THE SCIENCE SHELF NEWSLETTER


News about the Science Shelf archive of book reviews, columns, and comments by Fred Bortz



Issue #34, Midwinter, Pre-Groundhog's Day Edition, January-March, 2010



Dear Science Readers,

As regular readers can tell, I'm keeping my promise of not overwhelming you with updates. But after two months, I hope you're ready for a new look at some interesting science books. I'm not a prognosticator like my neighbor 80 miles to the northeast, Punxsutawney Phil. Still my forecast is that you will find at least one of the titles I mention worth a clickthrough to Amazon.com.

As usual, I include a link to the previous edition of the Science Shelf newsletter in case you missed it. It included a controversial title that continues to generate new reviews at Amazon.com, Denialism: How Irrational Thinking Hinders Scientific Progress, Harms the Planet, and Threatens Our Lives. It's the only book I've ever seen that has about equal numbers of 1-, 2-, 3-, 4-, and 5-star reviews there. My rather critical review continues to get numerous hits on the web. I thought the book struck precisely the wrong tone even while raising an important issue. But I'm glad that people are talking about it. If you want to see a spirited discussion, click here and look at the customer reviews and comments to those reviews.

Also as usual, I remind you that if you like what you see here, you should consider subscribing. As this issue proves, I put out a new newsletter roughly every two months, so subscribers won't be inundated with e-mails from me.

A Change of Pace Review

My most recent review is very different from my usual choice of "hard science" books. Settled in the Wild: Notes from the Edge of Town by Susan Hand Shetterly is an evocative collection of nature writing that adds up to a memoir, the perfect book to curl up with in your easy chair, with fireplace crackling (if you have one).

My review is filled with quotations that explain why I write that "grateful readers are beside her, ... allowing their 'now' to mingle with hers, if only for a few moments"

A New Edition of a Highly Recommended Title

In 2008, in various places, I described Anticancer: A New Way of Life by long-term brain-cancer survivor David Servan-Schreiber, M.D., Ph.D as life-enhancing, life-affirming, and even life-saving. My review noted: "As someone who wanted to beat his cancer, Servan-Schreiber was eager to try anything. But as a scientist, he was not about to grope blindly. It was time for serious research into the relationship between cancer, lifestyle issues, and chemicals in the environment. Anticancer, published in his native France last year ([2007], 15 years after his first diagnosis) and now appearing in English, is the result."

Now a revised edition is available, reflecting the latest scientific results and two more years of the author's survival.

Looking Ahead

I have already gotten some interesting review assignments for the next couple of months. If you click on the links below, you can get to the pre-order pages at Amazon.com. Otherwise, you can expect to find links to my reviews in future newsletters.

I've begun reading The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing or Choice are Undermining Education by Diane Ravitch, who is, in effect, recanting and apologizing for supporting the No Child Left Behind program with its emphasis on standardized tests, which she now views as counterproductive. Whatever your views of NCLB, keep your eyes open for more about this provocative book. If you want to get a sense of my views, see my previous Science Shelf review of a book called Tested.

On a less controversial topic, I will be reviewing The Little Book of String Theory by Steven S. Gubser. Not that string theory is uncontroversial in physics circles, as I note in an earlier comparative review of The Trouble with Physics and Not Even Wrong. Those books are still getting a lot of play among people who think that String Theory is at the end of its rope, so to speak.

I'm hoping to get a bite on my pitch to review What's Eating You: People and Parasites by Eugene H. Kaplan. I had such a great time with Kaplan's earlier Sensuous Seas: Tales of a Marine Biologist that I'm itching (only figuratively, I hope) to see how he handles this topic.

A Sampling of my In-Box
In the last newsletter, I included a list of books that I received that looked interesting, despite the fact I had no room on my reviewing plate for them. That was so well-received, judging by the number of clickthroughs and an occasional purchase at Amazon.com, that it will now be a regular feature

I'll start with a book for young readers that I am still waiting to receive. If you follow the link below, you will find outstanding reviews for Cars on Mars: Roving the Red Planet by Alexandra Siy.

As for the rest, I'll let the covers and titles speak for themselves. (Note the spate of brain books that can be preordered for March and April. For a 2002 column on other brain books, click here.)

Lives of the Trees: An Uncommon History by Diana Wells

God's Brain by Lionel Tiger and Michael McGuire

My Brain Made Me Do It: The Rise of Neuroscience and the Threat to Moral Responsibility by Eliezer J. Sternberg

The Secret Life of the Grown-Up Brain: The Surprising Talents of the Middle Aged Mind by Barbara Strauch

Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives, now in paperback by neuroscientist David Eagleman

The Joy of Chemistry: The Amazing Science of Familiar Things, now in paperback by Cathy Cobb and Monty L. Fetterolf

How to Find a Habitable Planet by James Kasting

The Great Equations: Breakthroughs in Science from Pythagoras to Heisenberg, now in paperback by Robert P. Crease

My Latest Book

My own latest book for young readers is now available. It's in library binding as part of a new science and technology subset of Twenty-First Century Books' "Seven Wonders" series for middle grades, and I would appreciate your alerting librarians that you know about it. It's called Seven Wonders of Exploration Technology by Fred Bortz.

The definition of "exploration" is quite broad. Its chapter headings are:

  1. Undersea Explorers
  2. Exploring Earth's Climate
  3. Exploring the Moon
  4. Interplanetary Exploration
  5. The Hubble Space Telescope
  6. Mapping the Cosmos
  7. The Large Hadron Collider


My Usual Thanks -- And More!
In past newsletters, I have offered my thanks to the growing number of people who are kind enough to buy some of the books that they discovered here through the Science Shelf links. Many use the link on the Science Shelf homepage to enter Amazon.com every time they shop for books or other Amazon products. It's their way of thanking me for these archiving these reviews and occasionally publishing reviews by other people with varying points of view.

People are also buying other products from office and computer supplies to health and beauty products to George Foreman grills! Last time I wrote: "At the current pace, monthly commisions cover the cost of the web address, webhosting, and enough to buy me and my wife some Chinese take-out. Maybe next month, we'll be able to add a DVD rental, too." It turns out that was a vast understatement, primarily because someone was kind enough to order 50--yes 50!--copies of my second most recent book Astrobiology in hardcover. If that was you, I'd like to know, because a purchase like that earns a discount on one of my school visits.

For the rest of you, if you want to order some of my books directly from me, I may be able to offer a substantial discount on a few titles where I overbought. Just send me an e-mail and I'll let you know if I have the titles you are interested in.

I don't expect such a large sale very often. Nor do I expect Amazon.com commissions to cover the time I spend maintaining the archive of book reviews and sending out messages like this. That's still a labor of book- and science-love, and your feedback (in terms of increasing numbers of clicks) tells me you appreciate it.

As always, happy science reading, and thanks in advance for your support!

Fred Bortz