What's New in Science Books
Every week new books arrive at scibooks.org I can’t review them all, but I do try judge which ones might interest readers of popular science. Those books are listed below along with excerpts from their press releases. Some books are listed twice; once when the advance copy arrives and again when the final edition comes in.
Received during the week ended 5/9/08
The Jinn from Hyperspace: And Other Scribblings — Both Serious and Whimsical by Martin Gardner. Prometheus, $25.95, 307 pages. Publication date April 29. Gardner wrote Scientific American’s “Mathematical Games” model for years and is the author of many books, including Relativity Simply Explained.” This book is a collection of the author’s “elegant, witty, and highly intelligent” literary and scientific essays
Ensuring Greater Yellowstone’s Future: Choices for Leaders and Citizens by Susan G. Clark. Yale, $45, 320 pages. Publication date May 13. Clark is adjunct professor of Wildlife, Ecology and Policy Sciences at Yale and the author of several previous books, including Averting Extinction. From her experience in the Yellowstone region, Clark “looks at leadership and policy in managing natural resources ... [and] assesses accomplishments toward sustainability over the past forty years.”
Harpoon: Into the Heart of Whaling by Andrew Darby. Da Capo, $25,320 pages. Publication date May 15. The author reports on environmental issues and Antarctica for Australia’s Sydney Morning Herald. This is a story about whaling. “of human ingenuity and technology applied to unethical ends ... [and] a call to action to curtail this ecological destruction before it is too late.”
Tomorrow’s Table: Organic Farming, Genetics, and the Future of Food by Pamela C. Ronald and Raoul W. Adamchak. Oxford, $29.95, 208 pages. Publication date May 15. Ronald is professor of plant pathology at the University of California, Davis; Adamchak manages the university’s organic market garden. In this book, they “argue that a judicious blend of two important strands of agriculture -- genetic engineering an organic farming -- is key to helping feed the world’s growing population in an ecologically balanced manner.”
Received during the week ended 5/2/08
The Woman Who Can’t Forget: The Extraordinary Story of Living with the Most Remarkable Memory Known to Science — A Memoir by Jill Price (with Bart Davis) Free Press, $26, 263 pages. Publication date May 9. Price “is the first case of superior memory for autobiographical recall ...” In this book, she “narrates her quest to come to terms with her singular and astonishing abilities, which have often tormented her.”
Reinventing the Sacred: A New View of Science, Reason, and Religion by Stuart A. Kauffman. Basic Books, $27, 320 pages. Publication date May 12. Kauffman is a professor at the University of Calgary, an External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute, and the author of several previous books, including The Origins of Order. “Can societies really be explained by laws about people, which in turn can be explained by laws about organs, then cells, then biochemistry, chemistry, and particle physics?” They cannot, the author argues in this book.
The Murder of Nikolai Vavilov: The Story of Stalin’s Persecution of One of the Great Scientists of the Twentieth Century by Peter Pringle. Simon & Schuster, $26, 370 pages. Publication date May 13. Pringle is the author of several previous books, including the novel Day of the Dandelion. This the story of geneticists “battling bravely against powerful government zealots determined to discredit legitimate scientific inquiry.”
Now Available in Paperback
Mistakes Were Made (but not by me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts by Carol Tavris and Elliott Aronson. Harcourt; hardback published in 2007, paperback now available for $15; 304 pages. Publication date May 5.
Why Beauty Is Truth: A History of Symmetry by Ian Stewart. Basic Books; hardback published in 2007, paperback now available for $16.95; 291 pages. Publication date May 5.
Einstein: His Life and Universe by Walter Isaacson. Simon & Schuster; hardback published in 2007, paperback now available for $17.95; 675 pages. Publication date May 13.
Late Arrivals
Energy, Environment, and Climate by Richard Wolfson. W.W. Norton paperback original, $84.38, 532 pages. Publication date March.
Received during the week ended 4/25/08
The Coming Convergence: The Surprising Ways Diverse Technologies Interact to Shape Our World and Change the Future by Stanley Schmidt. Prometheus, $27.95, 275 pages. Publication date April 15. Schmidt is a physicist, editor of a respected science fiction magazine, and the author of several books of fiction and nonfiction. In this book, “He shows how past convergences have led to today’s world, then considers tomorrow’s main currents in biotechnology, cognitive science, information technology, and nanotechnology.”
Emergence: Contemporary Readings in Philosophy and Science edited by Mark A. Bedau and Paul Humphreys. MIT Press paperback original, $40, 480 pages. Publication date April 28. Bedau is a professor at Reed College; Humphreys is a professor of philosophy at the University of Virginia. “... the idea of emergence offers a way to understand a wide variety of complex phenomena in ways that are intriguingly different from more traditional approaches.”
Thousand Mile Song: Whale Music in a Sea of Sound by David Rothenberg. Basic Books, $27.50, 287 pages. Publication date May 5. Rothenberg is professor of philosophy and music at the New Jersey Institute of Technology and the author of Why Birds Sing. This book “is a majestic and enlightening voyage into the great mystery of whale song ...”
Microcosm: E. coli and the New Science of Life by Carl Zimmer. Pantheon, $25.95, 244 pages. Publication date May 6. Zimmer is an award-winning science writer and the author of five previous books, including Evolution. “From altruism to death, genetic destiny versus individualism and the possibility of life beyond our planet, E. coli can answer many of our deepest questions about existence.”
The Man Who Loved China: The Fantastic Story of the Eccentric Scientist Who Unlocked the Mysteries of the Middle Kingdom by Simon Winchester. HarperCollins, $27.95, 315 pages. Publication date May. Winchester is the author of numerous books, including The Professor and the Madman. This book tells the tory of Joseph Needham who “embarked on a series of extraordinary expeditions ... and ultimately created one of the twentieth century’s most monumental works of scholarship -- the twenty-four volume masterpiece Science and Civilization in China.
Now Available in Paperback
The Canon: A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science by Natalie Angier. Houghton Mifflin; hardback published in 2007, paperback now available for $15.95; 304 pages. Publication date April
Received during the week ended 4/18/08
Kluge: The Haphazard Construction of the Human Mind by Gary Marcus. Houghton Mifflin, $24, 224 pages. Publication date April 16. Marcus is professor of psychology at New York University and the author of The Birth of the Mind. “Arguing against a whole tradition that praises our human brain as the most perfect result of evolution, Marcus shows how ill adapted this organ really is.”
Lost Worlds: Adventures in the Tropical Rainforest by Bruce M. Beehler. Yale, $28, 272 pages. Publication date April 22. Beehler is vice president of Conservation International and the author of three previous books, including A Naturalist in New Guinea. “Beehler, a widely traveled expert on birds and tropical ecology, recounts fascination details from twelve field trips he has taken to the tropics over the past three decades.”
Beyond Revenge: The Evolution of the Forgiveness Instinct by Michael McCullough. Jossey-Bass, $24.95, 282 pages. Advance reading copy. Publication date April. McCullough is professor of psychology at the University of Miami and the author of several previous books, including The Psychology of Gratitude. Here, he argues that “natural selection created our penchant for revenge because it helped our ancestors solve social dilemmas they encountered ...”
God, the Failed Hypothesis: How Science Shows That God Does Not Exist by Victor J. Stenger. Prometheus paperback, $17.95, 302 pages. Publication date April. Stenger is professor emeritus of physics and astronomy at the University of Hawaii and the author of several books, including Has Science Found God? In this book, he “concludes that beyond a reasonable doubt the universe and life appear exactly as we might expect if there were no God.”
Now Available in Paperback
It’s a Jungle Up There: More Tales from the Treetops by Margaret D. Lowman, Edward Burgess, and James Burgess. Yale; hardback published in 2006, paperback now available for $18; 320 pages. Publication date May 20.
Received during the week ended 4/11/08
What Is Life? Investigating the Nature of Life in the Age of Synthetic Biology by Ed Regis. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $22, 198 pages. Publication date April 9. Regis is a science writer and the author of several books, including The Biology of Doom. Paying tribute to Schrödinger’s original book, ... Regis offers a new perspective on ... what the concept of life actually means.”
Lifting Depression: A Neuroscientist’s Hands-On Approach to Activating Your Brain’s Healing Power by Kelly Lambert. Basic Books, $26, 289 pages, Advance reading copy. Publication date April 14. Lambert is a professor of psychology at Randolph-Macon College and the coauthor of Clinical Neuroscience. “Offering an alternative [physical activities] to costly and often risky medication Lifting Depression will change the way we think about mental and physical health.”
The Future of the Internet — And How to Stop It by Jonathan Zittrain. Yale, $30, 342 pages. Publication date April 14. The author holds the Chair in Internet Governance and Regulation at Oxford University. “We must recognize that an utterly open Internet does not mean freedom if it becomes so dangerous that we retreat to gated communities.”
Grand Theft Childhood: The Surprising Truth About Violent Video Games and What Parents Can Do by Lawrence Kutner and Cheryl K. Olson. Simon & Schuster, $25, 260 pages. Publication date April 15. The authors are directors of the Center for Mental Health and Media at Massachusetts General Hospital and are on the faculty at Harvard medical School. In this book, they conclude, “It’s clear that the ‘big fears’ bandied about in the press — that violent video games make children significantly more violent in the real world ... are not supported by the current research ...”
Now Available in Paperback
Coming to Life: How Genes Drive Development by Christiane Nüsslein Volhard. Kale Press; Hardback published in 2006, paperback now available for $17.95, 176 pages. Publication date April.
Science and Nonbelief by Taner Edis. Prometheus; hardback published in 2005, paperback now available for $18.95; 285 pages. Publication date April 8.
Received during the week ended 4/4/08
Group Theory in the Bedroom, and Other Mathematical Diversions by Brian Hayes. Hill & Wang, $25, 270 pages. Publication date April 8. Hayes writes the “Computing Science” column for American Scientist magazine and is the author of Infrastructure. In this book, he “uses computing and mathematics to explore everything from the deadly serious (war and peace) to the utterly frivolous (the mathematics of mattress flipping).”
Head cases: Stories of Brain Injury and Its Aftermath by Michael Paul Mason. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $25, 310 pages. Publication date April 8. The author was a brain injury case manager for the Neurologic Rehabilitation Institute at Brookhaven Hospital. He collected these stories “in an effort to help survivors of severe traumatic brain injury find appropriate treatment.”
The Ten Most Beautiful Experiments: by George Johnson. Knopf, $22, 208 pages. Publication date April 8. Johnson writes about science for many publications and is the author of four previous books, including Fire in the Mind. This book tells the stories behind “the ten most fascinating experiments in the history of science...”
Now Available in Paperback
To Die Well: Your Right to Comfort, Calm, and Choice in the Last Days of Life by Sidney Wanzer and Joseph Glenmullen. Da Capo; hardback published in 2007, paper back now available for $15; 209 pages. Publication date March 15.
The Economic Naturalist: In Search of Explanations for Everyday Enigmas by Robert H. Frank. Basic Books; hardback published in 2007, paperback now available for $14.95; 227 pages. Publication date April 14.
Late Arrivals
Earth Science: Decade by Decade by Christina Reed. Facts On File, $49.50, 364 pages. Publication date March.
Received during the week ended 3/28/08
No More Joint Pain by Joseph A. and Soo Kim Abboud. Yale, $27, 288 pages. Publication date March 31. The authors are physicians at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. This book “offers a frank discussion of common medications and how they work; when you should have surgery and when you should forgo it; as well as alternative therapies.”
Blood Matters: From Inherited Illnesses to Designer Babies, How the World and I Found Ourselves in the Future of the Gene by Masha Gessen. Harcourt, $25, 336 Pages. Publication date April 1. Gessen is a journalist and the author of two previous books, including Dead Again: The Russian Intelligentsia After Communism. “[G]enetic testing revealed that Masha Gessen had a mutation that predisposed her to ovarian and breast cancer.” This book “is a much-needed field guide to this unfamiliar and unsettling territory.”
Do No Harm: How a Magic Bullet for Prostate Cancer Became a Medical Quandary by Stewart Justin. Ivan R. Dee, Pub.; $26; 236 pages. Publication date April 4. Justin teaches English at the University of Montana and is the author of several previous books, including Seeds of Mortality. This “is a tale about the reception for a promising new drug [finasteride for prostate cancer] by a skeptical medical community...”
The Hot Topic: What We Can Do About Global Warming by Gabrielle Walker and Sir David King, Harvest Paperback Original. $13, 256 pages. Publication date April 7 Walker is the author of Ocean of Air; King was the United Kingdom’s chief science adviser. The authors “lay out the science behind the [global warming] problem, and the technological, political, and personal solutions that can help address it.”
The Music of Pythagoras: How an Ancient Brotherhood Cracked the Code of the Universe and Lit the Path from Antiquity to Outer Space by Kitty Ferguson. Walker, $26.95, 368 pages. Publication date April 22. Ferguson is the author of four previous books, including Tycho & Kepler. This book “shows how Pythagorus’ ideas spread in antiquity, and chronicles the remarkable influence he and his followers have had on ... Western thought and science.”
Now Available in Paperback
Newton on the Tee: A Good Walk Through the Science of Golf by John Zumerchik. Simon & Schuster; hardback published in 2002, paperback now available for $14; 240 pages. Publication date April 15.
Received during the week ended 3/21/08
Our Daily Meds: How the Pharmaceutical Companies Transformed Themselves into Slick Marketing Machine and Hooked the Nation on Prescription Drugs by Melody Petersen, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $25, 409 pages. Advance reading copy. Publication date March 26. The author covered the pharmaceutical beat for the New York Times for four years. This book “is a devastating look at how and industry that once promised hope for patients ...has been transformed into a marketing-driven monolith ... making executives, doctors, and stockholders wealthy, sometimes at the cost of patients’ health.”
The Bridge at the End of the World: Capitalism, the Environment, and Crossing from Crisis to Sustainability by James Gustave Speth. Yale, $28, 295 pages. Publication date March 28. Speth is dean of the School of Forestry and Environmental studies at Yale and the author of several books, including Red Sky at Morning. In this book, “he’s marshaled formidable evidence that American-style consumer capitalism ... is incompatible with maintaining quality of life for all of us.”
A Portrait of the Brain by Adam Zeman. Yale, $27.50, 256 pages. Publication date March 31. Zeman is professor of cognitive and behavioral neurology at Peninsula Medical School and the author of Consciousness. This book “takes us to the very frontiers of current scientific knowledge and elucidates the working of the brain in astonishing detail."
When Science Goes Wrong: Twelve Tales from the Dark Side of Discovery by Simon LeVay. Plume paperback original, $15, 304 pages. Publication date March 25. LeVay is a neuroscientist and the author several books, including The Sexual Brain. Among other reasons, science can go wrong because of “...pressure to obtain results, and even fraud.” This book “provides a compelling glimpse into human ambition in scientific pursuit.” Advance reading copy previewed here on 3/14/08.
Big Brain: The Origins and Future of Human Intelligence by Gary Lynch and Richard Granger. Palgrave Macmillan, $26.95, 249 pages. Publication date March 4. Lynch is a professor at the University of California, Irvine; Granger is a professor at Dartmouth. In this book, the two neuroscientists “explain: the stunning evolution of the human brain, language function, memory, and learning, and what the significance of a giant brain is.” Advance reading copy previewed here on 2/29/08.
Received during the week ended 3/14/08
Bastard Tongues: A Trailblazing Linguist Finds Clues to Our Common Humanity in the World’s Lowliest Languages by Derek Bickerton. Hill & Wang, $26, 270 pages. Publication date March 11. Bickerton is a professor emeritus of linguistics at the University of Hawaii and the author of several books, including Roots of Language. This book tells “an exciting firsthand study of ... what language is, how it works, how it passes from generation to generation, even in places where historical accidents have made normal transmission almost impossible.”
The Great Warming: Climate Change and the Rise and fall of Civilizations by Brian Fagan.. Bloomsbury, $26.95, 282 pages. Publication date March 11. The author is emeritus professor of anthropology at University of California, Santa Barbara, and the author of several books, including Fish on Friday. This book tells the “story of climate change between the 10th and 15th centuries ... [and argues] that drought, often ignored by climate commentators, is actually the hidden, most dangerous element in today’s global warming.”
When Science Goes Wrong: Twelve Tales from the Dark Side of Discovery by Simon LeVay. Plume paperback original, $15, 304 pages. Advance reading copy. Publication date March 25. LeVay is a neuroscientist and the author several books, including The Sexual Brain. Among other reasons, science can go wrong because of “...pressure to obtain results, and even fraud.” This book “provides a compelling glimpse into human ambition in scientific pursuit.”
Now Available in Paperback
Survival of the Sickest: The Surprising Connections Between Disease and Longevity by Sharon Moalem (with Jonathan Prince). Harper Perennial Paperback; hardback published in 2007, paperback now available for $13.95; 283 pages. Publication date March 18. Moalem is a physiologist and student at Mount Sinai School of Medicine; Prince was a speechwriter and advisor to President Clinton. This book “answers the riddles behind many diseases ... starting with the biggest riddle of them all: If natural selection is supposed to get rid of harmful genetic traits, why are there so many hereditary diseases in the first place?”
The Future of Everything: The Science of Prediction by Davis Orrell. Thunder’s Mouth Press; hardback published in 2007, paperback now available for $18.95; 449 pages. Publication date March. Orrell was educated as a mathematician; he is the author of The Other Side of the Coin. This “may be the first book to explain why next week’s weather forecast is less accurate than your average horoscope reading.”
Received during the week ended 3/7/08
Welcome To Your Brain: Why You Lose Your Car Keys But Never Forget How to Drive and Other Puzzles of Everyday Life by Sandra Aamodt and Sam Wang. Bloomsbury, $24.95, 240 pages. Publication date March 11. Aamodt is editor-in-chief of Nature Neuroscience; Wang is a professor of neuroscience at Princeton. This book is “a fun and enlightening tour of your brain filled with truths to widely held myths, practical tips to help you use your brain better, and plenty of ‘did you knows’ that will come in handy at any cocktail party.”
Earth: The Sequel by Fred Krupp and Miriam Horn. W.W. Norton, $24.95, 256 pages. Advance reading copy. Publication date March. Krupp is president of Environmental Defense Fund; Horn is a journalist. Here, the authors “journey around the globe to discover he innovators with the potential to recast the future of our planet — environmentally and economically.”
Life as It Is: Biology for the Public Sphere by William F. Loomis. University of California, $24.95, 272 pages. Publication date March. The author is professor of biology at the University of California, San Diego. “He reviews recent insights into molecular and human evolution, the role of DNA sequences in determining traits, and the biological basis for consciousness ...”
Amazon Expeditions: My Quest for the Ice-Age Equator by Paul Colinvaux. Yale, $32.50, 328 pages. Publication date March 3. The author is senior research scientist at the Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, and professor emeritus at The Ohio State University. “The story of how Paul Colinvaux arrived at a new understanding of the Amazon is at once an adventurous saga, a stunning memoir, and a cautionary tale about the temptation to treat a favored hypothesis with a reverence that subverts unbiased research.”
Riding the Waves: A Life in Sound, Science, and Industry by Leo Beranek. The MIT Press, $24.95, 335 pages. Publication date March 4. The author is a pioneer in acoustical research. “Known for his work in noise control and concert acoustics, Beranek devised the world’s largest muffler to quiet jet noise and served as acoustical consultant to concert halls around the world ...”
Now Available in Paperback
Darwin’s Origin of Species: A Biography by Janet Browne. Grove; hardback published in 2007, paperback now available for $13; 192 pages. Publication date March.
Received during the week ended 2/29/08
Sizwe’s Test: A Young Man’s Journey through Africa’s AIDS Epidemic by Jonny Steinberg. Simon & Schuster, $26, 349 pages. Publication date February 12. Steinberg is a South African journalist and the author to two previous books, including The Number. This book “reveals a powerful true story of superstition, stigma, and the overwhelming cultural gap at the center of Africa’s AIDS crisis.”
What Bugged the Dinosaurs? Insects, Disease, and Death in the Cretaceous by George Poinar, Jr. and Roberta Poinar. Princeton $29.95, 312 pages. Publication date February 13. The Poinars are scientists and coauthors of two previous books,, including The Amber Forest Here, they “make a compelling case for disease-carrying insects as the cause for dinosaur extinction ...”
Native Ferns, Moss, and Grasses by William Cullina. Houghton Mifflin, $40, 256 pages. Publication date February 19. Cullina is director of horticultural research of the New England Wildflower Society and the author of several other books, including Understanding Orchids. In this book, he “brings a witty, playful approach to those plants often though of as mere background ...””
From Rainforest to Cane Field in Cuba: An Environmental History since 1492 by Reinaldo Funes Monzote, translated by Alex Martin. University of North Carolina Press; hardback $65, paperback $24.95; 384 pages. Publication date March 3. The author is associate professor of history at the University of Havana. Here, he “emphasizes the two processes that have had the most dramatic impact on the island’s landscape: deforestation and sugar cultivation.”
Big Brain: The Origins and Future of Human Intelligence by Gary Lynch and Richard Granger. Palgrave Macmillan, $26.95, 249 pages. Advance reading copy. Publication date March 4. Lynch is a professor at the University of California, Irvine; Granger is a professor at Dartmouth. In this book, the two neuroscientists “explain: the stunning evolution of the human brain, language function, memory, and learning, and what the significance of a giant brain is.”
Now Available in Paperback
Storm Warning: The Story of a Killer Tornado by Nancy Mathis. Touchstone; hardback published in 2007, paperback now available for $14; 256 pages Publication date March 4.
Late Arrivals
The Firecracker Boys: H-Bombs, Inupiat Eskimos, and the Roots of the Environmental Movement by Dan O'Neill. Basic Books, this paperback is a revised edition of the hardback published in 1994; $16.95, 418 pages. Publication date November 2007.
Received during the week ended 2/15/08
How to Fossilize Your Hamster: And Other Amazing Experiments for the Armchair Scientist by Mick O’Hare. Holt paperback original, $14, 240 pages. Publication date February 4. The author is the editor of two previous books, including Why Don’t Penguin’s Feet Freeze? “Observing everything from the unusual chemical reaction between Mentos and cola that provokes a geyser to the geological conditions necessary to preserve a family pet for eternity [this book] is fun, hands-on science ...”
Comfortably Numb: How Psychiatry Is Medicating a Nation by Charles Barber. Pantheon, $26, 282 pages. Publication date February 5. Barber is a lecturer in psychiatry at Yale University School of Medicine and the author of Songs from the Black Chair. “Barber reveals how America’s belief that drugs are the ultimate answer to our emotional difficulties is dangerously misguided and disturbingly ignores those who are in desperate need of effective treatment options.”
Physics for Entertainment by Yakov Perelman. Hyperion, $18.95, 332 pages. Publication date February 12. Perelman (1882-1942) was the author of many popular science books. This one is a reissue of his best seller first published in the 1930s. In this book, he “uses examples from literary giants as well as great scientists to examine both the wonder and the found in everyday life.”
The Age of American Unreason by Susan Jacoby. Pantheon, $26, 362 pages. Publication date February 12. Jacoby is the author of several previous books, including Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism. This book is her “provocative and erudite analysis of the anti-rationalism and anti-intellectualism that increasingly characterize American cultural life and corrupt the nation’s electoral process.”
Now Available in Paperback
Quantum Physics and Theology: An Unexpected Kinship by John Polkinghorne. Yale; hardback published in 2007, paperback now available for $15; Publication date February 19.
Received during the week ended 2/1/08
Coal River by Michael Shnayerson. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $25, 321 pages. Publication date January 15. Shnayerson is the author of two previous books, one of which is The Killers Within. This book tells the story of West Virginia activists and attorneys who are trying to save their homes and communities by fighting the coal-mining technique of mountaintop removal.
Your Inner Fish: A Journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body by Neil Shubin. Pantheon, $24, 240 pages. Publication date January 15. The author is a professor of anatomy at the University of Chicago. This book “tells the story of evolution by tracing the organs of the human body back millions of years, long before the first creatures walked the earth.”
Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World by Dan Koeppel. Hudson Street Press, $23.95, 281 pages. Publication date January. Koeppel is the author of To See Every Bird on Earth. A spreading blight is threatening the banana. This book gives “a fascinating look at the intersection of food and science.”
The Soul of the Rhino: A Nepali Adventure with Kings and Elephant Drivers, Billionaires and Bureaucrats, Shamans and Scientists, and the Indian Rhinoceros by Hemanta Mishra. Lyons Press, $24.95, 228 pages. Advance reading copy. Publication date January. The author is a conservationist who is trying to save the endangered one-horned Asian rhino from extinction.
Now Available in Paperback
Unstrange Minds: Remapping the World of Autism by Roy Richard Grinker. Basic Books; hardback published in 2007, paperback now available for $15.95; 340 pages. Publication date February 4.
Received during the week ended 1/25/08
101 Funny Things About Global Warming by Sidney Harris and colleagues. Bloomsbury, $15.95, 128 pages. Publication date January 6. Cartoons from a distinguished science cartoonist.
A Force of Nature: The Frontier Genius of Ernest Rutherford. by Richard Reeves. W.W. Norton, $23.95, 207 pages. Publication date January 7. Reeves is a lecturer at the Annenberg School of Communication at the University of Southern California and the author of several previous books, including President Nixon: Alone in the White House. In this biography of Ernest Rutherford, the author “seamlessly weaves Rutherford’s personal story with a lucid account of his enormous achievements in physics ...”
Grave Secrets of Dinosaurs: Soft Tissues and Hard Science by Phillip Manning. National Geographic,$28, 316 pages. Publication date January 8. The author (no relation) is a paleontologist and fossil hunter. In this book, Manning tells the story of how scientists “embarked on an extraordinary project to excavate, preserve and analyze” the remains of a dinosaur that included “some soft tissues like skin, tendons and ligaments.”
This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War by Drew Gilpin Faust. Knopf, $27.95, 368 pages. Advance reading copy. Publication date January 10. Faust is the president of Harvard University and the author of five previous books, including Mothers of Invention. This book is a “fascinating study of the American struggle to comprehend the meaning and practicalities of death in the face of the unprecedented carnage of the Civil War.”
Now Available in Paperback
The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins. Mariner Books; hardback published in 2006, paperback now available for $15.95; 464 pages. Publication date January 16.
Late Arrivals
Ebb and Flow: Tides and Life on Our Once and Future Planet by Tom Koppel. Dundurn paperback original, $26.99, 296 pages. Publication date September 15, 2007.
Received during the week ended 1/11/08
The Telephone Gambit: Chasing Alexander Graham Bell’s Secret by Seth Shulman. Norton, $24.95, 256 pages. Publication date January. Shulman is a science journalist and the author of several books, including Unlocking the Sky. In this book, he contends that “[Alexander Graham] Bell furtively -- and illegally -- copied part of Elisha Gray’s invention in the race to secure what would become the most valuable U.S. patent ever issued.”
Intern: A Doctor’s Initiation by Sandeep Jauhar. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $25, 299 pages. Publication date January 2. The author is the director of the Heart Failure Program at Long Island Jewish Medical Center. This book “chronicles the first year of [the author’s] medical residency, the legendarily brutal apprenticeship that many doctors consider the most trying time of their professional lives.”
Irreligion: A Mathematician Explains Why the Arguments for God Just Don’t Add Up by John Allen Paulos. Hill and Wang, $20, 158 pages. Publication date January 3. Paulos is a professor of mathematics at Temple University and the author of several books, including Innumeracy. In this book, using logic and probability,“he refutes twelve of the most popular arguments for God ...”
How To Build a Robot Army: Tips on Defending the Planet Against Alien Invaders, Ninjas, and Zombies by Daniel H. Wilson. Bloomsbury paperback original, $13.95, 176 pages. Publication date January 5. Wilson is the author of two previous books, including How to Survive a Robot Uprising. How can humans survive “the coming apocalypse? ... we need to harness the power of robots...”
Late Arrivals
Fight Global Warming Now: The Handbook for Taking Action in Your Community by Bill McKibben and the Step It Up Team. Henry Holt paperback original, $13, 224 pages. Advance reading copy. Publication date November 2007.
Received during the week ended 1/4/08
Stephen Hawking: A Biography by Kristine Larsen. Prometheus paperback original, $16.95, 215 Pages. Publication date December 11. Larsen is a physics professor at Central Connecticut State University and the author of Cosmology 101. This biography “presents a candid and insightful portrait of Hawking’s personal and professional life.”
The Handbook of Science and Technology Studies, third edition edited by Edward J. Hackett, Olga Amsterdamska, Michael Lynch and Judy Wajcman. MIT Press, $55, 1080 pages. Publication date December 17. This book “provides a comprehensive and authoritative overview of the field, reviewing current research and major theoretical and methodological approaches.”
The Living Cosmos: Our Search for Life in the Universe by Chris Impey. Random House, $27.95, 416 pages. Publication date December 11. The author is an astronomy professor at the University of Arizona. This book explores the foundations of this rapidly developing discipline [astrobiology], where it’s going and what it’s likely to find.
Elizabeth Blackburn and the Story of Telomeres: Deciphering the Ends of DNA by Catherine Brady. MIT Press, $29.95, 392 pages. Publication date December 20. Brady is an assistant professor in the MFA in Writing Program at the University of San Francisco and the author of two collections of short stories. This book is a biography of the scientist who predicted the existence of and discovered the enzyme telomerase.
Drugs and Justice: Seeking a Consistent, Coherent, Comprehensive View by Margaret P. Battin, Erik Luna, Arthur G. Lipman, Paul M. Gahlinger. Douglas E. Rollins, Jeanette C. Roberts, and Troy L. Booher. Oxford paperback original, $21.95, 312 pages. Publication date December. Battin and her contributors lay a foundation for a wiser drug policy by promoting consistency and coherency in the discussion of drug issues and by encouraging a unique dialog across disciplines.”
Late Arrivals
The Living End: The Future of Death, Aging and Immortality by Guy Brown. Macmillan, $24.95, 288 pages. Publication date November.
Now Available in Paperback
The Origins of the Future: Ten Questions for the Next Ten Years by John Gribbin. Yale University Press; hardback published in 2006, paperback now available for $17; 320 pages. Publication date December 18.
Received during the week ended 12/14/07
Stem Cell Century: Law and Policy for a Breakthrough Technology by Russell Korobkin with Stephen R. Munzer. Yale, $29.95, 336 pages. Publication date November 28. The lead author is professor of law at the UCLA Law School. This book “provides the first thorough analysis of the unsettled legal and policy issues surrounding stem cell science.”
The Secret Pulse of Time: Making Sense of Life’s Scarcest Commodity by Stefan Klein. Marlowe & Company, $25, 368 pages. Publication date November 15. Klein is a Berlin-based science journalist and the author of The Science of Happiness. Here, he “explores the hidden dimensions of time -- the phenomena that can’t be reduced and hours -- and demonstrates how we can better learn to master time.”
A Short History of Medicine by F. Gonzalez-Crussi. The Modern Library, 424.95, 250 pages. Publication date November. Gonzalez-Crussi is professor emeritus of psychology at Northwestern and the author of two previous books, including Suspended Animation. “Insightful, informed, and at time controversial in its conclusions [this book] offers an exceptional introduction to the major and many minor facets of its subject.”
Dragon Sea: A True Tale of Treasure, Archeology, and Greed Off the Coast of Vietnam. Harvest Paperback original, $14, 368 pages. Publication date December 1. The author is diver who works on underwater expeditions. This book “delivers an engrossing tale of danger, adventure, and ambition -- a fascinating lesson in what happens when scholarship and join forces to recover a lost treasure.”
Now Available in Paperback
The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog: And Other Stories from a Child Psychiatrist’s Notebook by Bruce D. Perry and Maia Szalavitz. Basic Books; originally published in 2007, paperback now available for $15.95; 275 pages. Publication date January 1.
Received during the week ended 12/7/07
The Human, the Orchid, and the Octopus by Jacques Cousteau and Susan Schiefelbein. Bloomsbury, $25.95, 320 pages. Advance reading copy. Publication date November. Cousteau was a well known ocean explorer, film maker, and the author of numerous books, including The Silent World. His coauthor is a journalist who worked with Cousteau for years. In this book, “Cousteau relates the early experiences that developed his boundless curiosity and penchant for exploration as well as some of the perilous escapades of his long, exciting life.”
Einstein Adds a New Dimension by Joy Hakim. Smithsonian Books, $27.95, 468 pages. Publication date November. Hakim is the author of several books, including the 10-volume series A History of Us. This lavishly illustrated book is one in the author’s multivolume series of science books intended for young readers.
Babies by Design: Can We Use Genetic Choice to Make a Better World? by Ronald M. Green. Yale $26, 288 pages. Publication date November 28. The author is a professor and and director of the Ethics Institute at Dartmouth College. Here, he “argues that humans will and indeed should undertake the direction of our own evolution.”
Late Arrivals
Your Brain Is (Almost) Perfect: How We Make Decisions by Read Montague. Plume; hardback previously published as Why Choose This Book? -- paperback now available for $15; 335 pages. Publication date September 25.
When the Earth Moves: Rogue Earthquakes, Tremors, and Aftershocks by Patricia Barnes-Svarney. Thunder’s Mouth Press paperback, $15.95, 272 pages. Publication date October.
Received during the week ended 11/30//07
Energy Victory: Winning the War on Terror by Breaking Free of Oil by Robert Zubrin. Prometheus, $25.95, 336 pages. Publication date November 20. Zubrin is the author of several books of fiction and nonfiction, including The Case for Mars. In this book, he “shows how we could be using fuel dollars that are now being sent to countries with ties to terrorism to help farmers here and abroad, booting our own economy and funding world development.”
Terra: Our 100-Million-Year-Old Ecosystem — and the Threats That Now Put It at Risk by Michael Novacek. Farrar, Sraus & Giroux, $27, 451 pages. Publication date November 20. Novacek is Senior Vice President and Provost of Science at the American Museum of Natural History and the author of several previous books, including Time Traveler. Here, he argues that “the natural world is experiencing a mass extinction comparable to the prehistoric ones ... and this has dire implications for the future of all species, including our own.”
What Is Emotion? by Jerome Kagan. Yale, $27.50, 288 pages. Publication date November 26. Kagan is professor emeritus of psychology at Harvard and the author of numerous books, including An Argument for Mind. This book “examines what exactly we do know about emotions ... and how scientific study must proceed if we are to uncover the answers to persistent and evasive questions about emotions.”
Received during the week ended 11/23//07
Augie’s Quest: One Man’s Journey from Success to Significance by Augie Nieto and T.R. Pearson. Bloomsbury, $21, 205 pages. Publication date November 13. Nieto is co-chair of the ALS division of the Muscular Dystrophy Association; Pearson is the author of numerous books and screenplays. In 2005, Nieto was diagnosed with ALS, aka Lou Gehrig’s disease. Working with the MDA, he began a cure-driven initiative, which “combines fund raising and research in a business model that is both nimble and efficient....”
The Joy of Physics by Arthur W. Wiggins. Prometheus, $26.95, 390 pages. Publication date November 13. Wiggins is a professor emeritus of physics at Oakland Community College and the coauthor of three previous books, including The Five Biggest Ideas in Science. “Easy, practical experiments pepper the book and connect the ideas of physics with the reality of the universe.”
The Dirt on Clean: An Unsanitized History by Katherine Ashenburg. North Point Press, $24, 356 pages. Publication date November 15. Ashenburg is the author of two previous books, including The Mourner’s Dance. Here, she “reveals how cleanliness, or the lack of it, is in fact intimately connected to ideas as large as spirituality and sexuality and historical events that include plagues, the Civil War, and the discovery of germs.”
The American Chestnut: The Life, Death, and Rebirth of a Perfect Tree by Susan Freinkel. University of California Press, $27.50, 294 pages. Publication date November 19. The author is a freelance science journalist. The chestnut blight wiped this common and beloved tree in the 20th century. This book “tells the story of a stubborn band of optimists who have refused to let this cultural icon go.”
Now Available in Paperback
Minding the Body, Mending the Mind by Joan Borysenko. This Da Capo paperback is a revised edition of a book published 20 years ago, $16.95, 258 pages. Publication date November 15.
Late Arrivals
Dr. Bernstein’s Diabetes Solution by Richard K. Bernstein. Little, Brown; $29.99, 521 pages. Publication date March 22.
Received during the week ended 11/16//07
The Genetic Strand: Exploring a Family History Through DNA by Edward Ball. Simon & Schuster, $25, 265 pages. Publication date November 6. Ball is the author of three previous books, including Slaves in the Family, which won the 1998 National Book Award. In this book, the author uses “DNA testing to pinpoint where his proudly white forebears may have intermingled with other races, and in the process demonstrates how this breakthrough science has the potential to reshape everyone’s family tree.”
Atoms, Molecules, and Compounds by Phillip Manning. Chelsea House, $35, 144 pages. Publication date November 15. This book is aimed at high school students and college freshmen who are interested in learning some serious chemistry. The author, while relatively undistinguished, is a favorite of mine.
Love and Sex With Robots: The Evolution of Human-Robot Relationships by David Levy. HarperCollins, $24.95, 352 pages. Publication date November 6. Levy is the author of Robots Unlimited. “Levy explores how the human-robot relationship develops in this groundbreaking look at how, through the progression of technology, emotional and physical relationships with artificial intelligence is more likely to take place and flourish.”
Wooden Books is Walker & Company’s series of “introductions to timeless sciences and vanishing arts .... Recreating the essence of medieval texts through elegant designs and writing, they are invaluable sources of information and inspiration.” What follows is the latest in this series of small books, each of which sells for $10 and is 64 pages long. Publication date November 6.
Islamic Design: A Genius for Geometry by Daud Sutton
The Mayan and Other Ancient Calendars by Geoff Stray
Perspective and Other Optical Illusions by Phoebe McNaughton
Late Arrivals
Dinosaurs: The Most Complete, Up-to-Date Encyclopedia for Dinosaur Lovers of All Ages by Thomas R. Holtz, Jr., with illustrations by Luis V. Rey. Random House, $34.99, 432 pages. Publication date October 23.
Where We Stand: A Surprising Look at the Real State of Our Planet by Seymour Garte. Amacom Books, $24.95, 320 pages. Publication date October 9.
The Secret History of the War on Cancer by Devra Davis. Basic Books, $27.95, 304 pages. Publication date October 1.
Received during the week ended 11/9//07
The Science of Leonardo by Fritjof Capra. Doubleday, $26, 329 pages. Publication date October 30. Capra is a physicist and the author of four previous books, including The Tao of Physics. The author discusses Leonardo’s science from the point of view of “its essential nature — a holistic science of organic forms undergoing constant transformation.”
Objectivity by Lorraine Daston and Peter Galison. Zone Books, $38.95, 502 pages. Publication date October 31. Daston is director of the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science; Galison is a professor of the history of science at Harvard. The authors recount the emergence of objectivity in science, which they contend began in the late nineteenth century. Before that, “the idea had been prized over the actual....”
The Archimedes Codex: How a Medieval Prayer Book Is Revealing the True Genius of Antiquity’s Greatest Scientist by Reviel Netz and William Noel. Da Capo, $27.50, 312 pages. Publication date November 1. Netz is a professor of Classics and Philosophy at Stanford; his coauthor is director of the Archimedes Palimpsest Project. A recently discovered medieval prayer book was written over an earlier text, which turned out to be “the lost works of Archimedes — the greatest mathematician of antiquity.” This is the story of how the prayer book was found and what it contains.
Proust Was a Neuroscientist by Jonah Lehrer. Houghton Mifflin, $24, 224 pages. Publication date November 1. The author is a science journalist. This book is a “sparkling and original blend of biography, criticism, and first-rate science writing arguing that science is not the only path to knowledge.”
Received during the week ended 11/2//07
Earth on Fire: How Global Warming Is Changing the World by Gary Braasch. University of California Press, $34.95, 295 pages. Publication date October 15. Braasch is a photojournalist and the author of Photographing the Patterns of Nature. “In more that one hundred illustrations, including before-and-after photographs, Braasch records communities, landscapes, and animals at risk because of receding glaciers, eroding coastlines, rising sea levels, and thawing permafrost.”
The Toothpick: Technology and Culture by Henry Petroski. Knopf, $27.95, 443 pages. Publication date October 16. Petroski is a professor of civil engineering at Duke and the author of numerous books, including The Pencil. “As old as mankind and as universal as eating, this useful and ubiquitous tool finally gets its due ....”
The Haunted Observatory: Curiosities from the Astronomer’s Cabinet by Richard Baum. Prometheus, $28, 416 pages. Publication date October 23. Baum is director emeritus of British Astronomical Association and coauthor of In Search of Planet Vulcan. This book ”vividly conveys the romance of astronomy at a time when the vistas of outer space were a new frontier and astronomers ... set forth on uncharted seas and were haunted for a lifetime by marvels both seen and imagined.”
Crime Scene Chemistry for the Armchair Sleuth by Cathy Cobb, Monty L. Fetterolf, and Jack G. Goldsmith. Prometheus, $26, 400 pages. Publication date October 23. Cobb and Fetterolf teach chemistry and are coauthors of The Joy of Chemistry; Goldsmith is a police officer. In this book, they team up for an “intriguing trek through the science of chemistry, this time using the fascinating field of forensic chemistry as their framework.”
The Jewel House: Elizabethan London and the Scientific Revolution by Deborah Harkness. Yale University Press, $32.50, 368 pages. Publication date October 24. The author is a professor of history at the University of California and the author of John Dee’s Conversation with Angels. “The book examines several fascinating episodes of scientific inquiry and dispute in sixteenth-century London, bringing to life the individuals involved and the challenges they faced.”
What Are You Optimistic About? edited by John Brockman. Harper Perennial paperback original, $13.95, 400 pages. Advance reading copy. Publication date October 30. Brockman has written or edited more than 20 books, including Curious Minds. This book “is a collection of essays from brilliant and influential scientific thinkers that offer their hopeful visions for what lies ahead.”
Received during the week ended 10/26//07
A Life Decoded: My Genome: My Life by J. Craig Venter. Viking, $25.95, 390 pages. Publication date October 22. A pioneer in genomic research, the author published the completed sequence of the human genome in 2001. In this autobiography, he describes how he “transformed himself from an aimless young man into one of the leading scientists of our time ....”
Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain by Oliver Sacks. Knopf, $26, 381 pages. Publication date October 22. Sacks is a professor of clinical neurology and psychiatry at Columbia University and the author of nine previous books, including Uncle Tungsten. This book “tackles the whole spectrum of the human body’s experience of music by studying it from the aesthetic as well as medical viewpoint.”
Abraham’s Children: Race, Identity, and the DNA of the Chosen People by Jon Entine. Grand Central Publishing, $27.99, 320 pages. Publication date October 24. Entine is an adjunct fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and the author of or editor of four previous books, including TABOO: Why Black Athletes Dominate Sports and Why We Are Afraid to Talk About It. Here, he “tackles the vexed question of whether Jews, the most successful minority group in the history of the world, are genetically programmed to be intelligent.”
Hurricanes and the Middle Atlantic States: A Surprising History; Jamestown to the Present by Rick Schwartz. Blue Diamond Books, $32.95, 416 pages. Well illustrated with 200 photos and track maps. “This book is a groundbreaking reference that examines the region’s 400-year recorded hurricane history, from Jamestown to the present.”
Now Available in Paperback
The Emotion Machine: Commonsense Thinking, Artificial Intelligence, and the Future of the Human Mind by Marvin Minsky. Simon & Schuster; originally published in 2006, paperback now available for $16; $26, 387 pages. Publication date November 13.
Received during the week ended 10/19//07
The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2007 edited by Richard Preston. Houghton Mifflin; hardback $28, paperback $14; 300 pages. Publication date October 10. Preston is a contributor to the New Yorker and the author of seven books, including The Hot Zone. This book contains a “collection of thought-provoking pieces” selected by the editor from magazines published in 2006, including one by NASW list serve regular Mike Lemonick.
Amazing Rare Things: The Art of Natural History in the Age of Discovery by David Attenborough, Susan Owens, Martin Clayton, and Rea Alexandratos. Yale University Press, $37.50, 224 lavishly illustrated pages. Publication date October 15. “From the fifteenth century onward ... European explorers sailed forth on grand voyages of discovery.... [R]enowned naturalist and documentary-maker David Attenborough joins with expert colleagues to explore how artists portrayed the natural world during this era of burgeoning scientific interest.”
Evil Genes: Why Rome Fell, Enron Failed, and My Sister Stole My Mother’s Boyfriend by Barbara Oakley. Prometheus, $28.95, 459 pages. Publication date October 16. The author is associate professor of engineering at Oakland University. “... Oakley uses cutting-edge images of the working brain to provide startling support for the idea that ‘evil’ people act the way they do mainly as a result of dysfunction.” She suggests that some people have ‘evil genes’ and “really are born to be bad.”
Good Germs, Bad Germs: Health and Survival in a Bacterial World by Jessica Snyder Sachs. Hill and Wang, $25, 290 pages. Publication date October 21. Sachs is a freelance science journalist and the author of Corpse. She “explores our emerging understanding of the symbiotic relationship between the human body and its resident microbes ....” She also points out the not-always-beneficial health effects of improved public sanitation and the wide use of antibiotic drugs.
Received during the week ended 10/12//07
The Far Traveler: Voyages of a Viking Woman by Nancy Marie Brown. Harcourt, $25, 320 pages, Publication date October 1. Brown is a science writer and the author or coauthor of two previous books, including Mendel in the Kitchen. “Gudrid, a Viking woman .... was a leader and adventurer who .... twice tried to establish a Viking colony in North America 500 years before Columbus.”
The Jesuit and the Skull: Teilhard de Chardin, Evolution, and the Search for Peking Man by Amir D. Aczel. Riverhead, $24.95, 288 pages. Publication date October 4. Aczel is the author of 14 books, including Fermat’s Last Theorem. “...Teilhard de Chardin fought courageously against the entrenched beliefs and doctrines of his own church in an effort to reconcile religion with science ....”
Break Through: From the Death of Environmentalism to the Politics of Possibility by Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger. Houghton Mifflin, $25, 344 pages. Publication date October 4. The two men are directors of American Environics and authors of the 2004 essay “The Death of Environmentalism.” This book articulates “a new politics for a new century, one focused not on complaints and ecological limits but on aspirations and human possibility.”
Switching Time: A Doctor’s Harrowing Story of Treating a Woman with 17 Personalities by Richard Baer. Crown, $24.95, 368 pages. Publication date October 9. The author is a psychiatrist. This book is “the first full account by a treating physician of a multiple personality case.”
Now Available in Paperback
Second Nature: Brain Science and Human Knowledge by Gerald M. Edelman. Yale; originally published in 2006, paperback now available for $13; 204 pages. Publication date October 30.
Received during the week ended 10/5//07
Avoid Boring People: Lessons from a Life in Science by James D. Watson. Knopf, $26.95, 347 pages. Publication date September 27. Watson was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine in 1962. He is the author of several books, including The Double Helix. In this book, he “shares the less revolutionary secrets he has found to getting along and getting ahead in a competitive world.”
What We Know About Climate Change by Kerry Emanuel. MIT Press, $14.95, 85 pages. Publication date September 27. Emmanuel is a climate scientist at MIT and the author of Divine Wind. Despite extreme views showcased in the media, “reasonable scientists agree that human activity has significantly increased greenhouse gases in the atmosphere ... and that there is good reason for concern.”
The Spiritual Brain: A Neuroscientist’s Case for the Existence of the Soul by Mario Beauregard and Denyse O’Leary. Harper One, $25.95, 400 pages. Publication date September. Beauregard is on the faculty at the University of Montreal; O’Leary is freelance journalist. This book argues “for what many in science are unwilling to consider — that it is God that creates religious experiences, not the brain.”
Memoirs of a Monster Hunter: A Five-Year Journey in Search of the Unknown by Nick Redfern. New Page Books paperback original, $14.99, 255 pages. Publication date September. Redfern is a researcher and writer on the paranormal and the author several other books. “You thought that monsters don’t exist?” he writes. “It’s time to think again.”
Human Body Size and the Laws of Scaling Physiological, Performance, Growth, Longevity and Ecological Ramifications edited by Thomas T. Samaras. Nova Science Publishers, $89, 381 pages. Publication date September. The author is the Director and Senior Researcher at Reventropy Associates in San Diego. This book applies the laws of scaling to “human performance, health, longevity, and the environment. Numerous examples ... illustrate the impact of increasing body size on ... work output, athletics and intellectual performance.”
Received during the week ended 9/28/07
Into the Minds of Babes: How Screen Time Affects Children From Birth to Age Five by Lisa Guernsey. Basic Books, $25, 287 pages. Publication date September. The author is a former reporter for the New York Times. In her book, she “goes beyond the headlines to explore what exactly is ‘educational’ about educational media.”
Smoot’s Ear: The Measure of Humanity by Robert Tavernor. Yale, $25, 224 pages. Publication date September 24. Tavernor is professor of architecture and urban design at the London School of Economics and the author of several books, including On Alberti and the Art of Building. This book “offers a fascinating account of the various measuring systems human beings has devised over two millennia.”
A Field Guide To Household Bugs by Joshua Abarbanel and Jeff Swimmer. Plume paperback original, $12, 115 pages. Publication date September 25. Abarbanel is an artist who creates large-scale works on paper; Swimmer is a journalist and filmmaker. “Using humor and in-your-face microphotography Field Guide reveals how our homes and bodies are in fact ‘wild kingdoms’ of rampaging bloodsuckers, web-weavers, and pillow-jumpers.”
Ten Discoveries That Rewrote History by Patrick Hunt. Plume paperback original, $13, 226 pages. Publication date September 25. The author is in the classics department at Stanford University. Here, he ranks “the greatest archeological discoveries since the creation of the discipline....”
Now Available in Paperback
Technology Matters: Questions to Live With by David E. Nye. MIT Press; originally published in 2006, paperback now available for $14.95; 304 pages. Publication date October 22.
Received during the week ended 9/21/07
The Body Has a Mind of Its Own: How Body Maps in Your Brain Help You Do (Almost) Everything Better by Sandra and Matthew Blakeslee. Random House, $24.95, 228 pages. Publication date September 11. The authors are a mother- and-son team of highly experienced science writers. In this book, they “explore the exciting science of ‘body maps’ in the brain — and how startling new discoveries about the mind-body connection can change and improve our lives.”
The Best American Science Writing 2007 edited by Gina Kolata. Ecco, $14.95, 330 pages. Publication date September 18. Kolata is a science and medicine reporter for the New York Times and the author of several books, including Clone: The Road to Dolly. This book “features articles from a wide variety of publications and provides a comprehensive overview of the year’s most interesting, thought-provoking, and exciting scientific developments.”
Red Moon Rising: Sputnik and the Hidden Rivalries That Ignited the Space Age by Matthew Brzezinski. Time Books, $26, 304 pages. Publication date September 18. The author is a former Moscow correspondent for The Wall Street Journal. In this book, the author argues that “the impetus behind Sputnik had nothing to do with a desire to explore the heavens and everything to do with the Soviet Union’s quest to build a weapon hat could strike the United States without warning.”
Apollo’s Fire: A Day on Earth in Nature and Imagination by Michael Sims. Viking, $24.95, 296 pages. Publication date September 24. Sims is the author of several books, including Adam’s Navel. This book “combines Sims’s keen knowledge of myth, literature and folklore with his intimate understanding of astronomy and earth science, and takes us on a romantic and fascinating journey through a single day on Earth.”
Now Available in Paperback
Fatigue as a Window to the Brain by John DeLuca. The MIT Press; originally published in 2005, now available in paperback for $28; 360 pages. Publication date September 20.
Received during the week ended 9/14/07
A Ball, a Dog, and a Monkey: 1957 — The Space Race Begins by Michael D’Antonio. Simon & Schuster, $26, 291 pages. Publication date September. D’Antonio shared a Pulitzer Prize with a team of reporters for Newsday. He is the author of several books, including Atomic Harvest. The book tells how the 1957 launch of Sputnik “sparked the world’s imagination and spread fear that the Soviet Union had surpassed the U.S. [and] it spurred America to reach for the stars.” Advance reading copy previewed here on 8/10/07.
Quirkology: How We Discover the Big Truths in Small Things by Richard Wiseman. Basic Books, $26, 323 pages. Publication date September 6. Wiseman is a professor at the University of Hertfordshire and the author of eight books, including The Luck Factor. In this book, he “reveals the secret psychology of particular aspects of our lives, whether it is selfishness, superstition, or decision-making.”
Climate Change: What It Means for Us, Our Children, and Our Grandchildren edited by Joseph F.C. DiMento and Pamela Doughman. MIT Press paperback original, $19.95, 232 pages. Publication date September 7. DiMento is a professor at the University of California, Irvine; Doughman is an assistant professor at University of Illinois at Springfield. This book “explains the science behind it [climate change] clearly and concisely in nontechnical language, describes its potential effects, and suggests how action may be taken to combat it.”
Of a Feather: A Brief History of American Birding by Scott Weidensaul. Harcourt, $25, 358 pages. Publication date September 10. Weidensaul is a naturalist and the author of several books, including Living on the Wind. Here, he “traces the colorful history of American birding — from the moment Europeans arrived in North America, awestruck by a continent awash with birds — to its modern-day explosion in popularity ....”
The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature by Steven Pinker. Viking, $29.95, 512 pages. Publication date September 11. Pinker is a professor of psychology at Harvard and the author three previous books, including The Blank Slate. “By looking closely at our everyday speech — our conversations, our jokes, our legal disputes — Pinker paints a vivid picture of the thoughts and emotions that populate our mental lives.”
Received during the week ended 9/7/07
The Immeasurable Mind: The Real Science of Psychology by William R. Uttal. Prometheus, $29, 300 pages. Publication date July 31. Uttal is professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Michigan, professor emeritus of engineering at Arizona State University, and the author of numerous books. This book attempts to answer the question: “Is psychology a science? ... Uttal comes to the conclusion that psychology is a science only to the extent that it is behaviorist in orientation.”
“Live from Cape Canaveral”: Covering the the Space Race, from Sputnik to Today by Jay Barbree, Smithsonian Books, $26.95, 321 pages. Publication date September 1. Barbree has covered the space race for NBC since Sputnik. He is also coauthor of Moonshot. This memoir “offers Jay’s personal history of the first half century of space exploration.”
Present at the Future: From Evolution to Nanotechnology. Candid and Controversial Conversations on Science and Nature by Ira Flatow. Collins, $24.95, 354 pages. Publication date September 4. Flatow is NPR’s science correspondent and the author of several books of popular science, including They All Laughed. In this book, “Flatow offers an in depth look at the pioneers of today’s science and technology and explains what it all means in a language we can understand.”
The Heart edited by James Peto. Yale, $35, 272 pages. Publication date September 6. The editor is a curator of the Wellcome Collection’s 2007 exhibition, The Heart. “This lavishly illustrated new book presents a vivid picture of the human heart and its place in culture and medicine.”
Now Available in Paperback
The Homework Myth: Why Our Kids Get Too Much of a Bad Thing by Alfie Kohn. Da Capo; originally published in 2006, paperback now available for $14.95; 250 pages. Publication date September 1.
Received during the week ended 8/31/07
Supervolcano: The Catastrophic Event That Changed the Course of Human History by John Savino and Marie D. Jones. New Page Books paperback original, $17.99, 288 pages. Publication date August. Savino is a geophysicist; Jones is the author of PSIence. This book “explores the eruption
of the Toba supervolcano in Sumatra, Tunisia, [75,000 years ago] and the strong possibility of another supervolcano eruption in our lifetime.”
The Numbers Behind Numb3rs by Keith Devlin and Gary Lorden. Plume paperback original, $14, 243 pages. Publication date August 28. Devlin is executive director of Stanford’s Center for the Study of Language and Information and the author of The Math Gene; Lorden is a consultant for the television program Numb3rs. The authors “present compelling examples that illustrate how advanced mathematics can be used in state-of-the-art crime-fighting.”
Death in the Pot: The Impact of Food Poisoning on History by Morton Satin. Prometheus $24, 262 pages. Publication date August 28. Satin is the author of Food Alert! The Ultimate Sourcebook for Food Safety. “Satin spans the ancient world to the present day, documenting [food poisoning] events both tragic and bizarre.”
Previously Published
Sputnik: The Shock of the Century by Paul Dickson. Walker; originally published in 2001, rereleased as a hardback for $19.95; 320 pages. Publication date August 15.
Received during the week ended 8/24/07
Beyond AI: Creating the Conscience of the Machine by J. Storrs Hall. Prometheus, $28, 408 pages. Publication date July 31. The author is a research fellow at the Institute for Molecular Manufacturing. “There is new excitement in the field [artificial intelligence] over the amazing capabilities of the latest robots and renewed optimism that achieving human-level intelligence is a reachable goal.”
Ghosthunters: On the Trail of Mediums, Dowsers, Spirit Seekers, and Other Investigators of America’s Paranormal World by John Kachuba. New Page Books paperback original, $15.99, 256 pages. Publication date August. Kachuba is the author of Ghosthunting, Ohio. In this book, “Kachuba examines the cultural phenomena surrounding spirits and delves into some of the many theories pertaining to the supernatural ....”
Kaufman Field Guide to Insects of North America by Eric R. Eaton and Kenn Kaufman. Houghton Mifflin, $18.95, 392 pages. Eaton is an entomologist; Kaufman is a naturalist and coauthor of three other field guides in this series. The authors have “put together a beautiful and educational guide that is guaranteed to bring out the bug lover in anyone ....”
The Second Law of Life: Energy, Technology, and the Future of Earth as We Know It by John E.J. Schmitz. William Andrew Publishing, $27.99, 206 pages. The author works in semiconductor technology research. “This fascinating and easily understood journey through the second law of thermodynamics,” may help us “find ways to reduce energy loss.”
Wild Caribbean: The Hidden Wonders of the World’s Most Famous Islands by Michael Bright, with Karen Bass and Scott Alexander. Yale paperback original, $25, 224 pages. Publication date September 6. Bright is a producer with the BBC, as are his two coauthors. Bright is also the author of numerous books, including Andes to Amazon. “This book is a gorgeously illustrated exploration and celebration of the wild life and the wild places of the Caribbean.”
Now Available in Paperback
An Argument for Mind by Jerome Kagan. Yale; originally published in 2006, paperback now available for $17; 304 pages. Publication date September 13.
The Cutter Incident: How America’s First Polio Vaccine Led to the Growing Vaccine Crisis by Pauk A. Offit. Yale; originally published in 2005, paperback now available for $17; 256 pages. Publication date September 13.
Received during the week ended 8/10/07
Science and Ethics: Can Science Help Us Make Wise Moral Judgments? edited by Paul Kurtz with the assistance of David Koepsell. Prometheus paperback original, $21, 358 pages. Publication date July 31. Kurtz is professor emeritus of philosophy at the University of Buffalo; his coauthor is executive director of the Council for Secular Humanism. “Editor Paul Kurtz maintains that there is a modified form of naturalistic ethics that is deeply relevant to both science and ethics and provides guidelines for our moral choices.”
A Ball, a Dog, and a Monkey: 1957 — The Space Race Begins by Michael D’Antonio. Simon & Schuster, $26, 291 pages. Advance reading copy. Publication date September. D’Antonio shared a Pulitzer Prize with a team of reporters for Newsday. He is the author of several books, including Atomic Harvest. The book tells how the 1957 launch of Sputnik “sparked the world’s imagination and spread fear that the Soviet Union had surpassed the U.S. [and] it spurred America to reach for the stars.”
Now Available in Paperback
A Man on the Moon: The Voyages of the Apollo Astronauts by Andrew Chaiken, Penguin; originally published in 1994, paperback now available for $18; 720 pages. Publication date August 28.
The Trouble with Physics: The Rise of String Theory, The Fall of a Science, and What Comes Next by Lee Smolin. Houghton Mifflin; originally published in 2006, paperback now available for $15.95; 416 pages. Publication date September 4.
Madhouse: A Tragic Tale of Megalomania and Modern Medicine by Andrew Scull. Yale; originally published in 2005, paperback now available for $18; 384 pages. Publication date September 4.
Received during the week ended 8/3/07
The Fabulous Fibonacci Numbers by Alfred S. Posamentier and Ingmar Lehmann. Prometheus, $28, 385 pages. Publication date July 24. Posamentier is a professor of mathematics education at City University of New York. Lehmann is on the mathematics faculty of Humboldt University in Berlin. The Fibonacci sequence of numbers “recurs in structures throughout nature — from the arrangement of whorls on a pinecone to the branches of certain plant stems.”
Mammals of Madagascar: A Complete Guide by Nick Garbutt. Yale University Press paperback original, $39.95, 304 pages. Publication date August 28. Garbutt is a wildlife photographer and author. This book is “the definitive guide to the mammals of the world’s fourth-largest island.”
Now Available in Paperback
Before Darwin: Reconciling God and Nature by Keith Thomson. Yale University Press; originally published in 2005, paperback now available for $18; 336 pages. Publication date August 28.
This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession by Daniel J. Levitin. Plume; originally published in 2006, paperback now available for $15; 322 pages. Publication date August 28.
Received during the week ended 7/27/07
How Mathematics Happened: The First 50,000 Years by Peter S. Rudman. Prometheus, $26, 320 pages. Publication date July 24. Previewed here on 9/29/06. The author is a physics professor at Technion-Israel Institute of Technology. This book "traces the evolution of number systems from finger counting in hunter-gatherer cultures to pebble counting in in herder-farmer cultures of the Nile and Tigris-Euphrates valleys, which defined the number systems that continued to be used even after the invention of writing.”
To Follow the Water: Exploring the Ocean to Discover Climate by Dallas Murphy. Basic Books, $26, 278 pages. Publication date August 1. Murphy is the author of Rounding the Horn. In this book, he “narrates the history of man’s relationship with the ocean beginning with the Great Age of Exploration and proceeding through today’s efforts ... to understand the ocean’s role in determining climate.”
An Ocean of Air: Why the Wind Blows and Other Mysteries of the Atmosphere by Gabrielle Walker. Harcourt, $25, 272 page. Publication date August 6. The author is a science journalist. “A triumphant celebration of the Earth’s atmosphere .... the most extraordinary — and most underrated — substance on earth, responsible for just about every aspect of our lives.”
Now Available in Paperback
The Casebook of Forensic Detection: How Science Solved 100 of the World’s Most Baffling Crimes by Colin Evans. Berkley Trade; originally published in 1996, updated paperback now available for $15; 387 pages. Publication date August 7.
Received during the week ended 7/20/07
The Pythagorean Theorem: A 4,000 Year History by Eli Maor. Princeton, $24.95, 286 pages. Publication date July 11. Maor teaches the history of mathematics at Loyola University and is the author of four previous books, including Venus in Transit. This book tells “the full story of this famous theorem.”
The Upright Ape: A New Origin of the Species by Aaron G, Filler. New Page Books, $24.99, 288 pages. Publication date July. Filler is a neurosurgeon at the Institute for Spinal Disorders at Cedars Sinai Medical Center and the author of Do You Really Need Back Surgery? Filler “questions and rejects the reigning scientific orthodoxy, and show how humans and apes may have had a common upright ancestor — an ‘upright ape’....”
Fear of Physics: A Guide for the Perplexed by Lawrence M. Krauss. Basic Books paperback, originally published in 1992, now revised and updated; $15.95; 257 pages. Publication date July. Krauss is a professor of physics and astronomy at Case Western Reserve University and the author of several books, including The Fifth Essence. He “presents the most up-to-date, unified picture of the ay physicists understand nature....”
The Physics of Star Trek by Lawrence M. Krauss. Basic Books paperback, originally published in 1994, now revised and updated; $15; 251 pages. Publication date July. See author’s note above. This book explores the physics behind the television program, including quantum teleportation, warp, and extra dimensions. It also lists some of the biggest bloopers in the series.
Received during the week ended 7/13/07
Parts Per Million: The Poisoning of Beverly Hills High School by Joy Horowitz. Viking, $25.95, 442 pages. Publication date July 23. The author is a graduate of Beverly Hills High School and a journalist whose work has appeared in several publications, including The New Yorker. “{A} staggering number of Horowitz’s classmates, fellow alumni, residents, and former teachers have been diagnosed with or died from cancer .... This mass tort case explores the troubling possibility that this town could have been knowingly poisoning itself for decades.”
Straight Talk About Cosmetic Surgery by Arthur W. Perry. Yale University Press; hardback $45, paperback $18; 284 pages. Publication date July 26. The author is a New York plastic surgeon. In this book, he “explains the pros and cons of cosmetic surgery and skin care to help you determine what is — or isn’t — right for you.”
The Blue Death: Disease, Disaster, and the Water We Drink by Robert D. Morris. HarperCollins, $24.95, 310 pages. Advance reading copy. Publication date July 31. The author is a physician specializing in environmental health. This book “is a probing, eye-opening look at the murky dangers lurking in our drinking water....”
Now Available in Paperback
Every Second Counts: The Race to Transplant the First Human Heart by Donald McRae. Berkley Trade; originally published in 2006, paperback now available for $16;; 390 pages. Publication date August 7.
Received during the week ended 7/6/07
Treatment Kind and Fair: Letters To a Young Doctor by Perri Klass. Basic Books, $24.95, 233 pages. Publication date June 18. Klass is a practicing pediatrician and the author of several books, including the novel The Mystery of Breathing. In this book, she “writes a series of letter to her son addressing what it really means to enter the medical profession.” Advance reading copy previewed here on 6/15/07.
Gut Feelings: The Intelligence of the Unconscious by Gerd Gigerenzer. Viking, $25.95, 288 pages. Publication date July 9. The author is the director of the Max Planck Institute for Human Development. This book “shows how gut feelings not only lead to good practical decisions, but also underlie the moral choices that make our society function.”
Lives of the Planets: A Natural History of the Solar System by Richard Corfield. Basic Books, $27.50, 268 pages. Publication date July 9. Corfield is a senior lecturer at the Open University and the author of two previous books, including The Silent Landscape. Here, he “reveals how scientists are working, for the first time, towards a clear understanding of the geological history of the solar system.”
The Third Domain: The Untold Story of Archaea and the Future of Biotechnology by Tim Friend. Joseph Henry Press, $27.95, 296 pages. Advance reading copy. Publication date July 12. Friend is science writer, reporter, and the author of Animal Talk. This book “tells the story of the discovery of Archaea, a new form of life that exists in the most extreme environments on Earth.”
Now Available in Paperback
Many Worlds in One: The Search for Other Universes by Alex Vilenkin. Hill & Wang; originally published in 2006, paperback now available for $15; 235 pages. Publication date July 17.
Received during the week ended 6/29/07
The Telescope: Its History, Technology, and Future by Geoff Anderson. Princeton, $29.95, 248 pages. Publication date May. The author is a physicist at the Air Force Academy. “This book covers every aspect of optical telescopes — from the humblest backyard setup, to state-of-the-art observatories, to the Hubble Space Telescope and spy satellites.”
The Clean Tech Revolution: The Next Big Growth and Investment Opportunity by Ron Pernick and Clint Wilder. Collins, $26.95, 308 pages. Publication date June 12. The authors are cofounder and contributing editor (respectively) at the research and publishing firm Clean Edge. This book shows “how developing clean technologies [solar energy, wind power, etc.]... “is “a money-making enterprise moving solidly into the business mainstream ....”
Storm World: Hurricanes, Politics, and the Battle Over Global Warming by Chris Mooney. Harcourt, $26, 400 pages. Publication date July 9. Mooney is a science journalist and the author of The Republican War on Science. Is “human-induced global warming increasing the ferocity of hurricanes? Between interest group politicking, media excesses, scientific suppression by the Bush administration, and hurricanes slamming the coast, the debate has spun up a storm of controversy."
Glut: Mastering Information Through the Ages by Alex Wright. Joseph Henry Press, $27.95, 296 pages. Advance reading copy. Publication date July. The author is a journalist and information architect. In this book, he suggests “that the future of the information age may lie deep in our cultural past."
Received during the week ended 6/22/07
DNA: How the Biotech Revolution Is Changing the Way We Fight Disease by Frank H. Stephenson. Prometheus, $26, 333 pages. Publication date June 19. Stephenson is a biochemist and the author of Calculations for Molecular Biology and Biotechnology. “With a gift for making the complexities of of genetics and biochemistry understandable to the average reader, Stephenson offers a fascinating tour of the mechanisms of our body and ... therapeutic techniques ....”
The Last Human: A Guide to Twenty-Two Species of Extinct Humans by Esteban Sarmiento, G.J. Sawyer, and Richard Milner. Yale, $45, 256 pages. Publication date June 28. Sawyer and Milner are associated with American Museum of Natural History; Sarmiento has done extensive field work in Africa. Lavishly illustrated, the book tells how “More that 20 species of now extinct humans made their way on Earth before Homo sapiens. Their story is part of our story.”
Wired Shut: Copyright and the Shape of Digital Culture by Tarleton Gillespie. MIT Press, $29.95, 395 pages. Publication date June 29. The author is an assistant professor in the Department of Communications at Cornell University. The core of these [copyright] changes is a shift from regulating the use of cultural work through law, to regulating the design of the technology so as to constrain its use.”
Now Available in Paperback
Underwater to Get Out of the Rain: A Love Affair with the Sea by Trevor Norton. DaCapo, $14.95, 385 pages. Publication date June 1.
Hollow Earth: The Long and Curious History of Imagining Strange Lands, Fantastical Creatures, Advanced Civilizations, and Marvelous Machines Below the Earth’s Surface by David Standish. Da Capo, $24.95, 295 pages. Publication date July 1.
Received during the week ended 6/15/07
Treatment Kind and Fair: Letters To a Young Doctor by Perri Klass. Basic Books, $24.95, 272 pages. Advance reading copy. Publication date June 18. Klass is a practicing pediatrician and the author of several books, including the novel The Mystery of Breathing. In this book, she “writes a series of letter to her son addressing what it really means to enter the medical profession.”
Nature’s Engraver: A Life of Thomas Bewick by Jenny Uglow. Farrar, Strauss & Giroux, $30, 458 pages. Publication date June 19. Uglow is the author of three previous book, including The Lunar Men. “Working with his own tools ... Bewick [1753-1828] transformed the hitherto humble medium of the woodblock into art, producing accurate images of birds and animals ....”
Barry Commoner and the Science of Survival: The Remaking of American Environmentalism by Michael Egan. MIT Press, $28, 320 pages. Publication date June 20. The author is an assistant professor of history at McMaster University. The author “argues that Commoner’s belief in the importance of dissent, the dissemination of scientific information, and the need for citizen empowerment were critical planks in the remaking of American environmentalism.”
Poincaré’s Prize: The Hundred-Year Quest To Solve One of Math’s Greatest Puzzles by George G. Szpiro. Dutton, $24.95, 309 pages. Publication date June 21. The author is a mathematician and assistant professor of finance at Hebrew University. In 2003, almost a century after it was posed, a mysterious Russian, Grigory Perelman, proved the Poincaré conjecture. This story revolves around Perelman, who “looks like Rasputin, lives in poverty with his mother, refuses prizes, and avoids almost everyone including the press.”
Now Available in Paperback
The Revenge of Gaia: Earth’s Climate Crisis and the Fate of Humanity by James Lovelock, Basic Book; originally published in 2006, paperback now available for $15.95; 177 pages. Publication date June 12.
Received during the week ended 6/8/07
Why Don’t Penguin’s Feet Freeze? And 114 Other Questions by New Scientist Magazine. Free Press paperback original, $14, 212 pages. Publication date June 5. This book is “a funny collection of quirky questions and astonishing answers straight from the pages of New Scientist magazine.”
Group Genius: The Creative Power of Collaboration by Keith Sawyer. Basic Books, $26.95, 288 pages. Publication date June 11. Sawyer is an associate professor of psychology at Washington University and the author of Explaining Creativity. In this book, the author argues that creativity never comes from a single source — “collaboration is always at the heart of creative breakthroughs.” Advance reading copy previewed here on June 1.
Balance: In Search of the Lost Sense by Scott McCredie. Little, Brown; $24.99, 296 pages. Publication date June 12. The author is an award-winning journalist. This book is “a fascinating scientific, historical, and cultural look at balance, without which we would not be able to maintain upright posture, focus our vision, or even think clearly.”
Now Available in Paperback
Unknown Quantity: A Real and Imaginary History of Algebra by John Derbyshire. Plume; hardback published in 2006, paperback now available for $16. Publication date May 29.
In the Company of Crows and Ravens by John M. Marzluff and Tony Angell. Yale; hardback published in 2005, paperback now available for $18; 408 pages. Publication date June 5.
Received during the week ended 6/1/07
Group Genius: The Creative Power of Collaboration by Keith Sawyer. Basic Books, $26.95, 288 pages. Advance reading copy. Publication date June. Sawyer is an associate professor of psychology at Washington University and the author of Explaining Creativity. In this book, the author argues that creativity never comes from a single source — “collaboration is always at the heart of creative breakthroughs.”
Silence of the Songbirds by Bridget Stuchbury. Walker, $24.95, 272 pages. Publication date June 1. The author is a professor of biology at York University in Toronto and coauthor of Behavioral Ecology of Tropical Birds. “Our songbirds are disappearing and I am convinced that our natural world will be shaken to the core if their numbers drop so far that they can no longer play their traditional and crucial ecological roles in our natural communities....”
A Crack in the Earth: A Journey up Israel’s Rift Valley by Haim Watzman. Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, $23, 194 pages. Publication date June 3. Watzman is a journalist and the the author of Company C: An American’s Life as a Citizen Soldier in Israel. This book “takes on the whole of the geological and human history as they developed in the Rift Valley, the defining geological feature between Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian West Bank....”
Now Available in Paperback
The Cloudspotter’s Guide: The Science, History, and Culture of Clouds by Gavin Pretor-Pinney. Berkley; hardback published in 2006, paperback now available for $13.95; 320 pages. Publication date June 5.
Received during the week ended 5/25/07
A Culture of Improvement: Technology and the Western Millennium by Robert Friedel. MIT Press, $39.95, 588 pages. Publication date May 18. Friedel is a professor of history at the University of Maryland and the author of several previous books, including Edison’s Electric Light. This book argues that humans have a “deep-rooted belief that things could be done in a better way.”
Breathing Space: How Allergies Shape Our Lives and Landscapes by Gregg Mitman. Yale University Press, $39, 312 pages. Publication date May 28. Mitman is a professor of the history of science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the author of two previous books. “More than fifty million Americans suffer from allergies ....Yet despite advances in biomedicine and enormous investment in research over the past fifty years, the burden of allergic disease continues to grow.”
Hubbub: Filth, Noise, and Stench in England by Emily Cockayne. Yale, $35, 335 page. Publication date May 28. The author is a research assistant in history at the Open University. This book “examines in vivid detail the often stomach-turning assault on the senses that marked the pre-industrial urban experience.
The Questions Science Can’t Answer (Yet!): A Guide to Science’s Greatest Mysteries by Michael Hanlon. Macmillan, $24.95, 192 pages. Publication date May 29. Hanlon is the author of three previous books, including The Science of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. In this book, he “identifies ten scientific questions that we simply can’t seem to answer and explains why these compelling mysteries will remain unsolved for years to come.”
Reversing Dry Eye Syndrome: Practical Ways To Improve Your Comfort, Vision, and Appearance by Steven L. Maskin. Yale; $45 hardback, $17 paperback; 272 pages. Publication date May 31. Maskin is a practicing ophthalmologist in Tamp, Florida; Thomas is a freelance writer. Dry eye syndrome is one of the most common eye diseases ....This clear accessible book ... offers detailed medical information and expert treatment advice.”
Received during the week ended 5/11/07
The Snoring Bird: My Family’s Journey Through a Century of Biology by Bernd Heinrich. Ecco, $29.95, 460 pages. Publication date May 8. Heinrich is a professor of biology at University of Vermont and the author of numerous books, including Mind of the Raven. This memoir “takes readers on a multi-generation, cross-continent journey, from his father’s days as a soldier in both World Wars, to his family’s daring escape from the Red Army in 1945 ....”
Marshes: The Disappearing Edens by William Burt. Yale, $35, 192 pages. Publication date May 16. The author is a writer and photographer whose work has appeared in magazines and museums. In this book, “his photographs explore all aspects and seasons od marsh life but focus especially on such shy inhabitants as rails, bitterns, grebes, and gallinules.”
Aftermath, Inc.: Cleaning Up After CSI Goes Home by Gil Reavill. Gotham Books, $25, 284 pages. Publication date May 17. Reavill writes about true crime and is the author or coauthor of several books, including Smut. This book is his “account of encountering graphic death scenes and philosophizing about the psychological impact of being exposed to death on a daily basis.”
Now Available in Paperback
Epic of Evolution: Seven Ages of the Cosmos by Eric Chaisson. Columbia University Press; hardback published in 2005, paperback now available for $22.95; 478 pages. Publication date March 30.
Ghost Hunters: William James and the Hunt for Scientific Proof of Life After Death by Deborah Blum. Penguin; hardback originally published in 2006, paperback now available for $15; 384 pages. Publication date May 29.
Received during the week ended 5/4//07
Mistakes Were Made (but not by me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts by Carol Tavris and Elliott Aronson. Harcourt, $25, 304 pages. Publication date May. Tavris is a writer with several books to her credit, including Anger: The Misunderstood Emotion; Aronson, who taught at the University of California and Stanford. is the author of many books, including The Social Animal. This book “digs deeper to offer an objective and startlingly honest assessment of human nature .... [and] highlights the frailties and resilience of the psyche, and the impact it has on both everyday life and on world issues.”
The Internet Imaginaire by Patrice Flichy. MIT Press, $29.95, 255 pages. Publication date May 11. The author is a professor of sociology at University of Marne de la Valleé, France. This book “examines the social imagination that produces ... [the World Wide Web] with its rich soil for information, activism, artistic production, and innovation.”
The Man Who Stopped Time: The Illuminating Story of Eadweard Muybridge — Pioneer Photographer, Father of the Motion Picture, Murderer by Brian Clegg. Joseph Henry Press, $27.97, 276 pages. Advance reading copy. Publication date May 12. Clegg is the author of four previous books, including The God Effect. This book is a biography of Muybridge, the inventor of the stop-motion photograph, the predecessor of “today’s cinema and television.”
Darwin’s Gift To Science and Religion by Francisco J. Ayala. Joseph Henry press, $24.95, 256 pages. Publication date May 15. The author is professor of biological sciences at University of California, Irvine, and a member of the National Academy of Sciences. This book “offers a way to reconcile religion and science on the issue of evolution.”
Now Available in Paperback
Evolution and Learning: The Baldwin Effect Reconsidered Bruce H. Weber and David J. Depew, ed. MIT Press; hardback originally published in 2003, paperback now available for $25; 342 pages. Publication date May 3.
Received during the week ended 4/27//07
Nonplussed! Mathematical Proof of Implausible Ideas by Julian Havil. Princeton University Press, $24.95, 196 pages. Publication date March. Havil teaches mathematics at Winchester College, England, and is the author of Gamma: Exploring Euler’s Constant. This book “is a delightfully eclectic collection of paradoxes from many different areas of math ...” and “shows the truth of these and many other unbelievable ideas.”
The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. Random House, $26.95, 366 pages. Publication date April 17. Taleb is a former professor in the Sciences of Uncertainty at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and the author of Fooled by Randomness. “A Black Swan is a highly improbable event that is unpredictable, has massive impact, and after the fact, people concoct explanations in order to lessen its randomness.”
The Fragile Edge: Diving and Other Adventures in the South Pacific by Julia Whitty. Houghton Mifflin, $25, 304 pages. Publication date May 7. Whitty is a television writer and producer and the author of a short-story collection, A Tortoise for the Queen of Tonga. In this book, she “brings to life not only the goings-on beneath the oceans surface, but also stories from the topside. painting lively portraits of those individuals whose fates are interwoven with that of the sea.”
Justinian’s Flea: Plague, Empire, and the Birth of Europe by William Rosen. Viking, $27.95, 367 pages. Publication date May 7. The author was an executive at two New York publishing companies. This “is the story of the forces that transformed the Mediterranean world of late antiquity and the role played in that evolution by the plague that decimated the classical world — and ushered in the birth of medieval Europe.”
Received during the week ended 4/20//07
The Physics of Christianity by Frank J. Tipler. Doubleday, $27.50, 320 pages. Publication date May 1. Tipler is professor of mathematical physics at Tulane University and the author several books, including The Physics of Immortality. “Tipler’s defense of the scientific consistency of miracles, which do not violate physical laws, provides an impressive, credible scientific foundation for many of Christianity’s most profound claims ....”
Faux Real: Genuine Leather and 200 Years of Inspired Fakes by Robert Kanigel. Joseph Henry Press, $27.95, 296 pages. Advance reading copy. Publication date May 1. Kanigel is a professor of science writing at MIT and the author of three previous books, including The One Best Way. Leather has had many imitators over the years from Leatherette to Naugahyde. This book “explores the borderland of the almost-real, the ersatz, and the fake, illuminating a centuries-old culture war between the authentic and the imitative.”
Degrees That Matter: Climate Change and the University by Ann Rappaport and Sarah Hammond Creighton. MIT Press paperback original, $24.95, 376 pages. Publication date May 4. Rappaport is on the faculty at Tufts University; Creighton is a project manager there. Both authors have published previous books. “As laboratories for learning and centers research, they [universities] can reduce their own emissions of greenhouse gases, educate students about global warming, and direct scholarly attention to to issues related to climate change and energy.”
Gertrude Bell: Queen of the Desert, Shaper of Nations by Georgina Howell. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $27.50, 481 pages. Publication date April 25. The author is a British journalist. “At one time, [Gertrude Bell] was the most powerful woman in the British Empire, a nation builder, the driving force behind the creation of Iraq.”
Now Available in Paperback
The Voyage of the Vizcaína: The Mystery of Christopher Columbus’ Last Ship by Klaus Brinkbäumer and Clemens Höges. Harvest Paperbacks; hardback published in 2006, paperback now available for $15; 328 pages. Publication date May 7.
Received during the week ended 4/13//07
An Illusion of Harmony: Science and Religion in Islam by Taner Edis. Prometheus,, $28, 265 pages. Publication date March 27. Edis is associate professor of physics at Truman State University and the author of several books, including The Ghost in the Universe. “Edis examines the range of Muslim thinking about science and Islam from blatantly pseudoscientific fantasies to comparatively sophisticated efforts to ‘Islamize science.’”
How To Remember Anything: The Total Proven Memory Retention System by Dean Vaughn. St. Martin’s Griffin paperback original, $13.95, 242 pages. Publication date April 19. The author is president of Dean Vaughn Learning Systems. This book “outlines a practical ten-step system that he has used to help millions sharpen their memory skills.”
Side Effects by Adam Phillips. Harper Perennial paperback original, $13.95, 336 pages. Publication date April 24. Publication date April 24. Phillips is a psychoanalyst and the author of eleven previous books, including Going Sane. This book “is a brilliant collection of interwoven essays exploring the links between psychoanalysis and literature.” Advance reading copy previewed here on March 9.
Now Available in Paperback
Organic, Inc.: Natural Foods and How They Grew by Samuel Fromartz. Harcourt; hardback published in 2006, paperback now available for $14; 309 pages. Publication date March 5.
Received during the week ended 4/6//07
The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science by Norman Doidge. Viking, $24.95, 427 pages. Publication date March. The author is a psychiatrist on the faculty of Columbia University Psychoanalytic Center. In this book, he argues that “the brain can change itself .... through thought and activity.”
The Evolving Brain: The Known and the Unknown by R. Grant Steen. Prometheus, $28, 437 pages. Publication date March. Steen is a neurophysiologist at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine. This “fascinating tour of the brain provides the general reader with the latest information on one of the most intriguing and burgeoning areas of scientific research.” Advance reading copy previewed here on 11/10/06.
After Sputnik: 50 Years of the Space Age by Martin Collins, ed. Smithsonian Books, $35, 256 pages. Publication date April 1. Collins is a curator at the Smithsonian and the author of several books, including Space Race. This book “tells the story of the first half-century of space exploration through a close consideration of 140 items selected from the holdings of the National Air and Space Museum ....”
Why Beauty Is Truth: A History of Symmetry by Ian Stewart. Basic Books, $26.95, 290 pages. Publication date April 16. Stewart is professor of mathematics at the University of Warwick and the author of numerous books, including Letters To a Young Mathematician. This book “chronicles the symmetrical relationship between mathematical ideas and the physical world ....” Advance reading copy previewed here on 3/12/07.
Now Available in Paperback
Wired for Speech: How Voice Activates and Advances the Human-Computer Relationship by Clifford Nass and Scott Brave. MIT Press; originally published in 2005, now available in paperback for $17.95; 296 pages. Publication date April 30.
Received during the week ended 3/30//07
Freud’s Wizard: Ernest Jones and the Transformation of Psychoanalysis by Brenda Maddox. Da Capo Press, $26, 352 pages. Publication date March 15. Maddox is the author of several books, including Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA. This book is a biography of Ernest Jones. “As Sigmund Freud’s disciple, colleague, biographer, and empire builder, Jones brought the international psychiatric movement to London and helped spread to Toronto, New York and Boston.” Previewed here on 2/16/07.
Einstein: His Life and Universe by Walter Isaacson. Simon & Schuster, $32, 704 pages. Publication date April 10. Isaacson is the author of several books, including Benjamin Franklin: An American Life. “[T]his is the first full biography of Albert Einstein since all of his papers have become available, a fully realized portrait of this extraordinary human being and great genius.” Previewed here 3/2/07.
Einstein: A Biography by Jürgen Neffe, translated by Shelley Frisch. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $30, 442 pages. Advance reading copy. Publication date April 30. The author is a journalist with a background in physics. This book “provides a sensitive, nuanced, and remarkably human portrait of the 20th century's most celebrated mind."
Now Available in Paperback
Sky in a Bottle by Peter Pesic. MIT Press; hardback published in 2005, paperback now available for $12.95; 256 pages. Publication date April 30.
Received during the week ended 3/23//07
Uncertainty: Einstein, Heisenberg, Bohr, and the Struggle for the Soul of Science by David Lindley. Doubleday, $26, 257 pages. Publication date February. Lindley is a physicist, editor, and author of four previous books, including Degrees Kelvin. This book tells how the uncertainty principle undermined the belief “that science could reveal the physical world with limitless detail ...” and “placed Heisenberg in direct opposition to the revered Albert Einstein.”
A Natural History of North American Trees by Donald Culross Peattie. Houghton Mifflin, $40, 528 pages. Publication date April 2. Peattie (1898-1964) authored several books about natural history. In this collection of his writings, he “does not just spew facts and figures about trees ... he tells their stories ...” with humor and a reverence for the natural world.
The Motion Paradox: The 2,500 Year-Old Puzzle Behind All the Mysteries of Time and Space by Joseph Mazur. Dutton, $24.95, 262 pages. Publication date April 19. Mazur is professor of mathematics at Marlboro College and the author of Euclid in the Rainforest. This book ”shows how historic breakthroughs in our understanding of motion bring us closer to Zeno’s paradox.”
Now Available in Paperback
Exploring Reality: The Intertwining of Science and Religion by John Polkinghorne. Yale; hardback published in 2005, paperback now available for $15; 208 pages. Publication date April 4.
The First Scientific American: Benjamin Franklin and the Pursuit of Genius by Joyce E. Chaplin. Basic Books; hardback published in 2006, paperback now available for $17.50; 421 pages. Publication date April 9.
Received during the week ended 3/16//07
Animal Architects: Building and the Evolution of Intelligence by James L. Gould and Carol Grant Gould. Basic Books, $26.95, 324 pages. Publication date March 19. James is a professor of ecology at Princeton University and the coauthor of several books with science writer Carol, including The Animal Mind. “...the Goulds explain that each nest and den is a startling window into animal intelligence; a unique blend of instinct, practice, and individual cognition, which often rivals human architecture.”
The Elephant’s Secret Sense: The Hidden Life of the Wild Herds of Africa by Caitlin O’Connell. Free Press, $24, 241 pages. Publication date March 20. The author is a research associate in the Department of Otolaryngology at Stanford University. In 1992, O’Connell “began a three-year study of elephant movements and interactions in Namibia that led her on an unexpected fourteen-year journey to prove a controversial theory of elephants’ seismic communication.”
I Am a Strange Loop by Douglas Hofstadter. Basic Books, $26.95, 412 pages. Publication date April 2. Hofstadter is professor of cognitive science at Indiana University and the author of several books, including the Pulitzer Prize winning GÖdel, Escher, Bach. This book “is an eerily beautiful meditation on the nature of consciousness and the meaning of life itself.”
Now Available in Paperback
Before the Dawn: Recovering the Lost History of Our Ancestors by Nicholas Wade. Penguin; hardback published in 2006, paperback now available for $15; 314 pages. Publication date March.
Received during the week ended 3/9//07
Why Beauty Is Truth: A History of Symmetry by Ian Stewart. Basic Books, $26.95, 304 pages. Advance reading copy. Publication date April. Stewart is professor of mathematics at the University of Warwick and the author of numerous books, including Letters To a Young Mathematician. This book “chronicles the symmetrical relationship between mathematical ideas and the physical world ....”
Side Effects by Adam Phillips. Harper Perennial paperback original, $13.95, 319 pages. Advance reading copy,. Publication date April 24. Phillips is a psychoanalyst and the author of eleven previous books, including Going Sane. This book “is a brilliant collection of interwoven essays exploring the links between psychoanalysis and literature.”
Now Available in Paperback
The Jasons: The Secret History of Science’s Postwar Elite by Ann Finkbeiner. Penguin; hardback published in 2006, paperback now available for $15; 304 pages. Publication date March 27.
Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: Malady or Myth? by Chris R. Brewin. Yale; hardback published in 2003, paperback now available for $22; 288 pages. Publication date March 27.
Received during the week ended 3/2//07
Bipolar Kids: Helping Your Child Find Calm in the Mood Storm by Rosalie Greenberg. Da Capo, $26, 294 pages. Publication date March 1. The author is assistant professor of clinical psychiatry at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. Greenberg “brings us a comprehensive parents’ guide to understanding the disorder....”
Einstein: His Life and Universe by Walter Isaacson. Simon & Schuster, $35, 720 pages. Advance reading copy. Publication date April. Isaacson is is the author of several books, including Benjamin Franklin: An American Life. “[T]his is the first full biography of Albert Einstein since all of his papers have become available, a fully realized portrait of this extraordinary human being and great genius.”
Now Available in Paperback
Fab: The Coming Revolution on Your Desktop — from Personal Computers to Personal Fabrication by Neil Gershenfeld. Basic Books; hardback published in 2005, paperback now available for $15.95; 278 pages. Publication date February 5.
Received during the week ended 2/23//07
The Poincaré Conjecture: In Search of the Shape of the Universe. Walker, $26.95, 293 pages. Publication date March 9. The author is a professor of mathematics at Mount Holyoke College. The conjecture posed by Poincaré in 1904 “is a guess about the shape of our universe. This book tells the story of “the Russian Mathematician Grigory Perelman [who] posted a series of papers on the internet ... and was ultimately credited with proving the conjecture.” Advance reading copy previewed here on 2/2/07.
Plutonium: A History of the World’s Most Dangerous Element by Jeremy Bernstein. Joseph Henry Press, $27.95, 224 pages. Advance reading copy. Publication date April 12. The author is professor emeritus of physics at Stevens Institute of Technology and a staff writer for the New Yorker. This book describes how plutonium was transformed “from a laboratory novelty into the nuclear weapon that destroyed Nagasaki.”
Where’s My Jetpack? A Guide to the Amazing Science Fiction Future That Never Arrived by Daniel H. Wilson. Bloomsbury paperback, $14.95, 192 pages. Advance reading copy. Publication date April. Wilson is the author of How to Survive a Robot Uprising. “You’ll be privy to behind the scenes glimpses into cutting edge experiments in teleportation, space exploration, and bioengineering that are astonishing.”
Received during the week ended 2/16//07
The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog: What Traumatized Children Can Teach Us About Loss, Love and Healing by Bruce D. Perry and Maia Szalavitz. Basic Books, $26, 275 pages. Publication date January. Perry is a psychiatrist and senior fellow at The ChildTrauma Academy; Szalavitz is a science and health journalist and the coauthor of Help at Any Cost. This book tells stories that “are a testament to the healing power of compassion and love, offering hope amid tragedy and despair.”
Exploring the Geology of the Carolinas: A Field Guide to Favorite Places from Chimney Rock to Charleston by Kevin G. Stewart and Mary-Russell Roberson. University of North Carolina Press, hardback $39.95, paperback $19.95, 320 pages. Publication date February 26. Stewart is associate professor of geology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Roberson is a freelance writer. The authors “combine a brief geological history of the Carolinas with thirty-one field trips to famous and lesser-known sites in both states.”
Freud’s Wizard: Ernest Jones and the Transformation of Psychoanalysis by Brenda Maddox. Da Capo Press, $26, 384 pages. Publication date March. Maddox is the author of several books, including Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA. This book is a biography of Ernest Jones. “As Sigmund Freud’s disciple, colleague, biographer, and empire builder, Jones brought the international psychiatric movement to London and helped spread to Toronto, New York and Boston.”
Happy Accidents: Serendipity in Modern Medical Breakthroughs by Morton Meyers. Arcade, $27.95, 408 pages. Advance reading copy. Publication date March. The a