Science-Book Challenge 2008

From Scienticity

The Science-Book Challenge is easy: read three science books this year and then tell us about them and share your report with others.

Reading about science is fun and rewarding. We encourage others to read about science, and help readers find books that they might enjoy, by publishing our Book Notes, which are written by Ars Hermeneutica employees, volunteers, and friends. We're looking for science-book readers who will help us help other science-book readers by sharing their own science-book reading experiences.

The 2008 Science-Book Challenge

1. Read at least three nonfiction books in 2008 related to the theme "Living a Rational Life", broadly construed. Each book should have something to do with science, how science operates, or science's relationship with its surrounding culture. The books might be popularizations of science, they might be history, they might be biography, they might be anthologies; they can be recent titles or older books.
2. After you've read a book, write a short note about it; 500 words would suffice. What goes in the note? The things you would tell a friend if you wanted to convince said friend to read it, too. Naturally, you can read some of the existing Book Notes for ideas.
3. Don't worry if you find that you've read a book someone else has also read; we welcome multiple notes on one title.
4. Get your book note to us and we'll post it with the other notes in our Book Note section. Use the book-note form or the comment form to get in touch with us.
5. Tell two other people about the Science-Book Challenge: http://ArsHermeneutica.org/besieged/Science-Book_Challenge_2008.

Stuck for ideas about what books to read? Write to us and we'll see if we can't come up with some books that would match your interests.

If you'd like to sign up and make your participation in the Science-Book Challenge public, leave a comment at the Bearcastle Blog page where we originally announced the Challenge. Use your own blog to spread the word and use our Science-Book Challenge 2008 graphic to make it pretty.

The Science-Book Challengers

Everyone should feel free to accept the challenge any time during 2008. Decide on your book list at the beginning or be more spontaneous and choose titles as you go. If you like, let us know that you're taking the challenge and we'll put your name here with other challengers. You can use the handy comment form.

Here are the people we are aware of who have accepted the Science-Book Challenge 2008.

Challenger	Link	Titles & Links to Book Notes
Melanie	The Indextrious Reader	George Johnson, Miss Leavitt’s Stars : The Untold Story of the Woman who Discovered How to Measure the Universe Gino Segrè, Faust in Copenhagen : A Struggle for the Soul of Physics David Bodanis, E=mc2 : A Biography of the World’s Most Famous Equation
Eva	A Striped Armchair	Neil deGrasse Tyson, Death by Black Hole : And Other Cosmic Quandaries Matt Ridley, The Red Queen : Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature Natalie Angier, The Canon : A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science Clea Koff, The Bone Woman : a Forensic Anthropologist’s Search for Truth in the Mass Graves of Rwanda, Bosnia, Croatia, and Kosovo Susan Orlean, The Orchid Thief David Bainbridge, The X in Sex : How the X Chromosome Controls our Lives Gabrielle Walker, Snowball Earth : The Story of the Great Global Catastrophe that Spawned Life as we Know it Alan Walker and Pat Shipman, The Wisdom of the Bones : In Search of Human Origins Jan DeBlieu, Wind : How the Flow of Air has Shaped Life, Myth, and the Land Carl Safina, Song for the Blue Ocean : Encounters along the World’s Coasts and beneath the Seas
Wendy	A Novel Challenge	tbd
Bibliohistoria	Bibliohistoria	tbd
Gautami Tripathy	Reading and More Reading	tbd
Callista	SMS Book Reviews	Keith Devlin and Gary Lorden, The Numbers Behind NUMB3RS : Solving Crime with Mathematics Peter Christie, The Curse of Akkad: Climate Upheavals that Rocked Human History Richard Wiseman, Quirkology : How We Discover the Big Truths in Small Things Patrick Buckley and Lily Binns, The Hungry Scientist Handbook : Electric Birthday Cakes, Edible Undies, and Other DIY Projects for Techies, Tinkerers, and Foodies
Melanie	Cynical Optimism	Michael Pollan, The Botany of Desire : A Plant’s Eye View of the World Michael Pollan, In Defense of Food : An Eater's Manifesto
raidergirl3	an adventure in reading	Jim Lebans, The Quirks & Quarks Guide to Space : 42 Questions (and Answers) about Life, the Universe, and Everything Dava Sobel, The Planets Lee Smolin, The Trouble with Physics : The Rise of String Theory, the Fall of a Science, and What Comes Next
Emily Barton	Telecommuter Talk	James D. Watson, The Double Helix : A Personal Account of the Discovery of the Structure of DNA
Maggie	Maggie Reads	Bill Hayes, The Anatomist : A True Story of Gray’s Anatomy Natalie Angier, The Canon : A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science
Sheralyn	libri ortus	proposes 3 books in 3 subjects! first subject is "cosmology & theoretical physics": Stephen Hawking, "The Universe in a Nutshell" Bruce Bassett, "Introducing Relativity" JP McEvoy, "Introducing Quantum Theory" second subject is "ecology & environment": Al Gore, An Inconvenient Truth Scott Huler, Defining the Wind Charles Elkton, Ecology of Invasions by Animals and Plants third subject is "evolution & anthropology": Daniel Dennett, Darwin's Dangerous Idea Johnjoe McFadden, Quantum Evolution GJ Sawyer, The Last Human
Judy Dague	Intergalactic Bookworm	spontaneous
RRT	n/a	Jackson and Jamieson, unSpun : Finding Facts in a World of Disinformation Howard Bloom, Out There : The Government's Secret Quest for Extraterrestrials Astronaut Mike Mullane, Riding Rockets : The Outrageous Tales of a Space Shuttle Astronaut David L. Boslaugh, When Computers Went to Sea : The Digitization of the United States Navy
SJB	n/a	Linda Simon, Dark Light : Electricity and Anxiety from the Telegraph to the X-Ray Dr. Nick Trout, Tell Me Where It Hurts : A Day of Humor, Healing and Hope in My Life as an Animal Surgeon Peter S. Wells, Barbarians to Angels : The Dark Ages Reconsidered
JNS	Bearcastle Blog	Chet Raymo, Walking Zero : Discovering Cosmic Space and Time Along the Prime Meridian Jared Diamond, The Third Chimpanzee : The Evolution and Future of the Human Animal Edward O. Wilson, The Creation: An Appeal to Save Life on Earth Andrew Robinson, The Story of Measurement John H. Lienhard, Inventing Modern : Growing up with X-Rays, Skyscrapers, and Tailfins Scott Huler : Defining the Wind P.W. Atkins : The Periodic Kingdom : A Journey into the Land of the Chemical Elements Colin Tudge, The Time Before History : 5 Million Years of Human Impact Peter Watson, Ideas : A History of Thought and Invention, from Fire to Freud Erik Larson, Isaac's Storm : A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History Simon Winchester, The Map that Changed the World : William Smith and the Birth of Modern Geology Richard Dawkins, Climbing Mount Improbable Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin, American Prometheus : The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer Wallace Arthur, Creatures of Accident : The Rise of the Animal Kingdom Janet Lembke, Despicable Species : On Cowbirds, Kudzu, Hornworms, and Other Scourges Lewis Thomas, The Lives of a Cell : Notes of a Biology Watcher James Schwartz, In Pursuit of the Gene : From Darwin to DNA Simon LeVay, When Science Goes Wrong : Twelve Tales from the Dark Side of Discovery Sarah Flannery, with David Flannery, In Code : A Mathematical Journey Amir D Aczel, The Mystery of the Aleph : Mathematics, the Kabbalah, and the Search for Infinity Mario Livio, The Golden Ratio : The Story of Phi, The World's Most Astonishing Number Richard B. Alley, The Two-Mile Time Machine : Ice Cores, Abrupt Climate Change, and Our Future George Johnson, The Ten Most Beautiful Experiments Mort Rosenblum, Chocolate : A Bittersweet Saga of Dark and Light Richard Rhodes, Arsenals of Folly : The Making of the Nuclear Arms Race John S. Rigden, Hydrogen : The Essential Element Eric Roston, The Carbon Age : How Life's Core Element has Become Civilization's Greatest Threat Mark Kurlansky, The Big Oyster : History on the Half Shell Darrell Huff, How to Lie with Statistics Bunny Crumpacker, Perfect Figures : The Lore of Numbers and How we Learned to Count