Wake up! Post your science books

[Elizabeth]

Bit quiet, this group. And while I was browsing the bookshelf to find any fun new reccommendations I found it a bit heavy on physics (Travis?) and epidemiology (me).

So a challenge to group members -- would you each post your three favourite science/enquiry books on the bookshelf, please? I'm keen to find some good spring-time reading.

[Peter]

Uncle Tungsten Oliver Sacks
The Periodic Table Primo Levi
Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher Lewis Thomas

[Amy]

Thanks for the challenge!!!! I have read some good stuff lately but have just been too lazy to add them until now. And I just remembered another...The Third Chimpanzee!

[[deleted user]]

Ok - I added several books to the to-read shelf. I can't vouch for them, since they are on my to-read shelf as well, but they all sound interesting. If anyone has read them, please speak up and let me know how they are!

The books I added are:

Suffering for Science: Reason And Sacrifice in Modern America by Herzig, Rebecca M.

Building a Better Race: Gender, Sexuality, and Eugenics from the Turn of the Century to the Baby Boom by Kline, Wendy

Mutants: On Genetic Variety and the Human Body by Leroi, Armand Marie

The Beak of the Finch: A Story of Evolution in Our Time by Weiner, Jonathan

Time, Love, Memory: A Great Biologist and His Quest for the Origins of Behavior by Weiner, Jonathan

The Treatment: The Story of Those Who Died in the Cincinnati Radiation Tests by Stephens, Martha

The Ten Most Beautiful Experiments by Johnson, George

[Elizabeth]

Mutants is fun (though I'm probably biased because Armand is a mate of mine). The Beak of the Finch is a classic.

I haven't read the Wendy Kline book but I've just finished Matthew Connelly's Fatal Misconception, which covers the same ground. You have to be REALLY interested in the subject to wade through a 387 page book about human reproduction that doesn't mention sex!

[Susanna - Censored by GoodReads]

I just joined, and added a few books.

The Making of the Atomic Bomb, by Richard Rhodes

Connections, by James Burke

Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History, by Steven Jay Gould

Night Comes to the Cretaceous: Comets, Craters, Controversy, and the Last Days of the Dinosaurs, by James Lawrence Powell

Ingenious Pursuits: Building the Scientific Revolution, by Lisa Jardine

Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, by Jared Diamond

[[deleted user]]

Elizabeth, I recently finished Mutants and LOVED it. I'm jealous that you're friends with Armand.

[Susanna - Censored by GoodReads]

It would be great to have a few more subcategories to shelve things under (as the main list hopefully gets longer). Perhaps medicine for a start?

[[deleted user]]

Anyone can add shelves, so if you have time, definitely go for it!

[Susanna - Censored by GoodReads]

Cool. I'll take a stab at it, then.

[Jessica]

I just added a few of my recent reads. Bonk, by mary roach. Stiff is unequivocally my favorite of hers. Also the Emperor of Scent is very intersting on how we smell or rather the current debate on how they think we smell. The Botany of Desire is very interesting quick read mostly about plants.
Side Note: I love the Mutants book. I wish there were more photos!!!!!!! Any more books similar to that. I want to read. I love how screwed up Mother Nature can be and still have a viable fetus.

[Elizabeth]

I've done something that I'm sure is against all Goodreads protocol, and added my own book, The Wisdom of Whores, which is published in the US this week (and in the UK last month). Despite the clit-lit title, it's actually about good science and bad politics in the AIDS epidemic, a view from the front lines after more than a decade working as an epidemiologist in the brothels of Asia and the boardrooms of Geneva.
I cheekily gave it five stars, but you can read all the press reviews here

[Peter]

Elizabeth, protocol be hanged -- sounds like a great book, and if I spot it in Europe in the next two months (I am about to head to selected Baltic states, Low Countries and bits of Central Europe, so chances may not be good), I will happily but it -- if not, I will order it when I get back, if it has not reached Australia's shores.

I am quietly assembling a list of books to try to round up before I take off, so folks, please keep those titles rolling in!