popular science

Book Reviews

Amir D. Aczel: God's Equation
Einstein, Relativity, and the Expanding Universe
Frances Ashcroft: Life at the Extremes
The Science of Survival
Friedrich G. Barth: Insects and Flowers*
The Biology of a Partnership
R. Barker Bausell: Snake Oil Science
The Truth About Complementary and Alternative Medicine
William H. Calvin: The Cerebral Code
Thinking a Thought in the Mosaics of the Mind
Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza, Francesco Cavalli-Sforza: The Great Human Diasporas*
The History of Diversity and Evolution
Paul M. Churchland: The Engine of Reason, the Seat of the Soul
A Philosophical Journey into the Brain
Vincent Courtillot: Evolutionary Catastrophes
The Science of Mass Extinctions
David Crystal: The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language
- a broad survey aimed at a popular audience
David Crystal: Language Death
- threats to languages and approaches to revitalization
Paul Davies: The Mind of God
- can physics answer everything?
Richard Dawkins: Climbing Mount Improbable
- a popular introduction to evolution
Andrew E. Dessler, Edward A. Parson: The Science and Politics of Global Climate Change
A Guide to the Debate
Jared Diamond: Guns, Germs and Steel*
The Fates of Human Societies
Thomas Eisner: For Love of Insects**
- the grand synthesis of a veteran scientist
Ivar Ekeland: The Broken Dice
And Other Mathematical Tales of Chance
Niles Eldredge: Reinventing Darwin*
The Great Evolutionary Debate
Gary William Flake: The Computational Beauty of Nature**
Computer Explorations of Fractals, Chaos, Complex Systems, and Adaptation
Russell Foster, Leon Kreitzman: Rhythms of Life*
The Biological Clocks that Control the Daily Lives of Every Living Thing
Tijs Goldschmidt: Darwin's Dreampond
Drama in Lake Victoria
James L. Gould, Carol Grant Gould: The Honey Bee*
- senses, communication, navigation, learning, and more
Stephen Jay Gould: Bully for Brontosaurus*
Further Reflections in Natural History
Stephen Jay Gould: Dinosaur in a Haystack*
- his seventh volume of essays; still getting better!
Stephen Jay Gould: Wonderful Life
The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History
Mel Greaves: Cancer: The Evolutionary Legacy*
- cellular biology and human evolution, history and society
Sandra Hempel: The Strange Case of the Broad Street Pump
John Snow and the Mystery of Cholera
George W. Hudler: Magical Mushrooms, Mischievous Molds
- fungi and their influence on our lives
David Johnson: The Geology of Australia*
- an excellent introduction for the lay reader
Ian Johnston: Measured Tones*
The Interplay of Physics and Music
Olivia Judson: Dr Tatiana's Sex Advice to All Creation*
The Definitive Guide to the Evolutionary Biology of Sex
Simon Lamb: Devil in the Mountain
A Search for the Origin of the Andes
Sarah Lazarus: Troubled Waters
The Changing Fortunes of Whales and Dolphins
Roger Lewin: Bones of Contention*
Controversies in the Search for Human Origins
Richard Lewontin: Human Diversity**
- the realities of human biological variation
Juan Luis Arsuaga: The Neanderthal's Necklace*
In Search of the First Thinkers
Benoit Mandelbrot, Richard L. Hudson: The (Mis)behavior of Markets
A Fractal View of Risk, Ruin, and Reward
Lynn Margulis, Dorion Sagan: Microcosmos
Four Billion Years of Microbial Evolution
Brian McConnell: Beyond Contact
A Guide to SETI and Communicating With Alien Worlds
Kenneth J. McNamara: Shapes of Time*
The Evolution of Growth and Development
John McPhee: Annals of the Former World**
- travels across the United States with geologists
H.W. Menard: Islands*
- and atolls, banks, and guyots
Elaine Morgan: The Descent of the Child
Human Evolution From a New Perspective
Elaine Morgan: The Scars of Evolution
What Our Bodies Tell Us about Human Origins
Ernest Nagel, James R. Newman: Gödel's Proof*
- a readable popular explanation of the Incompleteness Theorem
Jayant V. Narlikar: The Lighter Side of Gravity
- a popular introduction to the physics behind astronomy
Steven Pinker: The Language Instinct
The New Science of Language and Mind
Burkard Polster: Q.E.D.
Beauty in Mathematical Proof
John Postgate: The Outer Reaches of Life*
- bacteria in extreme environments
Geoffrey K. Pullum: The Great Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax
And Other Irreverent Essays on the Study of Language
David Quammen: The Song of the Dodo*
Island Biogeography in an Age of Extinctions
Steven Rose: The Making of Memory
From Molecules to Mind
Pat Shipman: Taking Wing*
Archaeopteryx and the Evolution of Bird Flight
Simon Singh, Edzard Ernst: Trick or Treatment?
Alternative Medicine on Trial
Alan Sokal, Jean Bricmont: Intellectual Impostures
Postmodern Philosophers' Abuse of Science
Ian Stewart, Martin Golubitsky: Fearful Symmetry
Is God a Geometer?
David G. Stork: HAL's Legacy
2001's Computer as Dream and Reality
Nassim Nicholas Taleb: The Black Swan*
The Impact of the Highly Improbable
Henk Tennekes: The Simple Science of Flight*
From Insects to Jumbo Jets
Chris Turney: Bones, Rocks and Stars
The Science of When Things Happened
Leonard M. Wapner: The Pea and the Sun*
- a popular presentation of the Banach-Tarski Theorem
Mary E. White: After the Greening**
- a geological and botanical history of Australia