PopScience!

[crazyjerseygirl]

I loves me some popular science books!

What have you read, I'd love some suggestions!

 

I'm on an astrophysics run now, with Cosmos (Sagan), A Universe in a Nutshell (Hawking), A Universe from Nothing (Krauss) and Origins (Degrasse-Tyson). 

 

I got The Greatest Story Ever Told (Dawkins) in the queue, but I am looking for some new works, perhaps something more in depth or something by Not-A-Famous-Guy.

 

Suggestions?

[Sarah Barr]

Chaos by James Gleick is pretty good. Oddly enough, it's about chaos theory.
Collapse by Jared Diamond is very interesting and was pretty much constantly checked out from my local uni library. Bit gloomy but hey.

 

And if you like biology:

- The Science of Jurassic Park  (does what it says on the tin)

- Kraken (squid science!)

- Survivors (weird evolutionary relics still around today)

- And pretty much all the deliciously fat, glossy hardback accompaniments to BBC nature shows. 

[crazyjerseygirl]

Chaos by James Gleick is pretty good. Oddly enough, it's about chaos theory.

Collapse by Jared Diamond is very interesting and was pretty much constantly checked out from my local uni library. Bit gloomy but hey.

 

And if you like biology:

- The Science of Jurassic Park  (does what it says on the tin)

- Kraken (squid science!)

- Survivors (weird evolutionary relics still around today)

- And pretty much all the deliciously fat, glossy hardback accompaniments to BBC nature shows. 

Oh I likes biology, I'm a biologist!  I want to check out the Survivors book, it looks terribly interesting!  I've been looking for stuff on Cambrian life and this guy looks like he might have some good stuff!

 

Thanks for the suggestions!

[Raxie]

Brian Greene is slightly-less-famous then the authors you've got there.  A little more high level too but still awesome.  I highly recommend The Elegant Universe and/or The Fabric of the Cosmos by him.  Also Lisa Randall's Warped Passages is super awesome.  On a lighter note The Black Hole Wars is a super interesting/informative book about black holes, but also describes the fight/bet between the author (Leonard Susskind) and Stephen Hawking about black holes... so it's a pretty funny look into the physics world from a social standpoint as well.

 

Clearly I'm partial to the physics stuff

[crazyjerseygirl]

Brian Greene is slightly-less-famous then the authors you've got there.  A little more high level too but still awesome.  I highly recommend The Elegant Universe and/or The Fabric of the Cosmos by him.  Also Lisa Randall's Warped Passages is super awesome.  On a lighter note The Black Hole Wars is a super interesting/informative book about black holes, but also describes the fight/bet between the author (Leonard Susskind) and Stephen Hawking about black holes... so it's a pretty funny look into the physics world from a social standpoint as well.

 

Clearly I'm partial to the physics stuff

Thanks!

I am a biologist by profession, so I tend towards physics popsci as well since I don't understand a lick of it!

Are you watching the Cosmos series?  I'm 2 episodes behind.  Thanks DVR!

[Raxie]

Yessss.  I love Cosmos.  I am too young to have seen the Carl Sagan version, but I did go back and watch them a few years ago just because of my love of Sagan.  I was so pumped to hear they were redoing it!  It's awesome, and really well done.

[crazyjerseygirl]

Yessss.  I love Cosmos.  I am too young to have seen the Carl Sagan version, but I did go back and watch them a few years ago just because of my love of Sagan.  I was so pumped to hear they were redoing it!  It's awesome, and really well done.

Oh thank goodness I'm not the only one!

My husband chides me for being such a nerd, and it shows!  But it's always good to find others hiding out there.  Hmm....Maybe we need a Cosmos thread.  WE SHOULD TOTALLY DO A COSMOS READ-ALONG!!!!!!

[Raxie]

Oh thank goodness I'm not the only one!

My husband chides me for being such a nerd, and it shows!  But it's always good to find others hiding out there.  Hmm....Maybe we need a Cosmos thread.  WE SHOULD TOTALLY DO A COSMOS READ-ALONG!!!!!!

 

Yeah it really is the best.  It's not that nerdy that's the whole point -- to try to make it accessible to everyone!  Seth MacFarlane produces it.  Therefore, everyone should like it. Boom.

[crazyjerseygirl]

Husband was shocked to find out McFarlane produced it.  Dude has one of the biggest collection of Sagan stuff out there.

I think they did a lovely job choosing Dr. Tyson (Degrasse-Tyson?) for the role.  He suits it perfectly. 

[Raxie]

I agree. He's perfect. Especially due to his personal connection with Sagan.

[Bearded_Dragon]

There's this bearded, Canadian scientist called Jay Ingram who does a lot of writing, mostly on the science involved in everyday things we use/do. He's got a few other books on different topics but I quite like him (not not just because I am also a bearded, Canadian scientist named Jay Ingram).

[Fenshire]

I haven't read it in a long while, but "How to Build a Time Machine" was a really interesting and entertaining read.

 

http://www.amazon.com/Build-Time-Machine-Paul-Davies/dp/0142001864/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1399194336&sr=8-1&keywords=how+to+build+a+time+machine

[Maj. Bloodnok]

I'm personally a big fan of Dan Ariely's work on behavioral economics: why we make the financial decisions we do, and how those choices can be influenced by marketing strategies, propaganda, etc.  He's got three books: 'Predictably Irrational', 'The Upside of Irrationality' and 'The Honest Truth about Dishonesty', and they're real eye-openers.  His website is www.danariely.com.

[Kaylya]

I'm presently working on "A Brief History of Nearly Everything". I'd say it's half science, half entertaining stories about the people who do the science

 

I've also enjoyed a number of books by Mary Roach. I'd describe her books in general along the lines of "How we know what we know about ______". Her most recent is Gulp, which is about the digestive system. Again, sort of half science and half entertaining stories about the scientists / experiments, some of it historical and some of it present day. 

[Jothra]

I'm presently working on "A Brief History of Nearly Everything". I'd say it's half science, half entertaining stories about the people who do the science 

 

I own that book. Why haven't I read that book? I will read anything by Bill Bryson. I would even read Twilight again if they put Bill Bryson's name on the cover.

 

I really enjoyed Under a Lucky Star, the autobiography of Roy Chapman Andrews. Among other things, he discovered the first fossilized dinosaur eggs (though he misidentified the species to which they belonged). It's worth keeping in mind, though, that much of his work was done on whales, back in the days before people realized how disastrous over-hunting whales would eventually become. Still, he was a very interesting man, and a very passionate scientist.