Popular science
Free Radicals by Michael Brooks
We often have an image of scientists as quietly plodding away, with small breakthrough after small breakthrough. When the big breakthroughs come, they downplay things, and insist upon logical and level-headed caution. It's all very mild-mannered and polite. ...Or is it? The history of science is splattered with radicals, who'll do anything for success. There are those who mercilessly put down their rivals, those who use drugs to stimulate their breakthroughs, those who put themselves in harm's way in the pursuit of truth, and those who just plain go about things their own way, regardless of what anyone else says. Full review...
Dot-Dash To Dot.Com by Andrew Wheen
You know exactly what you're getting when you read the summary of Andrew Wheen's Dot-Dash To Dot.Com. How Modern Telecommunications Evolved from the Telegraph to the Internet sums it up perfectly. This is a history of technology and the people involved in creating that technology. It serves as a primer for anyone with an interest or need to know about telecommunications. Full review...
Farmer Buckley's Exploding Trousers by Stephanie Pain
The history of science is filled with many miraculous discoveries. ...It's also filled with exploding trousers, self-experimentation, a coachman's leg that becomes a museum piece and gas-powered radios. Farmer Buckley's Exploding Trousers regales us with fifty odd events on the way to scientific discovery. Part popular science book, part trivia, each article is a treat to read, either as a fun-sized nugget, or when reading from cover to cover. Full review...
Proust Was a Neuroscientist by Jonah Lehrer
In Troilus and Cressida, Shakespeare wrote,'Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back, wherin he puts alms for oblivion'. This fully accords with the discoveries of modern brain science. Proust in his famous novel, 'In Search of Lost Time' anticipates such discoveries by neuroscientists, such as Rachel Hertz, that smell and taste are the only senses that connect directly to the hippocampus. Thus the taste of a petit madeleine evokes a rediscovery by Proust of Combray and a flow of associations - it is the part of the brain in which long term memory is centred. Lehrer in ' Proust was a Neuroscientist' weaves an intriguing argument about the relationship between recent neuroscientific discoveries and the novels of George Eliot, Gertrude Stein and Virginia Woolf. A scientist, who has researched with Nobel Prize-winning, Eric Kandel, has a taste for philosophy; Lehrer intends to heal the rift between what C.P.Snow termed the 'Two Cultures'. He wishes to accord respect to the truths and the intuitive discoveries, especially of modernist writers and painters. Full review...
At the Water's Edge: A Walk in the Wild by John Lister-Kaye
This is a book that readers feel strongly about, and one with which I must confess to having a love/hate relationship! I loved the detailed observation, the sharing of knowledge that Lister-Kaye has built from a lifetime of close study of the countryside. He delights in and pays as much attention to the structure of a spider's web as to the rarest of meetings with a Scottish wildcat. Full review...
Mathematics of Life by Ian Stewart
Mathematics and biology don't traditionally mix. As science develops, the boundaries between maths and physics, physics and chemistry and chemistry and biology have become more and more blurred. As it is now, biology requires many mathematical techniques, and it's fair to assume that major biological breakthroughs over the next hundred years will also have a strong basis in maths too. Ian Stewart looks at the major steps forward in the history of biology, and the areas where maths is at the forefront of development. Full review...
The Happy Passion: A Personal View of Jacob Bronowski by Anthony James
Jacob Bronowski was a scientific administrator, poet, philosopher, dramatist, radio and TV personality, best remembered for the series 'The Ascent of Man'. This short book, about 90 pages long, is partly biographical sketch, partly – in fact largely – an overview of his major published works, occupying about two-thirds of the book. In the author's words, it is intended as a personal view of Bronowski as a philosopher. Full review...
From Eternity to Here: The Quest for the Ultimate Theory of Time by Sean Carroll
The Prologue sets out what this book is about. It's about ' ... the nature of time, the beginning of the universe, and the underlying structure of physical reality.' OK? Bring on those questions. Yes, it's a weighty tome in terms of size and subject matter, but I would certainly describe the front cover as reader-friendly, so therefore should have broad appeal. I love the title of this book, lots of thought has been put into it and it certainly grabbed my attention - and I'm no scientist. The classic movie from the classic book ... I also loved Carroll's language - 'The Elegant Universe' and 'a preposterous universe' These are phrases to make you stop and think. And I certainly did. Full review...
Driving with Plato: The Meaning of Life's Milestones by Robert Rowland Smith
Driving with Plato is a companion book to Breakfast with Socrates, in which former Oxford Fellow Robert Roland Smith took various elements of a 'typical' day and provided insight into what a collection of thinkers might have to offer to make these mundane routines more interesting. Here, in the company of a similarly eclectic range of writers and thinkers, he considers the key aspects of a life, from birth, through school and riding a bike, to your first kiss, losing your virginity, having a family before a mid-life crisis, leading to divorce, old age and death. Montaigne said that to philosophise was to learn how to die, and here Roland Smith ensures that we think about each stage leading up to that moment. Full review...
An Optimist's Tour of the Future by Mark Stevenson
In 1968, the film '2001 A Space Odyssey' had an optimistic view of the future we would soon be living in. In terms of technological advancement we're not quite there yet, even though that date has a decade since passed, so maybe it's time for a revised view of what is to come. Enter Mark Stevenson, a stand up comic slash scientist. It's perhaps not the most familiar of combinations, but take the best bits of each and the result is this wonderful book that combines humour and fun with proper nitty, gritty, science stuff. Full review...
Sleights of Mind by Stephen Macknik and Susana Martinez-Conde
I have a passing interest in both magic and neuroscience. Not only am I quite the hit with the ladies, but I was also very keen to read Sleights of Mind: What the Neuroscience of Magic Reveals About Our Brains. Husband and wife team Stephen Macknik and Susana Martinez-Conde work at the Barrow Neurological Institute in Arizona, and as a way of promoting their field of visual neuroscience, developed the Illusion of the Year contest. From this, they slipped into the world of magic, investigating, discussing and researching the neuroscience of magic with James Randi, Mac King, Teller (of Penn and...) and Johnny Thompson. Full review...
The Disappearing Spoon by Sam Kean
If the disappearing spoon of the title doesn't pique your interest, the subtitle is bound to get your juices flowing: and Other True Tales of Madness, Love and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements. As far as popular science books goes, it's got all the umm... right elements (sorry, sorry, sorry). We're taken on a tour through the periodic table, hearing exciting tales of scientific discovery and marvel. Full review...
Mind Games: 31 Days to Rediscover Your Brain by Martin Cohen
The sub-title of Martin Cohen's latest book, Mind Games, promises, rather optimistically in my case I felt, '31 days to rediscover your brain'. It is rather presumptuous of him to assume that I had discovered it in the first place, but I appreciate his confidence. Full review...
We Need To Talk About Kelvin by Marcus Chown
Sporting the best title for a popular science book this side of Alex Bellos' Here's Looking At Euclid, Marcus Chown shows us what everyday things tell us about the universe. You'll find out how your reflection in a window shows the randomness of the universe, how the abundance of iron shows a 4.5bn degree furnace exists in space, and how most of the world's astronomers are wrong about what the darkness of night shows us. Full review...
Why Can't Elephants Jump? by Mick O'Hare
Well? Why can't elephants jump? And while you're pondering that, think about why James Bond wanted his martini shaken, not stirred. Why is frozen milk yellow? Does eating bogeys do you any harm? What's the hole for in a ballpoint pen? How long a line could you draw with a single pencil? For answers to all these questions, and so many more, then do yourself a favour and pick up the latest collection from the New Scientist's Last Word column.
Mick O'Hare was also kind enough to be interviewed by Bookbag. Full review...
The Way of the Panda: The Curious History of China's Political Animal by Henry Nicholls
The book cover alone, with its panda hugging a tree, says 'buy me', 'read me.' A good start. The sections are divided into no-nonsense headings: Extraction, Abstraction and Protection. Maps and Prologue give a flavour of what's to come. The inside front cover states boldly that 'Giant pandas have been causing a stir ever since their formal scientific discovery just over 140 years ago.' I think it safe to say that many of us would probably say automatically, without thinking, that the panda has immense appeal. But is it only because of the beautifully marked eyes which give the animal a cuddly, teddy bear look? Full review...
Why Women Have Sex: Understanding Sexual Motivation from Adventure to Revenge (and Everything in Between) by Cindy M Meston and David Buss
Many many years ago, a man who was far too young to be the fusty, dusty RE teacher he was shaping to be, asked my best friend and I why we were each having sex with our girlfriends. Even aged fifteen I thought something along the lines of 'well, if he doesn't know by now, he never will', and listed that it was great fun, a very enjoyable sensation, showed an appetite for the relationship, and that sex proved the ultimate in bonding - how much closer, to be blunt, could you be to someone than actually inside them? I'll come clean now and admit said girlfriend was not real, but several have been since, and I have had heaps of fun finding out how - and perhaps why - women have sex. I was never to know, until now, there are 237 reasons for it. Full review...
Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in Space by Mary Roach
Space is big. Really big. And it's a long way away, too. I mean, I'm having enough trouble deciding what to pack for a year in Africa. I'd be hopeless if I were off to Mars. But then, no-one's written a book on what to stick in your suitcase for Sierra Leone. And Mary Roach has written a book on what to take to the red planet...
Except, this is so much more than a shopping list. This is the definitive inside scoop for anyone who has ever wondered what goes on behind the scenes in a world that is, well, out of this world. Full review...
Swimming with Piranhas at Feeding Time: My Life Doing Dumb Stuff with Animals by Richard Conniff
This isn't quite the book it seems. From the subtitle, I inferred a memoir or autobiography. Instead Richard Conniff has chosen twenty-three of his journal articles to reprint from a clutch of prestigious magazines, including National Geographic and Smithsonian. Taken together, they illustrate his wide range of interests in the animal world. While this glimpse of some of the most peculiar creatures on the planet makes for fascinating reading, it's definitely not a book to be galloped through in a single sitting. Full review...
Seasons of Life: The Biological Rhythms That Living Things Need to Thrive and Survive by Russell Foster and Leon Kreitzman
"Seasons of Life" aims to present a rounded picture of the way seasonality affects human life as well as the rest of nature. Covering everything from Seasonal Affective Disorder to the potential for animals to adapt to climate change, this book would be an interesting read for anyone with an enquiring mind and an interest in the natural world. Full review...
Selected: Why some people lead, why others follow, and why it matters by Mark van Vugt and Anjana Ahuja
Selected is based on the psychology of leadership. Some of us may ask the perfectly reasonable question 'Does it matter who leads and who follows?' Well, apparently it not only matters but it matters greatly. And the co-authors go to great lengths to tell us why. The useful prologue informs us that the whole area of leadership can be traced back in time, by no less than several million years. Vugt and Ahuja explain that the rather innocent (and even a bit airy-fairy to some) word 'leader' is evolved from various academic disciplines. Including the more obvious psychology, there is also biology and anthropology in the mix. Heady stuff. And yes, I did want to read on. Full review...
On Balance by Adam Phillips
Essential for a tightrope walker, prized as an intellectual objective, balance is generally considered something to which we can aspire. We praise someone who makes a balanced decision, we envy people who have a 'good work/life balance' we offer an opinion 'on balance' to demonstrate that we have considered various arguments and options. Full review...
Must-Have: The Hidden Instincts Behind Everything We Buy by Geoffrey Miller
If no one can tell the difference, why shell out $30 000 for a real Rolex when a 'mere' $1200 will get you a virtually identical replica?
Why do luxury manufacturers such as BMW spend money advertising in mass media whose typical readership most likely won't ever be able to afford their products?
And just why is the i in iPod so important? Full review...
Prediction: How to See and Shape the Future with Game Theory by Bruce Bueno de Mesquita
As a rather mediocre recreational poker player I've often been intrigued by game theory. The academic discipline used by politicos during the chilliest days of the Cold War has been utilised by the more mathematically minded players on the professional circuit to improve profitability. Rather than poker, author and politics professor Bruce Bueno de Mesquita uses game theory models to forecast political, economic and international security scenarios and in Prediction he shares some of his secrets. Full review...
The Running Sky: A Bird-Watching Life by Tim Dee
Tim Dee may already be known to you as a distinguished critic and adjudicator of contemporary poetry, or for producing BBC Radio 4's 'Poetry Please'. So it's hardly surprising that my first impression of his birdwatching memoir, The Running Sky is of poetic exactitude transferred to another genre. But I remain dazzled by the sustained quality of his writing over 80,000 words. Opened at any page, paragraphs of graceful prose enclose figurative language capturing the very essence of flight (hence the title, from a Philip Larkin poem). To Dee, flight is the nub of a bird's independence. He describes and wonders poetically – be it the collective sweep of flock formations, the mysteries of migration, or individual observations of nightjars, carrion crows or peregrines. Full review...
How Pleasure Works: The New Science of Why We Like What We Like by Paul Bloom
How much would you pay for a jumper that used to belong to Brad Pitt? What about if I had it dry cleaned for you first? Chances are, if you were considering the first offer, you've just been put off somewhat. But why? The jumper hasn't changed, after all. Do you honestly and rationally, believe that dry cleaning would destroy some of Brad's 'essence', thus making the item less valuable? Full review...
Do You Think You're Clever?: The Oxbridge Questions by John Farndon
My history of interviews with Oxbridge colleges forms a very short dialogue. Me, to university admissions representative, You don’t actually do media studies per se, do you? He, No – our graduates run the media. Had I got a lot further, and sat in front of a potential tutor, I would have faced a question designed to baffle, provoke, bewilder – or to inspire a flight of intuitive intelligence. Thus is the media-running wheat separated from the media-consuming chaff. And thus is this book given its basis – sixty of the more remarkable questions, answered as our erudite author might have wished to answer them. Full review...
Diagnosis: Dispatches from the Frontlines of Medical Mysteries by Lisa Sanders
Fans of ‘’House, M.D.’’ may recognise the name of Lisa Sanders. She’s the technical advisor to the TV show as well as being the writer of the ‘’Diagnosis’’ column in the New York Times. Many of the stories which appear in the column are recounted in this book, which is a look at the way in which doctors reach a diagnosis and how the method has changed (or not) over the years. I’m not a fan of the hospital dramas which seem to be a major feature of the TV schedules, but I was fascinated by what is, essentially, a series of medical detective stories. Full review...
Leonardo's Legacy: How Da Vinci Reinvented the World by Stefan Klein
This excellent combination of science history and biography starts with the most populist and some of the most awkwardly scientific. Basically it throws modern-day science at the Mona Lisa, which you might think is a little unfair – can she cope with being analysed, and the neuroscience we now know used in interpreting her? Of course she can – she’s the world’s best-known masterpiece of Italian art, and she’s survived much worse. Klein’s approach fully works, when we see also the science da Vinci did know and that he worked on himself, which all helps us know partly why the truths of La Gioconda are still unknowable. Full review...
30-Second Theories by Paul Parsons
Take fifty of science's most thought-provoking theories, and try to explain each in thirty seconds or one page. It's all here, from Schrodinger's cat, to cosmic topology, via the Gaia hypothesis and chaos theory. Full review...
The Lotus Quest by Mark Griffiths
Mark Griffiths is one of Britain's leading plant experts. I know this because his brief biog in the front of The Lotus Quest tells me so; just as it tells me that he is the editor of The New Royal Horticultural Society Dictionary of Gardening 'the largest work on horticulture ever published'. His prior works list includes five other plant book credits, three of them for the RHS. I shall take all of this on trust, since attempts to find out more about the author and his background through the usual internet search mechanisms has failed miserably. He remains as elusive as the sacred flower that is the subject of this latest work: the lotus. Full review...
Science: Sorted! Evolution, Nature and Stuff by Glenn Murphy
Ever wanted to know about evolution, nature and stuff? Unsurprisingly, this is the book for you. If you're interested in space, black holes and stuff, then Glenn Murphy has also written a sister book in the Science: Sorted! series packed full of all the information you'd want to know. It's all written with the fabulous quality that made Why is Snot Green? such a must-read. Full review...
Alex's Adventures In Numberland by Alex Bellos
Maths is a wonderful thing. ...Wait, don't run away. It really is. The way numbers interact with each other, the way counting systems developed, how mathematical breakthroughs are coming from the world of crochet, and how people can mentally calculate the 13th root of a 200 digit number in almost less time than it takes to read it out loud. There's all sorts of weird and wonderful stuff going on in Numberland. Full review...
The Hidden Landscape by Richard Fortey
The purpose of this book is to explore the connection between the landscape and the geology underlying it, which in one of his many vivid similes Fortey compares the surface personality with the workings of the unconscious mind beneath. He starts by describing a journey he once made from Paddington Station to Haverford West, a market town in Pembrokeshire and with it a passage back into the plutonic depths of geological aeons, indicated by the large 60cm monster trilobites that have been found in the Cambrian rocks near St David's. Fortey describes the magnificence of the Cathedral constructed from the local purple sandstone and mottled with moisture-loving lichens. He contrasts this with the anonymous character of a nearby brightly-coloured service station, anonymous and synthetic, an invader cheaply built and out of context. Full review...
Inside of a Dog: What Dogs See, Smell and Know by Alexandra Horowitz
I've long been aware that our two dogs have methods of communication which are far more subtle than anything a mere human can muster. They sense exactly how we are feeling – a slight change in the atmosphere and they will be alert. The reactions to a frown or a smile, laughter or tears are all different and they're capable of communicating with us in ways which have no need of words. For a while I thought it was our dogs who were special (well, obviously they are…) but I've noticed other dogs communicating with each other and with humans and the more that I see the more that I wonder why they are referred to as 'dumb animals'. Full review...
The Music Instinct: How Music Works and Why We Can't Do without it by Philip Ball
'We need to talk about music, but it is hard. Very few people can do it.' So says Philip Ball after 400 pages of talking about music. Very few readers who make it that far will disagree with his conclusion, but most will have gained some enlightenment about how music works and why we enjoy it. Full review...
Number Freak: A Mathematical Compendium from 1 to 200 by Derrick Niederman
This is a book that definitely does what it says on the tin. Our author has the capacity to grab each number between one and two hundred, and wring it for all its worth - all the special status it might have in our culture (more easy with seven than, say, 187), all the special properties it might possess (perfect, triangular, prime), and as many other things mathematicians and so on would find of interest. Luckily there is enough here to make the book well worth a browse for us who would not deem themselves number buffs. Full review...
Not Exactly - In Praise Of Vagueness by Kees van Deemter
How warm is a warm day? Or rather, given the weather at the moment, how chilly is a chilly day? Is it better to know I want a small helping of peas, or to know that I want 82 peas? There are times when vagueness is more useful than being specific. Kees van Deemter makes this point, sharing many examples from a number of fields, including maths, philosophy, linguistics and AI. Full review...
Taking the Medicine by Druin Burch
In 1898, Burch points out that a new drug was developed and marketed for the treatment of tuberculosis by Bayer & Co. TB is such an ancient enemy of man that there is apparently evidence of an earlier strain to be found in Egyptian mummies. The German firm had discovered a chemical that seemed to work well, and patients and indeed their own staff, who were tested seemed to respond well - it was named Heroin - and its addictive effects were at first missed. Full review...
I Drink Therefore I Am by Roger Scruton
Roger Scruton is a conservative philosopher and composer, best known for his work on philosophy and music, but who shares Plato's belief that 'nothing more excellent or valuable than wine was ever granted by the gods to man' and in this book seeks to combine his two interests of philosophy and the fruits of the vine. Full review...
Animals by Keith Laidler
Animals is described as a visual guide to the animal kingdom, but please don't think of it as a picture book as it's far more than that. Don't think of it as a coffee table book either – despite the fact that its size – midway between A2 and A3 – might tempt you to think that way. It's a journey through the complex diversity of the animal kingdom based on sound scientific principles. Full review...
Reversing Global Warming For Profit by Bill Butterworth
There aren't many climate change deniers left, are there? We all know it's there. We all know, too, that the world's population growth is on a collision course with the dwindling of its resources. The world's going to get hotter, its weather more extreme. Fossil fuels are going to run out. More and more people will compete for fewer and fewer of civilisation's luxuries. We're all worried. Full review...
Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human by Richard Wrangham
Humans are cooking apes. According to Richard Wrangham, mastery of fire and cooking of the food that resulted from it was at the root of human evolutionary development and ultimate success. Various factors have been proposed as the crucial stimulus which led to the appearance of the first recognisably human creatures: leaving aside divine intervention (be it from God, extra-terrestrials or future humans travelling in time), the candidates for what made our ancestral apes stand straighter and start growing brains range from socialised hunting to chattering about kinship to eating seafood. Full review...