Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Recommended reading, #scio12 style

I came away with a lot of things from ScienceOnline2012. A list of people to follow, more blogs to read, more articles to look up, but what I'm most looking forward to tackling are some of the book recommendations that popped up in discussion sessions, as well as the ones from the book lottery.

Here they are, in chronological order from when they were written down in my notebook. (Titles link out to Amazon, authors are in parentheses.)

Descartes' Error. Recommended (I think) from David Ropiek's session on risk taking. It explores the intersection of emotion and rationality. (Antonio Demasio)

Thinking Fast and Slow. A psychologist who wins the Nobel for Economics? You/I should probably read this book. Luckily for me, Boyfriend got it for Christmas, but he is a slow reader. I should just take this from him. (Daniel Kahneman)

The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York. The Jazz Age? Murder? Forensic Medicine? I can't wait to read this. (Deborah Blum)

Mr. Jefferson and the Giant Moose: Natural History in Early America. Backyard science grows as Jefferson sets to prove America is just as good as France. And I heard a rumor there are weasel penises, too. One can never be too sure. (Lee Alan Dugatkin)

The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic and Madness at the Fair that Changed America. Erik Larson was recommended a few times. I'm going to try to start with this one. (Erik Larson)

Newton and the Counterfeiter: The Unknown Detective Career of the World's Greatest Scientist. @drskyskull said that the only way this book could have been more exciting would have been if Newton was killing zombies. Would you want to imagine being tracked down by the dude that invented gravity? (Tom Levenson)

The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the world from the Periodic Table of the Elements. (Side note, jeez--these science writers really love the subtitle, don't they?) A history of chemistry. (Sam Kean)

Every Living Thing: Man's Obsessive Quest to Catalog Life, from Nanobacteria to New Monkeys. A portrait of scientists. (Rob Dunn)

The Age of Wonder: The Romantic Generation and the Discovery of the Beauty and Terror of Science. (Richard Holmes)

Of course all the books that were included in the book lottery can be found here. They all look amazing, the ones on the top of my to read list are...

The Calculus Diaries
Geek Dad 
The Amazing Story of Quantum Mechanics

Hopefully I'll get to read some of these soon, and when I do, I'll try to post more in depth reviews!

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