Best Science Books 2011: Greg Laden, NYT Gift Books, London Evening Standard

Another 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 2011 lists are here.

This post includes the following:

Greg Laden's Blog

• Mummies, Cannibals and Vampires: the History of Corpse Medicine from the Renaissance to the Victorians by Richard Sugg
• Fool Me Twice: Fighting the Assault on Science in America by Shawn Lawrence Otto
• The Science of Kissing: What Our Lips Are Telling Us by Sheril Kirshenbaum
• Kaufman Field Guide to Advanced Birding by Kenn Kaufman

New York Times Gift Books

• The Practical Pyromaniac: Build Fire Tornadoes, One-Candlepower Engines, Great Balls of Fire, and More Incendiary Devices by William Gurstelle
• A History of the World in 100 Objects by Neil MacGregor
• Industrial Light & Magic: The Art of Innovation by Pamela Glintenkamp

London Evening Standard

• Aping Mankind: Neuromania, Darwinitis and the Misrepresentation of Humanity by Raymond Tallis
• The Genius In My Basement by Alexander Masters
• Sleights of Mind: What the Neuroscience of Magic Reveals about Our Everyday Deceptions by Stephen L. Macknik, Susana Martinez-Conde
• The Cafo Reader: The Tragedy of Industrial Animal Factories by Daniel Imhoff

I'm always looking for recommendations and notifications of book lists as they appear in various media outlets. If you see one that I haven't covered, please let me know at jdupuis at yorku dot ca or in the comments.

I am picking up a lot of lists from Largehearted Boy.

The summary post for 2010 books is here and all the posts for 2010 can be found here. For 2009, it's here and here.

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 isn't a science book is squishy at best, especially at the margins, but in the end I pick books that seem broadly about science and technology rather than something else completely. Lists of business, history or nature books are among the tricky ones.

And if you wish to support my humble list-making efforts, run on over to Amazon, take a look at Steve Jobs and consider picking that one up or something else from the lists.