Your book suggestions please
Angela Saini
Sunday, 15 February 2009 10:39 UTC
I am a big fan of popular science writing, but I’m finding that some of the tomes I buy are just so dense and boring as to make it difficult to finish them (I’m not naming names).
Before I shell out on another book, can the distinguished members of this forum suggest some of their favourite gripping, narrative non-fiction science writing? Any decade and any country.
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I thoroughly recommend ‘The family That Couldn’t Sleep’ by A T (I think) Max. It is about the history of prion research and also traces the family history of an Italian family suffering from a terrifying disorder. I know exactly what you mean about some of these books being too dense and boring – this one isn’t.
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Richard Feynman: Surely You’re Joking, Mr.Feynman, is a lot of fun!
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Bill Bryson A Short History of Nearly Everything
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I too have read Daniel T Max’s book which I can recommend.
@ Claire, I was quoted out of context on page 242 which caused a bit of a stramash apparently within a certain research camp.
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Wow, Graham, that is quite exciting to actually know someone who is referred to in a book! I shall go and take a look.
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Actually, thinking about it, I think Maxine is in there too!
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I will second Bill Bryson. I also liked The Canon by Natalie Angier – she often has columns in The New York Times on Tuesdays.
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Thirding Bill Bryson.
I also really love Six Degrees , which is about the field of network science (but that includes math, biology, computer science, sociology and a bunch of other things) -
Really, really obvious comment, but have you tried a local library? A few years back, I worked my way through some 30 or so popular science books in one year, all for free. And if a book’s no good, you don’t feel obliged to keep reading.
My recommendations for unputdownable science are all fairly obvious, but would include Bryson, anything and everything by Carl Sagan, Steve Jones’ ‘In the blood’ (really wide-reaching genetics book from 15 years ago that uses a highly narrative style). I really loved that one Dawkins did a few years back, which traces the common ancestors at the major branch points of evolution (The Ancestor’s Tale). Very pictorial, and less ranty.
And as you’re a Londoner, I have to recommend Medical London – masterfully written.
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I hope it isn’t like the book that had all my reject letters and other correspondence bound into it! That was a bit embarrassing, but I think I was always polite. (It was by one of those “HIV not” people and I believe was privately published, though I have blanked on the details).
Georgina Ferry’s biography of Dorothy Hodgkin?
John Gribbin writes a lot of well-regared and not too long science books, eg “The Fellowship”, about the early days of the Royal Society.
And similarly, Philip Ball has written some very well-regarded books that don’t seem too heavy at all, eg “Science of the invisible”.
Brian Clegg’s popular science website has a lot of books and reviews of them listed. Sorry I can’t recall the URL but probably a Google search will find it.
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