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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How about these? In recommending them, I am not implying that anyone will agree with everything that is said. Are these the sort of thing you had in mind, Angela?
Broad and Wade, Betrayers of the Truth.
Keith Tutt, The Scientist, the Madman, the Thief, and their Lightbulb.
Primack and Abrams, The View From the Center of the Universe.
Grandin and Johnson, Animals in Translation.
Ian Stewart, Flatterland.
Walter Alvarez, T. Rex and the Crater of Doom.
Babiak and Hare, Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths go to Work.
Gerd Gigerenzer, Reckoning with Risk: Learning to Live with Uncertainty.
Steven Mithen, The Singing Neanderthals: The Origins of Music, Language, Mind, and Body.
Sean B. Carroll, The Making of the Fittest: DNA and the Ultimate Forensic Evidence of Evolution.
Jerry Ravetz, No-Nonsense Guide to Science.
I found all these gripping but you may not, which is the reason I have included a rather wide range of suggestions. Happy reading.
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Angela, I am not usually negative, but I can not abide Ridley. What he writes in biology is either trivial or wrong. What he colluded in doing with others at Northern Rock is unacceptable and quite scandalous. His attitude to what happened at Northern Rock and his approach to certain areas of biology are related. Whatever else might be said about Ridley, he is at least consistent.
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Are there errors in ‘Genome’, then, Larry? I didn’t know that – but then I guess I wouldn’t since I am not a geneticist!
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I haven’t seen the book “Longitude” mentioned, by Dava Sobel, which is quite light and pleasant reading.
But I am a huge supporter of using your public library. Interlibrary loan is the greatest thing ever; it exists in the U.S. in civilized areas, but not in France. Can’t tell you for England, but ask – one never knows!
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I enjoyed Longitude_. Once you’ve read it you can go and see Harrison’s time-pieces at the Greenwich Maritime museum (or is it the Observatory?), if you’re in London. But I enjoyed Sobel’s "_Galileo’s Daughter":http://www.amazon.com/Galileos-Daughter-Historical-Memoir-Science/dp/0140280553 even more – it interleaves Galileo’s story with letters from his daughter, a nun. Very tender and touching in places.
The JD Bernal biog is good but over-long. He was certainly a colourful character but maybe the appeal is more to crystallographers.
For repeated doses of pleasure I would highly recommend The Faber Book of Science, a fantastic and eclectic book of science writing from down through the ages.
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Hi Angela,
If you’re interested in wildlife conservation and nature writing, I suggest you check out the work of Barry Holstun Lopez. I just finished reading his book entitled “Of Wolves and Men”, and was absolutely captivated by his writing. I recently blogged about it – I posted the link to Lopez’ home page there.
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Two of my favourites from recent years are “Scurvy: How a Surgeon, Mariner and Gentleman Solved the Greatest Medical Mystery of the Age of Sail” by Stephen R. Bown (Thomas Allen, 2005)and Simon Winchester’s “The Map that Changed the World” (Harper, 2001).
The prose in both are engaging and each examines two topics, that while taken for granted today, were major breakthroughs in our understanding. Both also provide interesting insights into British society in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
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@Clare Ridley, as I understand his writing, is a genetic determinist and a kind of social Darwinist. Just so you don’t think I am being unreasonable, George Monbiot is a biological determinist, a position for which the evidence is rather negative, but for him I have time and a good deal of respect.
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Hi Angela – What a great question. For important and readable insights into the human (and biospheric) condition over the next four decades, check out these three: Graeme Taylor’s recent (2009) Evolution’s Edge (our population and overpopulation trajectories – New Society Press, Canada). August Anson’s (2008) What Every Citizen Should Know About Our Planet – M. Arman Publishing, Florida; and Thomas Friedman’s Hot, Flat, and Crowded (2008), which is not strictly science, but is an important look at the population-environment issues that are likely to affect your generation between now and mid-century.
Two other great titles from years past, which I would recommend to all readers are: Carl Sagan’s Cosmos (1970s-80s) which is an awesome celebration of the human intellect, and finally African Genesis – a 1960s book by Robert Ardrey with a terrific and readable look at insights into early hominids in Africa. Ardrey points out, for example, that the traditional view of mankind as a “tool-making animal” may not be strictly accurate since the first “tools” found in association with our earliest ancestors are not “tools” at all, but weapons. That observation alone makes for a provocative and lasting read.
Thank you again for posing such an interesting and irresistable question.
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Larry, if I have understood Clare’s point correctly, she is saying that Ridley’s Northern Rock behaviour is not relevant to whether his science writing is accurate, good, etc. Similarly Monbiot may be a great guy, but that doesn’t mean his science writing is any good, correct, etc.
Horses for courses.
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