Best Science Books 2012: Jack Uldrich/Jump the Curve: A Futurist’s Top Ten Books for 2012

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: Jack Uldrich/Jump the Curve: A Futurist’s Top Ten Books for 2012.

Note: This list includes some slightly older books and some books that are more strictly business books rather than tech or science books. I decided to include them because the rest of the list is so interesting. The ones that don't strictly count towards my 2012 project are marked with an asterix.

• The Creative Destruction of Medicine: How the Digital Revolution Will Create Better Health Care by Eric Topol
• *What Matters Now: How to Win in a World of Relentless Change, Ferocious Competition, and Unstoppable Innovation by Gary Hamel
• *Great by Choice: Uncertainty, Chaos, and Luck--Why Some Thrive Despite Them All by Jim Collins, Morten T. Hansen
• Makers: The New Industrial Revolution by Chris Anderson
• Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You Think by Peter H. Diamandis and Steven Kotler
• Future Perfect: The Case For Progress In A Networked Age by Steven Johnson
• *The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves (P.S.) by Matt Ridley
• *Think Like a Futurist: Know What Changes, What Doesn't, and What's Next by Cecily Sommers
• Automate This: How Algorithms Came to Rule Our World by Chritopher Steiner
• *The Sorcerers and Their Apprentices: How the Digital Magicians of the MIT Media Lab Are Creating the Innovative Technologies That Will Transform Our Lives by Frank Moss

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.