Best Science Books 2012: Teaching Biology

Another 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: Teaching Biology: Top Books of 2012: Historical Geology.

• The Goldilocks Planet: The 4 Billion Year Story of Earth's Climate by Jan Zalasiewicz and Mark Williams
• What is Life?: How Chemistry becomes Biology by Addy Pross
• Secret Chambers: The Inside Story of Cells & Complex Life by Martin Brasier
• Evolution of Fossil Ecosystems, Second Edition by Paul Selden and John Nudds
• Why Geology Matters: Decoding the Past, Anticipating the Future by J. D. Macdougall
• Jewels of the Early Earth: Minerals and Fossils of the Precambrian by Bruce L. Stinchcomb
• Here on Earth: A Twin Biography of the Planet and the Human Race by Tim Flannery
• Historical Geology by Reed Wicander and James S. Monroe
• First Life: Discovering the Connections between Stars, Cells, and How Life Began by David Deamer

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 most of my lists from Largehearted Boy.

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 or The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks or maybe even something else from today's list.