Newest Popular Science Reviews
Foxes Unearthed: A Story of Love and Loathing in Modern Britain by Lucy Jones
As one of the largest predators left in Britain, the fox is captivating: a comfortably familiar figure in our country landscapes; an intriguing flash of bright-eyed wildness in our towns. Yet no other animal attracts such controversy, has provoked more column inches or been so ambiguously woven into our culture over centuries, perceived variously as a beautiful animal, a cunning rogue, a vicious pest and a worthy foe. As well as being the most ubiquitous of wild animals, it is also the least understood. Here Lucy Jones investigates the truth about foxes – delving into fact, fiction, folklore and her own history with the creatures. Discussing the debate on foxes, Jones asks what our attitudes towards foxes says about us, and our relationship with the natural world. Full review...
At The Existentialist Café: Freedom, Being and Apricot Cocktails by Sarah Bakewell
You know that old saying about judging books by their cover? Ignore it! I have found that by judging a book by its cover and getting it completely wrong is a great way to find yourself committed to reading a book that you'd never have picked in a million years and yet, somehow, being amazingly glad you did. Full review...
The British Phonebox by Nigel Linge and Andy Sutton
The mobile phone must be one of the most used, must-have accessories of the modern age, the one device you cannot escape from in public. Some of us with (relatively) long memories must look back on the age when the bright red phonebox reigned supreme as a long time ago. Full review...
Exploring Space: From Galileo to the Mars Rover and Beyond by Martin Jenkins and Stephen Biesty
I take it as read that you know some of the history of space exploration, even if the young person you buy books for doesn't know it all. So I won't go into the extremes reached by the Voyager space craft, and the processes we needed to be expert in before we could launch anything. You probably have some inkling of how we learnt that we're not the centre of everything – the gradual discovery of how curved the planet was, and how other things orbited other things in turn proving we are not that around which everything revolves. What you might not be so genned up on is the history of books conveying all this to a young audience. When I was a nipper they were stately texts, with a few accurate diagrams – if you were lucky. For a long time now, however, they've been anything but stately, and often aren't worried about accuracy as such in their visual design. They certainly long ago shod the boring, plain white page. Until now… Full review...
Little People, Big Dreams: Marie Curie by Isabel Sanchez Vegara and Frau Isa
Some little girls want to be princesses, but the girl who would become Marie Curie wanted to be a scientist. She was from a poor family in Warsaw but she was determined to do well and won a gold medal for her studies. In Poland, in the middle of the nineteenth century, only men were allowed to go to University, so Marie moved to Paris where she had to study in an unfamiliar language, but was soon the best maths and science student. It was here that she met and married Pierre Curie, another scientist and they jointly discovered radium and polonium: they would eventually win the Nobel Prize for Physics for this work. Marie was the first woman to receive the honour. Pierre was killed in a road accident, but Marie went on to win a second Nobel Prize, this time for Chemistry. Her work is still benefiting people today. Full review...
The Telomere Effect: A Revolutionary Approach to Living Younger, Healthier, Longer by Dr Elizabeth Blackburn and Dr Elissa Epel
I have lived my life determined not to age: I see nothing aspirational in the dependence of old age, whether it be on other people, government in all its forms or the NHS. I'm prepared to put effort into this: it's not the cosmetic image of youth I seek, but rather the ability to do as I do now - running a business, regularly walking for miles in our glorious countryside and enjoying life - for as long as possible. So far it's working out, but what else could I do and why does this work for some people and not for others? Full review...
A Woman Looking at Men Looking at Women: Essays on Art, Sex and the Mind by Siri Hustvedt
I must confess that A Woman Looking spoke to me on a profound, intimate level. This is in part due to the apparent similarities between me and Siri Hustvedt - we are both feminists who love art and also love science in a world which emphasises that these two passions are mutually exclusive. What Hustvedt suggests in A Woman Looking is that it is the similarities between these two areas we should emphasise and that a cohesive, inclusive approach towards art and science could help fill the gaps in both disciplines. Full review...
Why Icebergs Float: Exploring Science in Everyday Life by Andrew Morris
This unusual science textbook is based on the meetings of a science discussion group who raise questions from their everyday life. The group's resident science expert, Andrew Morris, does a sterling job in trying to answer some of their most obscure and challenging issues, which range from the physics of light and electricity to brain chemistry and social anthropology. Each chapter is based around a theme which grows from an observation made by a group member, such as what colour is the blood in the body and why is the tide so far out at Blackpool. This tie-in to the reality of our lives, makes the science more interesting and somehow more useful. Full review...
Operation Big: The Race to Stop Hitler's A-Bomb by Colin Brown
What, do you think, was more feared in 1941 and 1942 than the Nazi Party? Well, a Nazi Party with nuclear arms would be pretty high on the list. It seems the stuff of pure fantasy, but I'm not so sure. A lot of the people to be at the forefront of the nuclear physics of the age were German, and the first nuclear fission was on their soil. Two things seemed to be needed for nuclear arms – uranium, which they procured by capturing Czechoslovakia, the location of one its greatest source mines; and heavy water. That so nearly fell into Nazi hands when they invaded Norway, but what seems to have been the great majority of the world's supply had only just been smuggled out. Some fiction takes great strides to suggest in a fantasy way that if Hitler hadn't concentrated on exterminating Jews, he would have had the energy to win the war – and it must only be a short step to see his imperial expansionism as having an ulterior motive in nuclear materiel. But make no mistake, this is not fiction – these are the pure facts behind the issue. Full review...
Calculating the Cosmos by Ian Stewart
In Calculating the Cosmos Ian Stewart attempts to explain how mathematics, a subject which strikes fear into the hearts of many, can be used to explain the wonders of the universe in a way which is accessible and understandable in a concise 352 pages. According to Stewart, Calculating the Cosmos takes us from the surface of the Earth to the outer reaches of the cosmos and from the beginning of time to the end of the universe. Does he achieve this? As the author himself states, the fun is in finding out so if you have any interest in mathematics, the universe and the complexities of space and time this may just be the book for you. Full review...
The Cell: A Visual Tour of the Building Block of Life by Jack Challoner
I've always been mesmerised by micro-worlds and the fact that the tiniest things are made up of even smaller intricate parts. The first time I saw a picture of a human cell, I was fascinated by its complexity. The Cell is a visual marvel, filled with full-colour cell images taken by optical and electron microscopes, using phase contrast, fluorescence and dark-field illumination to colour and differentiate the individual components. The detailed text that accompanies each image explains how cells begin, reproduce, protect themselves and come together in extraordinary ways to create complex life. Full review...
Botanicum (Welcome To The Museum) by Katie Scott and Kathy Willis
Welcome to the Museum it says on the front cover and I'll admit that for the moment I was confused as I've never associated museums with living plants, but as soon as I stepped inside the covers, I knew where I was. One of the authors, Professor Kathy Willis is the Director of Science at Kew Gardens: she's undoubtedly based her thoughts on Kew, but for me I was back in the glasshouses at the Royal Botanic Gardens Edinburgh - the glorious 'Botanics'. I'm not certain why we're supposed to be in a museum, unless it's that it allows us to refer to author Kathy Willis and illustrator Katie Scott as curators. Still it's a contrivance which doesn't affect the content. Full review...
This is Not a Science Book: A Smart Art Activity Book by Clive Gifford
This is Not a Science Book explores the often-overlooked link between science and creativity. This interactive book encourages readers to get cutting, glueing, twisting, colouring and shading in order to create a variety of at-home experiments that are as entertaining as they are educational. The activities are also perfect for a rainy day; making this book a welcome resource during the long (and often wet) school holidays. Full review...
Build Your Own Website: Create with Code by CoderDojo
The Nanonauts want a website for their band, and who better to build it for them than the CoderDojo network of free computing clubs for young people? In this handbook, created in conjunction with the CoderDojo Foundation, children of seven plus will learn how to build a website using HTML, CSS and Javascript. Don't worry too much if some of those words don't mean anything to you - all will be made clear as you read through the book. There's also information about how to start a CoderDojo Nano club with friends - which has great benefits in terms of harnessing creativity, learning how to code - and the benefits of teamwork. Full review...
Build Your Own Website: Create with Code by CoderDojo
The Nanonauts want a website for their band, and who better to build it for them than the CoderDojo network of free computing clubs for young people? In this handbook, created in conjunction with the CoderDojo Foundation, children of seven plus will learn how to build a website using HTML, CSS and Javascript. Don't worry too much if some of those words don't mean anything to you - all will be made clear as you read through the book. There's also information about how to start a CoderDojo Nano club with friends - which has great benefits in terms of harnessing creativity, learning how to code - and the benefits of teamwork. Full review...
Get Coding!: Learn HTML, CSS & JavaScript & build a website, app & game by Young Rewired State
Learning to code, even heading into my seventh decade, changed my life and for today's children it's important because it opens so many doors. It might look complicated, but all it required is concentration and - eventually - imagination. I had a reasonable mastery of the skills of basic HTML in three days with the benefit of a personal tutor, but where to go if you don't have that privilege or if you need some extra support? Get Coding! seems like the perfect answer. Full review...
The Good Story: Exchanges on Truth, Fiction and Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy by Arabella Kurtz and J M Coetzee
We live by stories. Novelists weave tales that may or may not reflect reality, and that we accept as their job: to create fictions with intriguing character plots that draw in, surprise and touch the reader is at the core of their job description. But story telling goes beyond profession: everyone, writer or not, sometimes more consciously, sometimes less, creates their own history, selects memories that they retain, repress others, and constantly weave together a story of who we are, a tale of identity. Full review...
Sea Journal by Lisa Woollett
Over the course of a year Lisa Woollett invites us to go with her on her visits to various beaches in the British Isles, although 'visits' might make what happens sound a little too formal. Woollett knows her local beaches, and some further afield, in much the same way that a gardener knows their own plot. She's aware of minute changes, how the phase of the moon will affect the tide, what she can expect to find in the strandline and where it's come from. She delights in every variation of the weather and she's a mine of wonderful information from ancient myths to up-to-the-minute science. Full review...
Shipping Container (Object Lessons) by Craig Martin
This book is small, not even 150 pages of text, and more like 100 if you exclude the index, references and acknowledgements so perhaps it's unsurprising that it had to choose a more limited focus. There is plenty still to learn from the book. The word 'dunnage' is used daily and everyone knows what it means (the stuff inside containers to protect contents from damage during transit) but it was interesting to learn the origin of its use. Twist locks – the mighty strong connectors that can be used to link containers together – are also heavily featured. Full review...
How to Read Water by Tristan Gooley
Signs are all around us, if we know where to look. The ability to read and interpret signs is particularly useful to navigators and those who make their living on the water. In fact, the ability to read water can mean the difference between life and death, especially when strong tidal currents are involved. Of course, there are those who take water-reading beyond the ability of even the most experienced sailors. Traditional Arab navigators called this knowledge the isharat. Pacific islanders call it kapesani lemetau-the talk of the sea or water lore. Those who posses such knowledge have been baffling Westerners for centuries with their seemingly preternatural ability to understand the water. Full review...
Dust (Object Lessons) by Michael Marder
Dust is among the latest volumes in Bloomsbury's fascinating new 'Object Lessons' series. With titles ranging from Cigarette Lighter to Shipping Container, the books aim to explore the hidden histories of commonplace items. Here Marder approaches dust not as a scientist but as a philosopher: he is a professor at the University of the Basque Country, Spain. Nevertheless, he reminds readers that dust is largely composed of skin cells and hair, the detritus of our human bodies. Thus dusting – the verb form – is a kind of guilty attempt to clean up after ourselves, ultimately a futile and 'self-defeating occupation'. Full review...
Birth of a Theorem by Cedric Villani
Birth of a Theorem is a remarkable journey into the world of the abstract mathematics that shape our lives and existence. When you first open the book and flick through the pages, you are confronted with complex formulas that disorientate the mind and defy the understanding of anyone not versed in the language of the mathematician. You realise at this point that you need a guide for your journey and there is none better that Cedric Vallini. He is a winner of the Fields Medal, the mathematical equivalent of the Nobel Prize. A genius who has dedicated his life to understanding the most complex aspects of our world. He is also a writer gifted in conveying the elation and despair that his gift can bring. Full review...
Originals: How Non-conformists Change the World by Adam Grant
Did you know that procrastination could actually aid creativity? No? Neither did I, but it's a piece of information that I shall embrace and wield in my defence from here on out, because Adam Grant says it is so. Filled with interesting snippets and fascinating cases, Originals is not just entertaining, but instructive as well. Full review...
The Aliens are Coming by Ben Miller
Next time that you are away from the towns and cities, wait until it gets dark and then look into the night sky. If you are lucky enough for it not to be raining, you will likely see hundreds of stars in the sky. Each one of these could be a Sun just like our own and each of these Suns could have planets orbiting it. Now times this number a million fold and you can start to fathom the number of stars and planets out there – surely the human race is not a complete fluke and there are aliens out there? Full review...
Alpha: Directions by Jens Harder
So, people might still ask me, why do I turn to graphic novels – aren't visual books with limited writing more suited to young people? Yeah, right – try pawning this off on juvenile audiences and the semi-literate. If you can't kill that cliché off with pages such as these I don't know what will work. I know the book isn't designed to be a message to people in the debate about the literary worth of graphic novels, but one side-effect of it is surely an engagement with that argument. What it is designed to be is a complete history of everything else – and in covering every prehistoric moment, it does just that, and absolutely brilliantly. Full review...
Love and Lies: And Why You Can't Have One Without the Other by Clancy Martin
Lying is wrong and the last people you would lie to willingly are the ones you love the most – or so you would like to think. In Love and Lies: And Why You Can't Have One Without the Other, Clancy Martin, a philosophy professor, self-confessed expert liar, and serial groom, sets out on a mission to disprove the central beliefs we hold with respect to, no more and no less than, our own morality. Full review...
The Invention of Nature: The Adventures of Alexander von Humboldt, the Lost Hero of Science by Andrea Wulf
Alexander von Humboldt was born in Berlin in 1769, the younger brother of Wilhelm von Humboldt who would become a Prussian minister but who is perhaps better remembered as a philosopher and linguist. The family was well-to-do and both brothers benefitted from an excellent education, although they lacked affection from their emotionally-distant widowed mother, but it was a legacy from her which would fund Alexander's first explorations. His first travels would be in Europe where he met and was influenced by people such as Joseph Banks, President of the Royal Society, who had travelled with Thomas Cook. But it was his travels in Latin America which would lay the foundations for his life's work. Full review...
