Best of 2009 Sci-Tech Books

Science often reflects society's concerns, and a number of the top books of 2009 address two of the biggest headline-grabbing topics—climate change and health-care reform. Some titles cover the entirety of the global-warming threat (James Lovelock's The Vanishing Face of Gaia) while others touch on political and public policy issues (James Hansen's Storms of My Grandchildren). Public health discussions run the gamut from a global tour of health systems (T.R. Reid's The Healing of America) to spiraling costs of medical technology (Daniel Callahan's Taming the Beloved Beast). These books are indispensable to the public dialog—and just plain good reads.

Astronomy

Gates, Evalyn. Einstein's Telescope: The Hunt for Dark Matter and Dark Energy in the Universe. Norton. 305p. ISBN 978-0-393-06238-0. $25.95.
The observed universe behaves as if there is more than meets the eye—dark matter, specifically, is believed to permeate the cosmos. (LJ 2/15/09)

Farmelo, Graham. The Strangest Man: The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Mystic of the Atom Basic. Basic Bks: Perseus. 539p. ISBN 978-0-465-01827-7. $29.95.
Despite his pathological “strangeness,” Dirac made theoretical leaps that astonished 20th-century physicists. (LJ 10/1/09)

Yoon, Carol Kaesuk. Naming Nature: The Clash Between Instinct and Science. Norton. 344p. ISBN 978-0-393-06197-0. $27.95.
Even a rigorous taxonomic system is artificial and can sometimes disguise evolutionary relationships, leading to the “clash between instinct and science.” (LJ 6/1/09)

Hansen, James. Storms of My Grandchildren: The Truth About the Coming Climate Catastrophe and Our Last Chance To Save Humanity. Bloomsbury, dist. by Macmillan. 303p. ISBN 978-1-60819-200-7. $25.
When Hansen, considered to be America's premier climatologist, speaks, some politicians listen, while others try to silence him. A wake-up call. (Xpress Reviews, 1/15/10)

Pollack, Henry N. A World Without Ice. Avery: Penguin Group (USA). 287p. ISBN 978-1-58333-357-0. $26.
Permanent polar ice is a key component of the global climate, so the rapid depletion of glaciers and ice caps is cause for serious concern. (LJ 10/1/09)

Brand, Stewart. Whole Earth Discipline. Viking.325p. ISBN 978-0-670-02121-5. $25.95.
Biotechnology, geoengineering, and climate change will play transformational roles in society; Brand outlines pragmatic approaches to managing these changes. (LJ 9/1/09)

Jensen, Derrick & Aric McBay. What We Leave Behind. Seven Stories. 453p. ISBN 978-1-58322-867-8. pap. $24.95.
What our waste products tells us about our culture's shortsightedness should be an issue of concern, the authors contend, because the by-products of industrial civilization are incompatible with a sustainable environment. (LJ 3/1/09)

Lovelock, James.The Vanishing Face of Gaia: A Final Warning. Basic Bks: Perseus. 260p. ISBN 978-0-465-01549-8. $25.
Of the new books about global warming and climate change, Lovelock's treatise may be the most dire, for he sees the disastrous environmental effects as inevitable. (LJ 4/1/09).

Palmer, Douglas & Peter Barrett (illus.). Evolution: The Story of Life. Univ. of California.367p. ISBN 978-0-520-25511-1. $39.95.
This encyclopedic tome brings the vastness of evolutionary theory to life with its illustrated time line. (LJ 11/1/09)

Wrangham, Richard. Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human. Basic Bks: Perseus. 309p. ISBN 978-0-465-01362-3. $26.95.
Mastery of fire led to cooking, which in turn led to better diets, physical adaptations, and a division of labor between genders: evolutionary benchmarks that led to homo sapiens.

Zoellner, Tom. Uranium: War, Energy, and the Rock That Shaped the World. Viking. ISBN 978-0-670-02064-5. $26.95.
The task of obtaining and enriching this valuable and dangerous rock still influences national energy policy and the political balance of power. (LJ 1/09)

Callahan, Daniel. Taming the Beloved Beast: How Medical Technology Costs Are Destroying Our Health Care System. Princeton Univ. 267p. ISBN 978-0-691-14236-4. $29.95.
Callahan argues that health-care reform that does not address the spiraling costs of medical technology will fail. (LJ 9/1/09)

Duncan, David Ewing. Experimental Man: What One Man's Body Reveals About His Future, Your Health, and Our Toxic World. Wiley.384p. ISBN 978-0-470-17678-8. $25.95.
Duncan became the ultimate guinea pig, subjecting himself to genetic/medical tests.

Reid, T.R. The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care. Penguin Pr: Penguin Group (USA). 277p. ISBN 978-1-59420-234-6. $25.95.
Reid examines the health-care systems in several countries for what they can teach us about improving ours. (Xpress Reviews, 6/19/09)

Fara, Patricia. Science: A Four Thousand Year History. Oxford Univ. 408p. ISBN 978-0-19-922689-4. $34.95.
This one-volume global survey offers general readers an excellent starting point for more targeted reading. (LJ 5/1/09)

Holmes, Richard. The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science. Pantheon. 576p. ISBN 978-0-375-42222-5. $40.
In the Romantic era, when scientific advances seemed to augur a wondrous future, Holmes reveals how certain scientists epitomized that idealism. (LJ 5/15/09)

Levenson, Thomas. Newton and the Counterfeiter. Houghton Harcourt. 318p. ISBN 978-0-15-101278-7. $25.
As warden of the Royal Mint, Newton applied scientific thinking to catch a master counterfeiter and avert a crisis in British currency. (LJ 5/1/09)

Pickover, Clifford. The Math Book. Sterling. 528p. ISBN 978-1-4027-5796-9. $29.95.
Pickover, a computer graphics wizard and prolific author of mathematical brainteasers, uses a visual approach to convey math's beauty to readers who would not know a lemma from a lemon.

Hempton, Gordon & John Grossmann.One Square Inch of Silence. Free Pr: S. & S. 368p. ISBN 978-1-4165-5908-5. $26.
Acoustic ecologist Hempton took a road trip searching for natural silence and found it is extremely rare. (LJ 3/1/09)

Nicholls, Steve. Paradise Found: Nature in America at the Time of Discovery. Univ. of Chicago. 524p. ISBN 978-0-226-58340-2. $30.
To the Europeans arriving in the 17th century, America's beauty and bounty seemed limitless. Nicholls captures the panorama of a landscape and time that should not be forgotten. (LJ 4/15/09)

Sanderson, Eric W. & Markley Boyer (illus.), Mannahatta: A Natural History of New York City. Abrams. 352p. ISBN 978-0-8109-9633-5. $40.
Using detailed computer simulations, the authors reconstruct Manhattan's natural environment of 500 years ago. (LJ 4/15/09)

Streever, Bill. Cold: Adventures in the World's Frozen Places. Little, Brown. 292p. ISBN 978-0-316-04291-8. $24.99.
An Alaska-based scientist discusses the science of cold, revealing a force of nature that shapes the land and compels organisms to develop remarkable adaptations in order to survive. (LJ 5/1/09)

Barry, Susan R.Fixing My Gaze: A Scientist's Journey into Seeing in Three Dimensions. Basic Bks: Perseus. 236p. ISBN 978-0-465-00913-8. $26.
The experimental vision therapy that cured Barry of her stereoblindness illustrates the brain's ability to change.

Restak, Richard, M.D. Think Smart: A Neuroscientist's Prescription for Improving Your Brain's Performance. Riverhead: Penguin Group (USA). 275p. ISBN 978-1-59448-873-3. $25.95.
A leading popularizer of brain science tackles the most frequent question that he receives: How can I make my brain work better? (LJ 4/15/09)

Crist, Darlene Trew & others. World Ocean Census: A Global Survey of Marine Life. Firefly. 256p. ISBN 978-1-55407-434-1. $40.
This beautifully illustrated account of the Census of Marine Life project will inspire enthusiasm for the beauty and diversity of aquatic species. (LJ 11/15/09)

Horner, Jack & James Gorman. How To Build a Dinosaur. Dutton. 246p. ISBN 978-0-525-95104-9. $25.95.
The new field of evolutionary developmental biology may one-up sf by engineering a dinosaur in a test tube. (LJ 2/15/09)

Halpern, Paul. Collider: The Search for the World's Smallest Particles. Wiley. 260p. ISBN 978-0-470-28620-3. $27.95.
When CERN's Large Hadron Collider went online, there were rumors of mini–black holes that could swallow Earth. Physics professor Halpern says not so but explores the possibilities of this amazing technology.

Boyd, Brian. On the Origin of Stories: Evolution, Cognition, and Fiction. Belknap: Harvard Univ. 540p. ISBN 978-0-674-03357-3. $35.
Good storytellers have evolutionary advantages. This Darwinian critique on fiction, from the Greeks to Dr. Seuss, focuses on personal and social cognition and how art, when shared, become adaptive. (LJ 5/1/09)

Dahaene, Stanislas. Reading in the Brain: The Science and Evolution of a Human Behavior. Viking. 388p. ISBN 978-0-670-02110-9. $27.95.
How did reading come to exist? Cognitive psychologist Dahaene believes that the human brain evolved not for reading specifically but for learning in general. (LJ 11/1/09)

Ball, Philip. Nature's Patterns: A Tapestry in Three Parts. Includes: Shapes. 320p. ISBN 978-0-19-923796-8. Flow. 272p. ISBN 978-0-19-923797-5. Branches. 272p. ISBN 978-0-19-923798-2. ea. vol: Oxford Univ. $29.95.
The regularities in nature can equally be expressed in technical mathematics and admired for their aesthetic beauty. These volumes deconstruct this theme, but if you can afford only one, get Shapes .

Mooney, Chris & Sheril Kirshenbaum. Unscientific America. Basic Bks: Perseus. 209p. ISBN 978-0-465-01305-0. $24.
Science illiteracy in America is getting worse. The authors identify the causes, its consequences, and an agenda for introducing meaningful scientific dialog into the public realm.

Belfiore, Michael. The Department of Mad Scientists. Smithsonian. 320p. ISBN 978-0-06-157793-2. $26.99.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is the R&D arm of the Department of Defense, but in addition to exotic weaponry, its projects explore the frontiers of energy, medical technology, space science, and other fields.

DeWaal, Franz. The Age of Empathy. Harmony: Crown. 291p. ISBN 978-0-307-40776-4. $25.99.
Not only are animals capable of empathy, recent studies suggest that it is a bonding force in many mammalian communities. DeWaal contends that humans can learn from the “humanitarian” behavior of animals. (LJ 8/09)

Ellis, Richard. On Thin Ice: The Changing World of the Polar Bear. Knopf. 400p. ISBN 978-0-307-27059-7. $28.95.
The brute strength and beauty of polar bears symbolize the Arctic's majesty and harshness, but both are threatened by today's climate crisis. (Xpress Reviews, 10/30/09)

Fraser, Caroline. Rewilding the World. Metropolitan: Holt. 416p. ISBN 978-0-8050-7826-8. $28.50.
The mere preservation of species and natural environments is insufficient. They must be “rewilded,” which involves re-creating complex natural systems, based upon research and in cooperation with governments and policymakers. (LJ 11/1/09)