Dr. Fred Bortz

THE SCIENCE SHELF
REVIEWS BY AUTHOR


books











Dear Science Readers,

This site is a continuously growing archive of my book reviews. It is self-funded, with part of the cost covered by your purchases through my Amazon.com links. Thanks to an increasing number of visitors, revenues now cover most of my cost. I appreciate your support.


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Scientifically yours,
Fred Bortz

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Reviews of books alphabetically by author
then alphabetically by title (ignoring leading "a/an" or "the")

[A-B] [C-D] [E-I] [J-O] [P-R] [S] [T-Z]


Joel R. Primack and Nancy Ellen ABRAMS
The View from the Center of the Universe: Discovering Our Extraordinary Place in the Cosmos


Joel ACHENBACH
Captured by Aliens: The Search for Life and Truth in a Very Large Universe


Bill ADAIR
The Mystery of Flight 427: Inside a Flight Investigation


Fred ADAMS and Greg Laughlin
The Five Ages of the Universe: Inside the Physics of Eternity

Ken ALDER
The Measure of All Things: The Seven-Year Odyssey and Hidden Error that Transformed the World


Walter ALVAREZ
A Most Improbable Journey: A Big History of Our Planet and Ourselves


Natalie ANGIER
The Canon: A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science


Ivan AMATO
Stuff: The Materials the World is Made of

Kat ARNEY
Herding Hemingway's Cats: Understanding How Our Genes Work


Bulent ATALAY*
Math and the Mona Lisa: The Art and Science of Leonardo Da Vinci


Jim BAGGOTT
Farewell to Reality: How Modern Physics Has Betrayed the Search for Scientific Truth


Jim BAGGOTT
Mass: The Quest to Understand Matter from Greek Atoms to Quantum Fields


Jim BAGGOTT
The Quantum Story: A History in 40 Moments


Philip BALL
Life's Matrix: A Biography of Water


Cynthia BARNETT
Rain: A Natural and Cultural History


Marcia BARTUSIAK (editor)*
Archives of the Universe: A Treasury of Astronomy's Historic Works of Discovery


George BASALA
Civilized Life in the Universe: Scientists on Extraterrestrial Intelligence


Alison BASS
Side Effects: A Prosecutor, a Whistleblower, and a Bestselling Antidepressant on Trial


Chris BEARD
The Hunt for the Dawn Monkey: Unearthing the Origins of Monkeys, Apes, and Humans


Mitchell BEGELMAN
Turn Right at Orion: Travels Through the Cosmos

Alex BELLOS
Here's Looking at Euclid: A Surprising Excursion Through the Astonishing World of Math


Gregory BENFORD
Deep Time: How Humanity Communicates Across Millennia

Marina BENJAMIN
Rocket Dreams: How the Space Age Shaped Our Vision of the World Beyond


Jeffrey BENNETT
Beyond UFOs: The Search for Extraterrestrial Life and Its Astonishing Implications for Our Future


Laurence BERGREEN
Voyage to Mars: NASA's Search for Life Beyond Earth

Gregory BERNS
What It's Like to be a Dog: And Other Adventures in Animal Neuroscience


Kip S. Thorne and Roger D. BLANDFORD
Modern Classical Physics


Howard B. BLUESTIEN
Tornado Alley: Monster Storms of the Great Plains

David BODANIS
E=mc2: A Biography of the World's Most Famous Equation


Martin BOJOWALD
Once Before Time: A Whole Story of the Universe


Max BORN
The Born-Einstein Letters, 1916-1955: Friendship, Politics, and Physics in Uncertain Times
, with the original introduction by Werner Heisenberg, the original foreword by Bertrand Russell, and new preface by Diana Buchwald and Kip Thorne

Alan BOSS
The Crowded Universe: The Search for Living Planets


Mark BOWEN
Censoring Science: Inside the Political Attack on Dr. James Hansen and the Truth of Global Warming


Richard P. BRENNAN
Heisenberg Probably Slept Here: The Lives, Times, and Ideas of the Great Physicists of the 20th Century

John BROCKMAN, editor
The Next Fifty Years: Science in the First Half of the Twenty-First Century


Rodney A. BROOKS
Flesh and Machines: How Robots Will Change Us


Lester R. BROWN
The Earth Policy Reader


Peter D. Ward and Donald BROWNLEE
The Life and Death of Planet Earth: How the New Science of Astrobiology Charts the Ultimate Fate of Our World


Peter D. Ward and Donald BROWNLEE
Rare Earth: Why Complex Life is Uncommon in the Universe


Ronald D. BRUNNER and Amanda H. Lynch
Adaptive Governance and Climate Change


Mark BUCHANAN
The Social Atom: Why the Rich Get Richer, Cheaters Get Caught, and Your Neighbor Usually Looks Like You


Amos Nur with Dawn BURGESS
Apocalypse: Earthquakes, Archaeology, and the Wrath of God


William E. BURROWS
The Infinite Journey: Eyewitness Accounts of NASA and the Age of Space
with foreword by Walter Cronkite

William E. BURROWS
This New Ocean: The Story of the First Space Age

Emma BYRNE
Swearing is Good for You


Gerry BYRNE
Flight 427: Anatomy of an Air Disaster


Alice CALAPRICE
The Einstein Almanac


Alice CALAPRICE, editor
The New Quotable Einstein
, with a foreword by Freeman Dyson

Nigel CALDER
Einstein's Universe: The Layperson's Guide


Christy CAMPBELL
The Botanist and the Vintner: How Wine Was Saved for the World


William CASSIDY
Meteorites, Ice, and Antarctica: A Personal Account


John L. CASTI
Paradigms Regained

Brian CATHCART
The Fly in the Cathedral: How a Group of Cambridge Scientists Won the International Race to Split the Atom


Eugene CERNAN with Don Davis
The Last Man on the Moon

Marvin CETRON and Owen Davies
Probable Tomorrows: How Science and Technology Will Transform our Lives in the Next Twenty Years


Daniel CHARLES
Master Mind: The Rise and Fall of Fritz Haber, the Nobel Laureate Who Launched the Age of Chemical Warfare


Brian CLEGG
Gravity: How the Weakest Force in the Universe Shaped Our Lives


Marcus CHOWN
The Magic Furnace: The Search for the Origin of Atoms

Adriaen COENEN
The Whale Book: Whales and Other Marine Animals as Described by Adriaen Coenen in 1585


Jack COHEN and Ian Stewart
What Does a Martian Look Like? The Science of Extraterrestrial Life


K. C. COLE
The Hole in the Universe: How Scientists Peered Over the Edge of Emptiness and Found Everything


Jennet CONANT
Tuxedo Park: A Wall Street Tycoon and the Secret Palace of Science that Changed the Course of World War II


Ray Villard and Lynette R. COOK, illustrator
Infinite Worlds: An Illustrated Voyage to Planets Beyond our Sun


John CORNWELL
Hitler's Scientists: Science, War, and the Devil's Pact


James T. COSTA
Darwin's Backyard: How Small Experiments Led to a Big Theory


Victoria COULES
Forces of the Wild

John D. COX
Climate Crash: Abrupt Climate Change and What It Means for Our Future


Jerry A. COYNE
Why Evolution is True


Robert P. CREASE
The Prism and the Pendulum: The Ten Most Beautiful Experiments in Science


Carlene CROSS
Fleeing Fundamentalism: A Minister's Wife Examines Faith


Ken CROSWELL
Planet Quest: The Epic Discovery of Alien Solar Systems


Lillian Hoddeson and Vicki DAITSCH
True Genius: The Life and Science of John Bardeen


Keay DAVIDSON
Carl Sagan: A Life


Marvin Cetron and Owen DAVIES
Probable Tomorrows: How Science and Technology Will Transform our Lives in the Next Twenty Years


Paul DAVIES
How to Build a Time Machine


Pete DAVIES
Inside the Hurricane: Face to Face with Nature's Deadliest Storms


Richard DAWKINS
The Ancestor's Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution


Josh DEAN
The Taking of K-129: How the CIA used Howard Hughes to Steal a Russian Sub in the Most Daring Covert Operation in History


Jan DEBLIEU
Wind: How the Flow of Air Has Shaped Life, Myth, and the Land


Marq DE VILLIERS
Water: The Fate of our Most Precious Resource


Keith DEVLIN
Goodbye, Descartes: The End of Logic and the Search for a New Cosmology of the Mind

Frans DE WAAL
Our Inner Ape: A Leading Primatologist Explains Why We Are Who We Are


Paul DICKSON
Sputnik: The Shock of the Century


Barry E. DIGREGORIO
Mars: The Living Planet

Peter Larson and Kristin DONNAN*
Bones Rock: Everything You Kneed to Know to be a Paleontologist


Bruce G. DORMINEY
Distant Wanderers: The Search for Planets Beyond the Solar System


Jennifer A. DOUDNA and Samuel H. Sternberg
A Crack in Creation: Gene Editing and the Unthinkable Power to Control Evolution


Freeman DYSON
The Scientist as Rebel


Paul R. EHRLICH
Human Natures: Genes, Cultures, and the Human Prospect


Albert EINSTEIN
The Meaning of Relativity
, with a new introduction by Brian Green

Mark ESSIG
Edison and the Electric Chair: A Story of Light and Death


Simon Singh and Edzard ERNST, M.D.
Trick or Treatment: The Undeniable Facts About Alternative Medicine


Douglas H. ERWIN
Extinction: How Life on Earth Nearly Ended 250 Million Years Ago


Brian FAGAN
The Little Ice Age: How Climate Made History, 1300-1850


Brian FAGAN
The Long Summer: How Climate Changed Civilization


Stephan FARIS
Forecast: The Consequences of Climate Change, from the Amazon to the Arctic, from Darfur to Napa Valley


Timothy FERRIS
Seeing in the Dark: How Backyard Stargazers Are Probing Deep Space and Guarding Earth From Interplanetary Peril


Timothy FERRIS
The Whole Shebang: A State-of-the-Universe(s) Report

Michelle FEYNMAN, editor
Perfectly Reasonable Deviations from the Beaten Track: The Letters of Richard P. Feynman


Tim FLANNERY
The Weather Makers: How Man is Changing the Climate and What it Means for Life on Earth


Daniel FISCHER
Mission Jupiter: The Spectacular Journey of the Galileo Spacecraft


Helen FISHER
Why We Love: The Nature and Chemistry of Romantic Love


Cynthia FOX
Cell of Cells: The Global Race to Capture and Control the Stem Cell


Joshua B. FREEMAN
Behemoth: A History of the Factory and the Making of the Modern World


Leonard Susskind and Art FRIEDMAN
Special Relativity and Classical Field Theory: The Theoretical Minimum


Harald FRITSCH
The Curvature of Spacetime: Newton, Einstein, and Gravitation
, translated from the German by Karin Heusch

Seymour GARTE
Where We Stand: A Surprising Look at the Real State of Our Planet


Neil GERSHENFELD, Alan GERSHENFELD, and Joel CUTCHER-GERSHENFELD
Designing Reality: How to Survive and Thrive in the Third Digital Revolution


Avery GILBERT
What the Nose Knows: The Science of Scent in Everyday Life


Paul GILSTER
Centauri Dreams: Imagining and Planning Interstellar Exploration


Newt GINGRICH and Terry L. Maple
A Contract with the Earth


Marcelo GLEISER
The Dancing Universe: From Creation Myths to the Big Bang

Neil deGrasse Tyson and Donald GOLDSMITH*
Origins: Fourteen Billion Years of Cosmic Evolution


Joshua S. GOLDSTEIN and Staffan V. Qvist
A Bright Future: How Some Countries Have Solved Climate Change and the Rest Can Follow


Leon GOLUB & Jay M. Pasachoff
Nearest Star: The Surprising Science of Our Sun

David GOODSTEIN
Out of Gas: The End of the Age of Oil


Daniel GREENBERG
Science, Money, and Politics: Political Triumph and Ethical Erosion


Nancy Thorndike GREENSPAN
The End of the Certain World: The Life and Science of Max Born, The Nobel Physicist Who Ignited the Quantum Revolution


John GRIBBIN and Mary GRIBBIN
FitzRoy: The Remarkable Story of Darwin's Captain and the Invention of the Weather Forecast


John GRIBBIN with Mary GRIBBIN
Stardust: Supernovae and Life -- The Cosmic Connection

Alan Stern and David GRINSPOON
Chasing New Horizons: Inside the Epic First Mission to Pluto


David H. GRINSPOON
Venus Revealed: A New Look Below the Clouds of Our Mysterious Twin Planet

David GRINSPOON
Earth in Human Hands: Shaping Our Planet's Future


Steven S. GUBSER
The Little Book of String Theory


Jarrett HALLCOX and Amy Welch, Foreword by Dr. Bill Bass
Bodies We've Buried: Inside the National Forensic Academy, the World's Top CSI Training School


Paul HALPERN
The Quantum Labyrinth: How Richard Feynman and John Wheeler Revolutionized Time and Reality


Michael HANLON*
The Real Mars


Michael HANLON
The Worlds of Galileo: The Inside Story of NASA's Mission to Jupiter
with Foreword by Arthur C. Clarke

David A. HARDY and Sir Patrick Moore
Futures: 50 Years in Space, The Challenge of the Stars


Donna L. HART and Robert W. Sussman
Man the Hunted: Primates, Predators, and Human Evolution


Ron Miller and William K. HARTMANN
The Grand Tour: A Travelers Guide to the Solar System


Stephen HAWKING and Leonard Mlodinow
The Grand Design


Stephen HAWKING, editor and commentator
On the Shoulders of Giants: The Great Works of Physics and Astronomy


Stephen HAWKING
The Universe in a Nutshell


Robin Marantz HENIG
Pandora's Baby: How the First Test Tube Babies Sparked the Reproductive Revolution


T. A. HEPPENHEIMER
Countdown: A History of Space Flight

Roger HIGHFIELD
The Science of Harry Potter: How Magic Really Works


Ian Wilmut and Roger HIGHFIELD
After Dolly: The Uses and Misuses of Human Cloning


Edward L. Schneider, M.D., and Leigh Ann HIRSCHMAN
What Your Doctor Hasn't Told You and the Health Store Clerk Doesn't Know: The Truth About Alternative Treatments and What Works


Lillian HODDESON and Vicki Daitsch
True Genius: The Life and Science of John Bardeen


Gino Segre and Bettina HOERLIN
The Pope of Physics: Enrico Fermi and the Birth of the Atomic Age


James P. HOGAN
Mind Matters: Exploring the World of Artificial Intelligence


Hannah HOLMES
The Secret Life of Dust: From the Cosmos to the Kitchen Counter, the Big Consequences of Little Things

Scott HULER
Defining the Wind: The Beaufort Scale and How a 19th-Century Admiral Turned Science into Poetry


Bruce JAKOSKY
The Search for Life on Other Planets


Les JOHNSON and Joseph E. Meany, Ph.D.
Graphene: The Superstrong, Superthin, and Superversatile Material That Will Revolutionize the World


William A. Stixrud Ph.D. and Ned JOHNSON
The Self-Driven Child: The Science and Sense of Giving Your Kids More Control Over Their Lives


Steven JOHNSON
Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation


Kostas KAMPOURAKIS
Turning Points: How Critical Events Have Driven Human Evolution, Life, and Development
<

Eugene H. KAPLAN
Sensuous Seas: Tales of a Marine Biologist


Arno KARLEN
Biography of a Germ

Marc KAUFMAN
First Contact: Scientific Breakthroughs in the Hunt for Life Beyond Earth


Sam KEAN
The Violinist's Thumb and Other Lost Tales of Love, War, and Genius as Written by Our Genetic Code


Barbara J. KING
Evolving God: A Provocative View on the Origins of Religion


Jeffrey KLUGER
Splendid Solution: Jonas Salk and the Conquest of Polio


Elizabeth KOLBERT
Field Notes From A Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change


Gene KRANZ
Failure is Not an Option: Mission Control from Mercury to Apollo 13 and Beyond

Ray KURZWEIL
The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence


Simon LAMB & David Sington
Earth Story: The Shaping of Our World

Joseph LANZA
Gravity: Tilted Perspectives on Rocketships, Rollercoasters, Earthquakes, and Angel Food

Peter LARSON and Kristin Donnan*
Bones Rock: Everything You Kneed to Know to be a Paleontologist


Fred Adams and Greg LAUGHLIN
The Five Ages of the Universe: Inside the Physics of Eternity

Robert LAUGHLIN
A Different Universe: Reinventing Physics from the Bottom Down


Roger D. LAUNIUS and Howard McCurdy
Imagining Space: Achievements * Predictions * Possibilities 1950-2050
with foreword by Ray Bradbury

Eric LAX
The Mold in Dr. Florey's Coat: The Story of the Penicillin Miracle


Joseph LEDOUX
Synaptic Self: How Our Brains Become Who We Are


Michael D. LEMONICK
Other Worlds: the Search for Life in the Universe


Daniel J. LEVITIN
This is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession


Daniel J. LEVITIN
The World in Six Songs: How the Musical Brain Created Human Nature


David H. LEVY
Comets: Creators and Destroyers

Olga LITOWINSKY
It's a Bunny-Eat-Bunny World: A Writer's Guide to Surviving and Thriving in Today's Competitive Children's Book Market


Bjorn LOMBORG
Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist's Guide to Global Warming


M. G. LORD
Astro Turf: The Private Life of Rocket Science


Ronald D. Brunner and Amanda H. LYNCH
Adaptive Governance and Climate Change


Newt Gingrich and Terry L. MAPLE
A Contract with the Earth


Laurence A. MARSCHALL and Stephen P. MARAN
Pluto Confidential: An Insider Account of the Ongoing Battles Over the Status of Pluto


Abigail MARSH
The Fear Factor: How One Emotion Connects Altruists, Psychopaths, & Everyone In-Between


Roger D. Launius and Howard McCURDY
Imagining Space: Achievements * Predictions * Possibilities 1950-2050
with foreword by Ray Bradbury

Howard E. McCURDY
Space and the American Imagination

Maryn McKENNA
Beating Back the Devil: On the Front Lines with the Disease Detectives of the Epidemic Intelligence Service


Harry Y. McSWEEN, Jr.
Fanfare for Earth: The Origin of Our Planet and Life

Les Johnson and Joseph E. MEANY, Ph.D.
Graphene: The Superstrong, Superthin, and Superversatile Material That Will Revolutionize the World


Kathryn MILES
Quakeland: On the Road to America's Next Devastating Earthquake


Kenneth R. MILLER
Only a Theory: Evolution and the Battle for America's Soul


Ron MILLER and William K. Hartmann
The Grand Tour: A Travelers Guide to the Solar System


Mark MIOWDOWNIK
Stuff Matters: Exploring the Marvelous Materials That Shape Our Man-Made World


Leonard MLODINOW
Feynman's Rainbow: A Search for Beauty in Physics and in Life


Stephen Hawking and Leonard MLODINOW
The Grand Design


Chris MOONEY
The Republican War on Science


Chris MOONEY
Storm World: Hurricanes, Politics, and the Battle Over Global Warming


David A. Hardy and Sir Patrick MOORE
Futures: 50 Years in Space, The Challenge of the Stars


Hans MORAVEC
Mind Children: The Future of Robot and Human Intelligence


Hans MORAVEC
Robot: Mere Machine to Transcendent Mind


Richard MORRIS
The Last Sorcerers: The Path from Alchemy to the Periodic Table


Oliver MORTON
Mapping Mars: Science, Imagination, and the Birth of a World


Siddhartha MUKHERJEE
The Gene: An Intimate History


U. S. NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES and the U.S. INSTITUTE OF MEDICINE
Science, Evolution, and Creationism


Craig NELSON
Rocket Men: The Epic Story of the First men on the Moon


Don NORMAN
The Design of Future Things


Amos NUR with Dawn Burgess
Apocalypse: Earthquakes, Archaeology, and the Wrath of God


Barbara OAKLEY
Evil Genes: Why Rome Fell, Hitler Rose, Enron Failed, and My Sister Stole My Mother's Boyfriend


Sten ODENWALD
The 23rd Cycle: Learning to Live with a Stormy Star

Marvin OLASKY and John Perry
Monkey Business: The True Story of the Scopes Trial


David M. OSHINSKY
Polio: An American Story


David OWEN
Copies in Seconds: Chester Carlson and the Birth of the Xerox Machine


Mark PAGEL
Wired for Culture: Origins of the Human Social Mind


Richard PANEK
The 4% Universe: Dark Matter, Dark Energy, and the Race to Discover the Rest of Reality


Leon Golub & Jay M. PASACHOFF
Nearest Star: The Surprising Science of Our Sun

Michael PATERNITI
Driving Mr. Albert: A Trip Across America with Einstein's Brain


George PENDLE
Strange Angel: The Otherworldly Life of Rocket Scientist John Whiteside Parsons


Linda PERLSTEIN
Tested: An American School Struggles to Make the Grade


Marvin Olasky and John PERRY
Monkey Business: The True Story of the Scopes Trial


Steven PINKER
The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature


Steven PINKER
How the Mind Works


Sidney PERKOWITZ
Universal Foam: From Cappuccino to the Cosmos

George POINAR, Jr., and Roberta POINAR
What Bugged the Dinosaurs? Insects, Disease, and Death in the Cretaceous


William POUNDSTONE
Carl Sagan: A Life in the Cosmos


Gavin PRETOR-PINNEY
The Cloudspotter's Guide: The Science, History, and Culture of Clouds


Joel R. PRIMACK and Nancy Ellen Abrams
The View from the Center of the Universe: Discovering Our Extraordinary Place in the Cosmos


Heather PRINGLE
The Master Plan: Himmler's Scholars and the Holocaust


Robert R. PROVINE
Laughter: A Scientific Investigation

Joshua S. Goldstein and Staffan V. QVIST
A Bright Future: How Some Countries Have Solved Climate Change and the Rest Can Follow


Lisa RANDALL
Dark Matter and the Dinosaurs The Astounding Interconnectedness of the Universe

John J. RATEY, M.D.
A User's Guide to the Brain: Perception, Attenttion, and the Four Theaters of the Brain


Diane RAVITCH
The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice are Undermining Education


Chet RAYMO
An Intimate Look at the Night Sky


Chet RAYMO
The Path


Chet RAYMO
Walking Zero: Discovering Cosmic Space and Time Along the Prime Meridian


Martin REES
Our Final Hour: A Scientist's Warning; How Terror, Error, and Environmental Disaster Threaten Humankind's Future in This Century On Earth and Beyond


Richard REEVES
A Force of Nature: the Frontier Genius of Ernest Rutherford


Bob REISS
The Coming Storm: Extreme Weather and Our Terrifying Future


Matt RIDLEY
Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters


John S. RIGDEN
Einstein 1905: The Standard of Greatness


Mary ROACH
Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void


Mary ROACH
Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex


Mary ROACH
Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife


Mary ROACH
Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers


Paul ROBERTS
The End of Oil: On the Edge of a Perilous New World


Theodore ROSZAK
The Gendered Atom: Reflections on the Sexual Psychology of Science with Foreword by Jane Goodall


Michael RUSE
The Evolution-Creation Struggle


Carl SAGAN
Billions and Billions: Thoughts of Life and Death at the Brink of the Millennium


Carl SAGAN, edited by Ann Druyan
The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God


David SALSBURG
The Lady Tasting Tea: How Statistics Revolutionized Science in the Twentieth Century

Ian SAMPLE
Massive: The Missing Particle That Sparked the Greatest Hunt in Science


Stephen L. SASS
The Substance of Civilization

Alwyn SCARTH
Vulcan's Fury: Man Against the Volcano

Edward L. SCHNEIDER, M.D., and Leigh Ann Hirschman
What Your Doctor Hasn't Told You and the Health Store Clerk Doesn't Know: The Truth About Alternative Treatments and What Works


Robert M. SCHOCH, Ph. D. with Robert Aquinas McNally
Voices of the Rocks: A Scientist Looks at Catastrophes & Ancient Civilizations

Kathryn SCHULZ
Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error


Bruce A. SCHUMM
Deep Down Things: The Breathtaking Beauty of Particle Physics


Jeffrey H. SCHWARTZ
Sudden Origins: Fossils, Genes, and the Emergence of Species


Gino SEGRE
A Matter of Degrees:What Temperature Reveals About the Past and Future of Our Species, Planet, and Universe


Gino SEGRE and Bettina Hoerlin
The Pope of Physics: Enrico Fermi and the Birth of the Atomic Age


Charles SEIFE
Alpha and Omega: The Quest for the Beginning and End of the Universe


Charles SEIFE
Proofiness: The Dark Arts of Mathematical Deception


Charles SEIFE
Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea


SERVAN-SCHREIBER, David, M.D., Ph.D.
Anticancer: A New Way of Life


Dr. Bob SHEETS and Jack Williams
Hurricane Watch: Forecasting the Deadliest Storms on Earth


Susan Hand SHETTERLY
Settled in the Wild: Notes from the Edge of Town


Donna SHIRLEY with Danelle Morton
Managing Martians


Seth SHOSTAK
Sharing the Universe: Perspectives on Extraterrestrial Life


Tom SIEGFRIED
Strange Matters: Undiscovered Ideas at the Frontiers of Space and Time


SINGH Simon and Edzard Ernst, M.D.
Trick or Treatment: The Undeniable Facts About Alternative Medicine


Simon Lamb & David SINGTON
Earth Story: The Shaping of Our World

Lee SMOLIN
The Trouble With Physics: The Rise of String Theory, The Fall of a Science, and What Comes Next


Dava SOBEL
The Planets


Susan SOUTHARD
Nagasaki: Life After Nuclear War


Michael SPECTER
Denialism: How Irrational Thinking Hinders Scientific Progress, Harms the Planet, and Threatens Our Lives


Brad SPELLBERG, M.D.
Rising Plague: The Global Threat from Deadly Bacteria and Our Dwindling Arsenal to Fight Them


Barbara SPRING
The Dynamic Great Lakes


Tom STANDAGE
The Neptune File: A Story of Astronomical Rivalries and the Pioneers of Planet Hunting


Tom STANDAGE
The Turk: The Life and Times of the Famous Eighteenth Century Chess Playing Machine


Alan STERN and David Grinspoon
Chasing New Horizons: Inside the Epic First Mission to Pluto


Jennifer A. Doudna and Samuel H. STERNBERG
A Crack in Creation: Gene Editing and the Unthinkable Power to Control Evolution


William K. STEVENS
The Change in the Weather: People, Weather, and the Science of Climate


Amy STEWART
The Earth Moved: On the Remarkable Achievements of Earthworms


Jack Cohen and Ian STEWART
What Does a Martian Look Like? The Science of Extraterrestrial Life


Ian STEWART
Letters to a Young Mathematician


Ian STEWART
Visions of Infinity: The Great Mathematical Problems


Ian STEWART
Significant Figures: The Lives and Work of Great Mathematicians


David STIPP
A Most Elegant Equation: Euler's Formula and the Beauty of Mathematics


William A. STIXRUD Ph.D. and Ned Johnson
The Self-Driven Child: The Science and Sense of Giving Your Kids More Control Over Their Lives


Michael H. STONE, M.D.
The Anatomy of Evil


Tanya Lee STONE
Almost Astronauts: 13 Women Who Dared to Dream


Sync: The Emerging Science of Spontaneous Order

Rebecca STOTT
Darwin and the Barnacle: Story of One Tiny Creature and History's Most Spectacular Scientific Breakthrough


Gregory STOCK
Redesigning Humans: Our Inevitable Genetic Future


Paul STRATHERN
Mendeleyev's Dream: The Quest for the Elements


Steven STROGATZ
Leonard SUSSKIND and Art Friedman
Special Relativity and Classical Field Theory: The Theoretical Minimum


Donna L. Hart and Robert W. SUSSMAN
Man the Hunted: Primates, Predators, and Human Evolution


Doron SWADE
The Difference Engine: Charles Babbage and the Quest to Build the First Computer


George G. SZPIRO
The Secret Life of Numbers: 50 Easy Pieces on How Mathematicians Work and Think


Andrew TAYLOR*
The World of Gerard Mercator: The Mapmaker Who Revolutionized Geography


Kathleen TAYLOR
Cruelty: Human Evil and the Human Brain


Dr. Fiorella TERENZI
Heavenly Knowledge: An Astrophysicist Seeks Wisdom in the Stars

Kip S. THORNE and Roger D. Blandford
Modern Classical Physics


James TREFIL
Are We Unique? A Scientist Explores the Unparalleled Intelligence of the Human Mind


Alexander TSIARAS*
The Architecture and Design of Man and Woman: The Marvel of the Human Body Revealed


Alexander TSIARAS
From Conception to Birth: A Life Unfolds


Holly TUCKER
Blood Work: A Tale of Medicine and Murder in the Scientific Revolution


Colin TUDGE
The Impact of the Gene: From Mendel's Peas to Designer Babies


Shelly TURKLE
Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other


Neil deGrasse TYSON
The Pluto Files: The Rise and Fall of America's Favorite Planet


Neil deGrasse TYSON and Donald Goldsmith*
Origins: Fourteen Billion Years of Cosmic Evolution


Jason VAN DREISCHE and Roy VAN DREISCHE
Nature Out of Place: Biological Invasions in the Global Age


Geerat VERMEIJ
The Evolutionary World: How Adaptation Explains Everything from Seashells to Civilization


Ray VILLARD and Lynette R. Cook, illustrator
Infinite Worlds: An Illustrated Voyage to Planets Beyond our Sun


Meredith WADMAN
The Vaccine Race: Science, Politics, and the Human Costs of Defeating Disease


Gilbert WALDBAUER
Millions of Monarchs, Bunches of Beetles: How Bugs Find Strength in Numbers


Peter D. WARD
The Flooded Earth: Our Future in a World Without Ice Caps


Peter D. WARD and Donald Brownlee
The Life and Death of Planet Earth: How the New Science of Astrobiology Charts the Ultimate Fate of Our World


Peter WARD
Life As We Do Not Know It: The NASA Search for (and Synthesis of) Alien Life


Peter WARD
The Medea Hypothesis: Is Life on Earth Ultimately Self-Destructive?


Peter WARD
Out of Thin Air: Dinosaurs, Birds, and Earth's Ancient Atmosphere


Peter D. WARD and Donald Brownlee
Rare Earth: Why Complex Life is Uncommon in the Universe


Bruce WATSON
The Man Who Changed How Boys and Toys Were Made: The Life and Times of A. C. Gilbert, the Man Who Saved Christmas


Fred WATSON
Stargazer: The Life and Times of the Telescope


James D. WATSON*
DNA: The Secret of Life


Lyall WATSON
Jacobson's Organ and the Remarkable Sense of Smell


Samantha WEINBERG
A Fish Caught in Time: The Search for the Coelacanth


David A. WEINTRAUB
Is Pluto a Planet? A Historical Journey Through the Solar System


Jarrett Hallcox and Amy WELCH, Foreword by Dr. Bill Bass
Bodies We've Buried: Inside the National Forensic Academy, the World's Top CSI Training School


Dr. Bob Sheets and Jack WILLIAMS
Hurricane Watch: Forecasting the Deadliest Storms on Earth


Ian WILMUT and Roger Highfield
After Dolly: The Uses and Misuses of Human Cloning


Daniel J. WILSON
Living with Polio: The Epidemic and Its Survivors


E. O. WILSON
The Creation: An Appeal to Save Life on Earth


Peter WOIT
Not Even Wrong: The Failure of String Theory and the Search for Unity in Physical Law


Robert L. WOLKE
What Einstein Told His Cook 2: The Sequel, Further Adventures in Cooking Science
, with 35 recipes by Marlene Parrish

David WOLMAN
A Left-Hand Turn Around the World: Chasing the Mystery and Meaning of All Things Southpaw


Colin WOODARD
Ocean's End: Travels Through Endangered Seas


THE WORLDWATCH INSTITUTE
State of the World 2003


Richard WRANGHAM
Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human


Donald K. YEOMANS
Near-Earth Objects: Finding Them Before They Find Us


Jane YOLEN
The Radiation Sonnets: For My Love, in Sickness and in Health


Jane YOLEN
Take Joy: A Book for Writers


Palle YOURGRAU
A World Without Time: The Forgotten Legacy of Goedel and Einstein


G. Pascal ZACHARY
Endless Frontier: Vannevar Bush, Engineer of the American Century


Marlene ZUK
Riddled With Life: Friendly Worms, Ladybug Sex, and the Parasites that Make Us Who We Are