science books
jdupuis | March 14, 2011Here's a hint. Never, ever, ever put the following sentence in any non-fiction book you are writing:
This is dull stuff. (p. 165)
Testify!
An object lesson on non-success for popular science books to compare and contrast with an object lesson for success in popular science books.
But, to be fair, the book under consideration isn't really a popular science book. J.L. Heilbron's new Galileo is a scholarly scientific biography of Galileo and as such shouldn't really be compared to popular science books.
On the other hand, it was a topic I expected to really enjoy but I did end up struggling…
jdupuis | March 3, 2011Over the last week or so a huge issue has sprung up in the library and publishing world, which I touch on in my eBook Users' Bill of Rights post.
The publisher HarperCollins has restricting the number of checkouts an ebook version of one of their books can have before the library needs to pay for it again. The number of checkouts is 26 per year. Bobbi Newman collects a lot of relevant posts here if you're interested.
There was a comment on my post by William Dix:
Publishers are shooting themselves in the foot on this issue. As well as alienating a lot of the potential market with idiotic…
jdupuis | March 1, 2011The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (TILoHL) by Rebecca Skloot was far and away the top science book of the year in my Best Science Books 2010: The top books of the year post from last month. In that post I took all the Best Science Books 2010 posts and tallied up the books with the most mentions. TILoHL was mentioned in 41 out of the 60 lists I found. The next highest was 17 mentions for The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee.
So, a pretty decisive victory. TILoHL was by far the best reviewed science book of the year.
What was interesting to me was…
jdupuis | February 27, 2011I have a whole pile of science-y book reviews on two of my older blogs, here and here. Both of those blogs have now been largely superseded by or merged into this one. So I'm going to be slowly moving the relevant reviews over here. I'll mostly be doing the posts one or two per weekend and I'll occasionally be merging two or more shorter reviews into one post here.
This one is from August 22, 2008 and reviews the following books:
Wrinkles in Time: Witness to the Birth of the Universe
Pursuit of Genius: Flexner, Einstein, and the Early Faculty at the Institute for Advanced Study
Archimedes…
jdupuis | February 21, 2011While I don't have a huge amount of experience reading science-themed graphic novels, I do sort of have a sense that they come in two different broad categories.
The first is basically transforming a boring, stilted, text-heavy textbook into a boring, stilted, illustration- and text-heavy graphic novel. In other words, the producers think that anything in graphic novel format will by definition be more interesting and engaging than something that's purely text-based.
The second involves taking advantage of the strengths of the graphic novel format to re-imagine how scientific knowledge can…
jdupuis | February 20, 2011I have a whole pile of science-y book reviews on two of my older blogs, here and here. Both of those blogs have now been largely superseded by or merged into this one. So I'm going to be slowly moving the relevant reviews over here. I'll mostly be doing the posts one or two per weekend and I'll occasionally be merging two or more shorter reviews into one post here.
This one, of Once You're Lucky, Twice You're Good: The Rebirth of Silicon Valley and the Rise of Web 2.0, is from September 7, 2008.
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As with many of the business books I review in this space, I am profoundly torn by this…
jdupuis | February 13, 2011I have a whole pile of science-y book reviews on two of my older blogs, here and here. Both of those blogs have now been largely superseded by or merged into this one. So I'm going to be slowly moving the relevant reviews over here. I'll mostly be doing the posts one or two per weekend and I'll occasionally be merging two or more shorter reviews into one post here.
This group review is from October 12, 2008.
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A few books that I've read in 2008 that haven't quite made it into their own reviews:
Gawande, Atul. Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science. New York: Picador…
jdupuis | February 7, 2011Or make that the house that the house that Calculus: Early Transcendentals and Calculus: Concepts and Contexts built. And more books too, all in multiple editions!
A few days ago The Toronto Star's Katie Daubs published an article on the home of James Stewart, the Toronto resident who wrote all those calculus textbooks.
James Stewart is a calculus rock star.
When he goes on book tours in China, they ask for his autograph. In Toronto, the city's movers and shakers gather at his home for concerts. People have drunkenly stumbled into his infinity pool.
Stewart's 18,000-square-foot home, named…
jdupuis | February 6, 2011I have a whole pile of science-y book reviews on two of my older blogs, here and here. Both of those blogs have now been largely superseded by or merged into this one. So I'm going to be slowly moving the relevant reviews over here. I'll mostly be doing the posts one or two per weekend and I'll occasionally be merging two or more shorter reviews into one post here.
This one, of The Quantum Ten: A Story of Passion, Tragedy, Ambition, and Science, is from November 19, 2008.
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Enough with the physics books, already! After a summer of more or less nothing but physics books, I should…
jdupuis | February 2, 2011Every year for the last few years I've collected lists of notable science books from various media sources. I certainly continued this tradition for books published in 2010! I can tell it's a very popular service from the hit stats I see for the blog and from the number of keyword searches on "science books 2010" or whatnot I see in the logs.
Last year I started taking all the lists and tallying up all the "votes" to see which are the most mentioned books from the year. An interesting exercise, to say the least! While the "winner" wasn't in any sense the best book of the year, it was…
jdupuis | January 30, 2011I have a whole pile of science-y book reviews on two of my older blogs, here and here. Both of those blogs have now been largely superseded by or merged into this one. So I'm going to be slowly moving the relevant reviews over here. I'll mostly be doing the posts one or two per weekend and I'll occasionally be merging two or more shorter reviews into one post here.
This one, of Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies, is from January 23, 2009.
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The first wave of social media books, like Wikinomics or even Here Comes Everybody, were of the "what the heck is…
jdupuis | January 29, 2011Another list for your reading, gift giving and collection development pleasure.
The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right by Atul Gawande
Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer
Requiem for a Species: Why We Resist the Truth about Climate Change by Clive Hamilton
Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void by Mary Roach
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
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…
jdupuis | January 27, 2011Another list for your reading, gift giving and collection development pleasure.
The World According to Monsanto by Marie-Monique Robin
The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of Elements by Sam Kean
Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet by Bill McKibben
Water: The Epic Struggle for Wealth, Power, and Civilization by Steven Solomon
Losing Our Cool: Uncomfortable Truths About Our Air-Conditioned World by Stan Cox
Four Fish: The Future of the Last Wild Food by Paul Greenberg
The Tiger: A True Story of Vengeance…
jdupuis | January 26, 2011Another list for your reading, gift giving and collection development pleasure.
Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation by Steven Johnson
Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age by Clay Shirky
What Technology Wants by Kevin Kelly
What's Mine Is Yours: The Rise of Collaborative Consumption by Rachel Botsman
I Live in the Future & Here's How It Works: Why Your World, Work, and Brain Are Being Creatively Disrupted by Nick Bilton
The Upside of Irrationality: The Unexpected Benefits of Defying Logic at Work and at Home by Dan Ariely
A Lab of My…
jdupuis | January 21, 2011Another bunch of lists for your reading, gift giving and collection development pleasure.
USA Today
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
Chicago Sun-Times
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
American Association for the Advancement of Science
The Hive Detectives: Chronicle of a Honey Bee Catastrophe by Loree Griffin Burns & Ellen Harasimowicz.
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot.
The Book of Potentially Catastrophic Science by Sean Connolly
I'm always looking for recommendations and notifications of book lists as they appear in…
jdupuis | January 20, 2011Another list for your reading, gift giving and collection development pleasure.
You Are Not a Gadget: A Manifesto by Jaron Lanier
Deadliest Sea: The Untold Story Behind the Greatest Rescue in Coast Guard History by Kalee Thompson
Lunatic Express: Discovering the World... Via Its Most Dangerous Buses, Boats, Trains and Planes by Carl Hoffman
Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void by Mary Roach
Come Up and Get Me: An Autobiography of Colonel Joseph Kittinger by Joe Kittinger and Craig Ryan
More Show Me How: Everything We Couldn't Fit in the First Book by Lauren Smith and…
jdupuis | January 19, 2011Yeah, I'm talking about you, #scio11. The conference that still has significant twitter traffic three days after it's over. I've been to conferences that don't have that kind of traffic while they're happening. In fact, that would be pretty well every other conference.
Every edition of ScienceOnline seems to have a different virtual theme for me and this one seemed to somehow circle back to the blogging focus on earlier editions of the conference. Of course, the program is so diverse and the company so stimulating, that different people will follow different conference paths and perhaps…
jdupuis | January 16, 2011I have a whole pile of science-y book reviews on two of my older blogs, here and here. Both of those blogs have now been largely superseded by or merged into this one. So I'm going to be slowly moving the relevant reviews over here. I'll mostly be doing the posts one or two per weekend and I'll occasionally be merging two or more shorter reviews into one post here.
This one, of Dreaming in Code: Two Dozen Programmers, Three Years, 4,732 Bugs, and One Quest for Transcendent Software, is from August 9, 2007.
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Every organization relies on software these days. Big custom systems,…
jdupuis | January 13, 2011Another bunch of lists for your reading, gift giving and collection development pleasure.
The Australian
Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer
The Independent
Bad Ideas?: An arresting history of our inventions: How Our Finest Inventions Nearly Finished Us Off by Robert M. L. Winston
Seeing Further: The Story of Science and the Royal Society: 350 Years of the Royal Society and Scientific Endeavour by Bill Bryson
January Magazine
Animal Factory: The Looming Threat of Industrial Pig, Dairy, and Poultry Farms to Humans and the Environment by David Kirby
Here's Looking at Euclid: A…
jdupuis | January 12, 2011Another list for your reading, gift giving and collection development pleasure.
The Grand Design by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow
Present At The Creation: The Story of CERN and the Large Hadron Collider by Amir Aczel
Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming by Erik M. Conway and Naomi Oreskes
Massive: The Missing Particle That Sparked the Greatest Hunt in Science by Ian Sample
Why Does E=mc2?: (And Why Should We Care?) by Brian Cox and Jeff Forshaw
I'm always looking for recommendations and notifications of book…