recorded some great stuff, but the lyrics to "Cortez the Killer" are pretty dopey). It came up several times recently in discussions elsewhere, though, and seemed like it would make a nice break from the…