Title: 

This is a primer on the basic ideas of relativity. It includes great, illustrative cartoons and very little math. The author addresses many of the misconceptions people might have about concepts related to relativity because of pop culture and introduces some surprising ways relativity affects our daily lives.

Even though relativity is a topic I’ve been interested in since high school, I learned fascinating new facts from this book. The author made incredibly complex and counterintuitive concepts simple. He started with facts that made sense to me and built on them to make the odder results of relativity make sense too. I liked that he revisited the same thought experiments over and over. This made me comfortable with the ideas and helped me learn.

I liked that the author talked about the implications of relativity for our daily lives. He made a pretty convincing argument for why we should all care about the concepts he teaches here. I also loved that he taught the scientific method as he went. I think this is a book that would be perfect for introductory physics classes. It’s easy to follow and  could inspire students to become interested in the topic.

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Title: 

Michio Kaku is first and foremost a theoretical physicist, so he begins his book describing a physicist’s perspective on how the brain works. Then he describes the latest and greatest advances in our understanding of how the brain works and makes some incredible predictions for the future. These include everything from the possibility of assisted telepathy and enhanced cognition to uploadable memories and recordable dreams.

I’ve loved Michio Kaku’s books since high school, maybe earlier. He was able to write about theoretical physics in such an approachable, interesting way. Since reading his books, this is a topic which I always want to learn more about. As someone in working in science, I now also appreciate his ability to bring science to the masses. This book was not quite as good at this as some of the earlier books. There were a few places where I felt an experiment on animals was inadequately explained to the point where it sounded like a mad scientist’s experiment. There were also a few typos that led to scientific inaccuracies in my ARC, but I think these will be fixed in the final version.

That said, I thought his discussion of future technologies was fantastic. As in Physics of the Future, his educated predictions about where science will be within the century were awe inspiring. Also similarly, he transitioned very smoothly from topic to topic and did a great job discussing the ethical implications of each potential technology. To finish with a quote from my review of Physics of the Future, which also applies to this book: “I would highly recommend this book to scientists as well as any non-scientists who’d like to be better informed (which in my opinion, should really be everyone, since that’s who this science is going to affect!). But for scientists in particular, it’s important to always remember three things: the social implications of your work; the ethical implications of your work; and the big dreams we should all be striving for in order to make our daily lives better. This book does a great job bringing home all of those points.”

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Title: 

This is the story of five couples doing group marriage counseling and of one author who sat in on the sessions. I  liked that it became a story that was a little bit about the author too. This could easily have turned into a detached third-person narrative. Instead, it’s clear that the author connected with the couples, so it’s easy for the reader to connect too. That does make this some very unobjective non-fiction though. The author isn’t shy about inserting her own speculations about the couples’ feelings. However, she generally makes it clear when she’s speculating, so I didn’t mind too much. I think a similar fictional story could be a great character driven narrative, but I liked that this was non-fiction. It made the story more interesting that it was true. It made it easy for the author to hold information back without being manipulative because she shared information in the order she found it out. And of course, it made for a very believable story. This is in part due to the author’s ability to convey the personalities of the people involved, but I’m sure the fact that they were real people didn’t hurt either!

Title: The Neighborhood Project
Author: David Sloan Wilson
Source: library
Rating: ★★★★☆

This book describes some incredible examples of applied science. The author had studied a lot of questions relating to evolution before he decided that if an evolutionary approach is truly valuable, it should be possible to use that theory to improve our quality of life. He selected his hometown of Binghamton, NY as a testing ground. In the data collection phase, he discovered enough fun facts for any trivia lover to enjoy. The coolest parts though were those where he actually works to improve his city. This was a very inspiring story and the author does a great job giving people some idea of what being a scientist is like (although in my experience it’s more work and less cycling around the countryside than in his description). You get to see the vast knowledge at our fingertips, learn about great experiments, and hear stories of how many different people were attracted to working in science. I’d love to see this book read in high school or early undergrad science classes.

Title: Tiny Beautiful Things
Author: Cheryl Strayed
Source: library
Rating: ★★★★★

 When I just read a few of these essays in isolation, I thought they were a little strange and over-shared more of the author’s personal life than I ever wanted to know. But from Kim at Sophisticated Dorkiness‘s review it sounded really good and so I decided to give it a try. I’m so glad I did! Something about the introduction putting context around the author’s writing and then reading it all together made me appreciate it in a new and different way. I actually loved that the author shared so much of her personal life. It was a very different approach to giving advice from the typical disintant columnist and, I think, far better. As the author writes more, you get to know her and you have to know someone before you can trust their advice. Occasionally, I was bothered by her advice, such as the essay where she unequivocally suggests that two women get divorced just because they’re not feeling it any more. Most of the time though, I found her encouraging, straight-forward, and insightful. Even when I disagreed with her, I was awed by her way with words and by her ability to speak so personally in a public forum. These short essays really pack an emotional punch. Highly recommended.

The post Some Non-Fiction Mini-Reviews appeared first on Doing Dewey.

This is my second discussion post for Non-Fiction November, an exciting event celebrating non-fiction hosted by Kim at Sophisticated Dorkiness and Leslie at Regular Ruminations. Every Monday this month, a discussion question will be posted. Then each Friday there will be a link-up for discussion posts and non-fiction reviews, with each linky entry entered in a prize drawing at the end of the month! Today’s topic is…

Be the Expert/Ask the Expert/Become the Expert: Share a list of nonfiction books on a topic you know a lot about. Or, ask for some advice for books on a particular topic. Or, put together a list of nonfiction books on a topic you’re curious about.

As someone who does a lot of science reading for work, I’m surprised that I can still enjoy reading about science for fun. Fortunately, in popular science books compared to professional papers there are far fewer details and far more attempts to make the subject interesting to the non-expert. As such, they can require far less brain power to read and can be enjoyed by a much wider audience. If you don’t have a science background, but are interested in what the life of a scientist it like or are interested in a topic like sports or politics that some scientific analysis can help explain, here are some books I’d recommend for you:

 The Signal and The Noise is written by a statistician who created a model that does an impressive job predicting election winners. He includes lots of great graphs that make complex topics much easier to follow. In addition to learning about stats, you’ll learn all sorts of fun facts that people have discerned using statistical methods.

Microcosm does the best job of any book I’ve read at giving a glimpse into the life of a scientist. Especially for biologists, the day-to-day work can be rote and mundane, but the big picture is awe-inspiring. If you’re thinking of going into the sciences, this would be a great book to read.

The Sports Gene was so well written that it was easy to follow even though I knew nothing about the topic before I started and it was interesting even though sports aren’t my favorite subject. I was also very impressed by the nuanced conclusions the author drew. He also handled sensitive issues like race and gender with great delicacy.

The Lives of a Cell is a collection of short but thought-provoking essays which was sometimes humorous, sometimes inspiring, and always an insightful, approachable look at some of the wonders of biology. I would particularly recommend this to people who do lab work because it’s a great reminder of how wonderful biology is, even the things that become rote in the lab.

The Emperor of All Maladies is elegantly written, with both scientific precision and human empathy, both historical interest and fascinating stories about people. It’s also one of the best written books I’ve ever read.

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Title: 

As the subtitle suggests, Deadly Outbreaks is all about medical mysteries. For suspicious cases where multiple patients die or fall ill and the reason is unknown, epidemiologists  are often called in to help determine the cause. Some of these investigations are retrospective, but many require clever deduction to take place quickly in order to prevent more people from becoming sick.

The true stories included in Deadly Outbreaks were all interesting and all very different. Although the first story gave away the ending too early, all of the others had me reading quickly to find out what happened next. I am extremely interested in the intersection of biology and math, so the clever way epidemiologists used the data to solve problems and save lives made this my kind of book. However, some flaws in the writing kept this from being the riveting narrative non-fiction story it had the potential to be.

Two things in particular struck me as off about the writing but I did have an ARC so it’s possible these will be fixed before the book goes to print. In my copy, the tone of the book was very clinical. When we learned about the people involved in each case, the sections introducing them made me feel like someone was reading a resume at me. A few personal details were thrown in, but even these just felt factual. There were also too many details. For instance, the first case wrap-up includes a listing of which borough in NYC the patients were from. Information like this was far less interesting than the main story and slowed the pace of the whole book.

The science was the other big problem. In some cases, many scientific details were thrown in that even as someone in science, I didn’t find interesting (the size of a particular gene, for example). Often these asides weren’t explained well enough that someone without a science background would get anything out of them. These bits were really asides, so if you have no science background you could easily read this book and skip them without being confused. They didn’t, however, serve a useful purpose. Although I’ve spent a while on the bad bits, I don’t mean to suggest this wasn’t an enjoyable read. The stories were so interesting, they basically speak for themselves, so if you have an interest in medical mysteries, this is a book I’d recommend.

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Title: 

Microcosm is a history of E. coli but more than that, it’s a history of modern biology. So much of what we do in the lab today depends on these little bacteria that looking at biology through the lens of E. coli lends itself well to discussing almost all of modern microbiology. It also includes a few philosophical musings and, at the other end of the spectrum, some practical insight into the job of a microbiologist.

I picked up Microcosm in part because the description compares the book to Lives of  a Cell, which I loved. So when they Microcosm turned out to be less elegantly written, less thoughtful, and clunkier in its transitions from philosophy to real world observations… let’s just say this book and I started out on the wrong foot. Fortunately, the rest of the book, while different from what I expected, was still able to mostly win me over.

Some of the introductory material was explained very well, with analogies that captured the important information without implying anything inaccurate. Although I can’t be sure, I felt like other parts of intro weren’t explained well enough for someone without a science background to pick up on the important things. However (and this is the part that makes this a 4 star reviews) the more cutting edge information and all of the fun facts later in the book were very well done. I already know something about the basics of E. coli and I still learned all sorts of new things about how they function and about how they contribute to science. I also thought it was brilliant and unusual to include some details of the lab work which involves E. coli. For that reason, I would particularly recommend this to someone considering work in microbiology, since it gives some insights into what that’s like.

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Title: 

Pop culture has long used the phrase “nature vs nurture” to ask whether genetic or environmental factors are more important. As science has discovered, the truth is far more nuanced. David Epstein explores this fascinating topic in the context of extreme athletic performance. The question he addresses include whether there are people who are just naturals and whether or not everyone could be equally good at sports with the same amount of practice. He also addresses more sensitive topics, such as the influence of race and gender on athletic prowess.

When I heard about this book from @writerrhiannon, I was certain it was going to be just another pop science book perpetuating the fallacy that a single gene can control a complex trait like athleticism. Fortunately, I was very, very wrong! One of this book’s greatest strengths was its nuanced look at the specific components of athleticism that can be attributed to genes or the environment. I found many of these results surprising and couldn’t stop writing down fun facts as I read.

As with many great science books, there was a good mix of science experiments, great explanatory analogies, and personal stories. I was also blown away by the author’s handling of sensitive topics such as race and gender. Although he does acknowledge differences (women throw less far than men, for instance), he always made it clear that these statements were based on averages which don’t say anything about specific individuals. I thought it was a nice way of staying in touch with reality while avoiding stereotyping. Many sections of the book, such as these ones on gender and race issues or others on the value of practice, could be relevant to many fields other than sports. So if you don’t like sports but are interested in genetics, gender and race issues, or theories on learning, I would still highly recommend giving this book a try.

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Title: 

This “biography of cancer” starts with the first documented cases of cancer, continues through initial attempts at cures, and finishes with descriptions of the most recent discoveries. Intertwined with the historical narrative are the stories of the author’s patients, giving us just a glimpse of what it’s like to live with cancer.

For all of The Emperor of Maladies popular acclaim, this is not a book I would describe as “pop science”. That’s not to say that the science was hard to understand, just that it wasn’t simplified. So often, science books rely on analogies to convey the gist of a scientific concept, but gloss over the details. Mukherjee doesn’t compromise on the details. Instead he takes the time to explain, clearly and simply, the scientific concepts the reader needs to understand. He writes beautifully and elegantly. He uses large words naturally and precisely, never coming across as trying to hard. And while his scientifically precise choice of words is clear in the appropriate sections, his word choice in the personal stories clearly conveys his empathy and respect for his patients.

This first thing several people asked me when I said I was reading a book on cancer was “isn’t that depressing?”. Fortunately, no. Of course there were research setbacks and not every patient survives. Each of these tragedies were deeply moving. The author makes you feel very strongly the hopes and disappointments of patients, doctors, and scientists. Overall, however, this is a story of progress. A story of the amazing ways in which scientists have built on the successes of those that come before them. A story which has moved on from the early expectation that we will easily defeat cancer, but still a story that ended not with depression but with hope. Highly recommended.

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Title: 

The stereotypical introvert is not viewed as someone who could be a great leader, lawyer, or salesperson. Susan Cain challenges that view with both fascinating research and enjoyable anecdotes. This research strongly suggests that society could benefit from the complementary strengths of extroverts and introverts. However, much of American society is designed to favor extroverts. Cain discusses why that is; why we should try to change it; and how we can begin doing so.

As you’ve probably heard already, this is an awesome book. It has all the right ingredients to make me love a science-y non-fiction book. A dash of well-explained previous research, spiced up with anecdotes that relate the research to real life. A tasty new blend of old ideas forming the authors own theories. And a pinch of practical, research based advice for improving your life and that of the introverts around you.

These ingredients are all pulled together by the author’s clear writing and intelligence. She drew me in and made me understand how some very different people feel about being introverts. She gave wonderful answers to complex questions, starting by acknowledging that some questions have no simple answer. She also very tactfully makes it clear that she is not saying that introverts are better than extroverts, just that both types of people have something to contribute. All together it made for an enjoyable and inspiring read.

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Title: The Case for Pluto: How a Little Planet Made a Big Difference 
Author: Alan Boyle
Source: library
Fun Fact:  Pluto is so tilted on its’ axis that sometimes the sun would rise in the south and set in the north for someone standing on Pluto.
Rating: ★★★☆☆
Review Summary: More in depth look at the history of Pluto than The Pluto Files, with more personal back stories and smoother plot flow, but still presented in a mostly dry and impersonal way.

The Case for Pluto covers essentially the same material as The Pluto Files but in much greater depth on the personal side and a little more detail on the scientific side.  I liked this book better because of that greater depth, but it was still a pretty dry read and had very few funny bits to lighten things up.  The author makes two basic arguments for considering Pluto a planet.  The scientific argument is that all objects with enough gravity to become round should be planets, because this is a non-arbitrary physical property.  And of course the second argument is a sentimental look at Pluto’s historical significance.  While the sphere argument is somewhat compelling, it does have the unfortunate problem of creating tons of planets (many asteroids and Kuiper belt objects meet this criteria, as do many moons), making planet a large enough category it’s useless without sub-categories.  Although unconvinced by the main point of this book, it was an interesting read and I very much enjoyed the final chapter describing future research directions.  I would recommend it to anyone just looking to learn some more facts about Pluto.

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Title: How I Killed Pluto and Why it Had It Coming
Author: Mike Brown
Source: library
Fun Fact:  The IAU has ridiculously specific rules for naming astronomical objects.  For example, craters on Venus wider than 20km are to be named after famous women while smaller craters are to be given common female names!  For more examples, look here.
Rating: ★★★★☆
Review Summary: At last, the really personal viewpoint of someone who was a part of the Pluto debate – and written with a fun, dry sort of humor too!

This book is precisely what I was looking for in a book about Pluto.  It contains all the depth of information that The Pluto Files was missing but still had a narrative voice I enjoyed even more than either of the other books.  From the story of the narrator’s experiences trying to write papers while becoming a parent (including being so tired he accidentally loaded the laundry machine with cat litter!) to his exasperation with the bickering scientific community, there was no shortage of moments which made me laugh.  I also found the author’s argument that Pluto not be considered a planet the most convincing argument so far and I enjoyed following his thought process on the matter as a great example of the scientific process.  I would highly recommend this book for anyone looking for a fun micro-history, to anyone looking to learn about the debate on Pluto, and to anyone wanting to learn about science or astronomy in general.  A very enjoyable read.

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