By Kathleen Dean Moore Trumpeter, $15.95, 195 pages In the introduction to this book, Kathleen Dean Moore states that she originally intended to write a book about what makes people happy. Then, life intervened, and Moore faced a rapid series of deaths of those to whom she was close. Wild Comfort results from Moore’s experience [...]
By Bely Pierre-Yves; Christian Carol; Roy Jean-René Cambridge University Press, $28.99, 280 pages Astronomy is fascinating to everyone on some level, whether you’re an occasional stargazer or a hardcore telescope-toting aficionado of all things celestial. We all look toward the sky at night with wonder, with awe, and most of all, with questions. The who, [...]
By Ian Stewart Oxford University Press, $17.95, 306 pages Whether you like it or not, mathematics rules the world. Hell, it rules the entire universe. You can use it to give the casinos a run for their money, prove and disprove methods of time travel, explain how animals move, or even create new dances with [...]
By Rutger van Santen, Djan Khoe, and Bram Vermeer Oxford University Press, $29.95, 352 pages We are at the apex of a technological turning point. Computers are evolving faster than ever; we have cracked the genome; and bioengineering is within our reach. And that’s a good thing, because our looming global crises are astonishingly complex [...]
By Katherine Baylor Mountain Press, $16.00, 114 pages California is a vast state that comprises much of the USA’s west coast along the Pacific Ocean, but there’s so much more to the Golden State than a glorious coastline. This guide book is an excellent starting point for folks young and not-so-young to learn about California’s [...]
By Cinny Green Western Edge Pr, $16.95, 160 pages Well here’s an interesting two-fer! Cinny Green’s Trail Writer’s Guide takes you hiking through New Mexico and Colorado wilderness areas in an intimate journal recording each exploration. And alongside the trials of the trails at 60-years-old,the facing pages show readers how to create a written record [...]
By Bernd Heinrich Harvard University Press, $29.95, 337 pages “For most humans as for birds, love is not continuous nor does it last forever.” Reminiscent of the stories of Konrad Lorenz, the animal naturalist famous for his studies of imprinting, Bernd Heinrich carefully scrutinizes the animals within his environment and attempts to relate their behavior [...]
By Robert Dinwiddie Barron’s Educational Series, $16.99, 176 pages Reminiscent of a black hole, this bite-size science book attempts to jam an encyclopedic mass of science information into a very small paperback edition. Filled with notes, diagrams, illustrations amassed together in what are termed bite-sized facts, these multiple nibbles can lead to indigestion. Unless the [...]
By Zecharia Sitchin Bear & Company, $24.00, 356 pages Why did Alexander the Great interrupt his campaign to make a detour for Egypt? How come so many varied ancient texts tell the same creation story as the Bible? Who was Noah? Did a giant ice shelf break off of Antarctica and cause the great flood [...]
By Mark W. Moffett University of California Press, $29.95, 288 pages Part exotic travel-log and part exploration of sublime evolutionary splendor, Adventure Among the Ants turns its humble subject into a super star. Mark Moffett, “The Indiana Jones of the Ant World,” mixes a memoir of his far flung journeys with the fascinating complexity and [...]
By Manjit Kumar Norton, $27.95, 448 pages Combing historical narrative with hard science stands as a challenge, even for the best writers. With Quantum: Einstein, Bohr and the Great Debate About the Nature of Reality the stakes – the substance and experience of reality – couldn’t be higher. Manjit Kumar’s characters bring to the story [...]
By John D. Barrow W. W. Norton & Company, $15.95, 284 pages A large segment of the public associates the working out of math problems with schoolwork or tedious employment. In sharp contrast to this general view, Professor John D. Barrow presents a wryly humorous narrative illustrating how fully ingrained math is in our lives. [...]
By Eliezer J. Sternberg Prometheus Books, $21.00, 244 pages Many practitioners of modern-day neuroscience are contending that the biology of our minds determines our decisions, says Eliezer J. Sternberg in his new book, My Brain Made Me Do It. Studies of behavior and of the inner workings of the brain seem to be proving that [...]
By Gordon Grice The Dial Press, $27.00, 324 pages In an age of 24/7 animal-themed channels on television, often regurgitating a mantra of “Protection!”, one tends to forget that animals are in fact wild, and many of them extremely dangerous. In Deadly Kingdom author Gordon Grice carefully illustrates just how dangerous, with facts, statistics, and [...]
By Eve Ensler Villard, $20.00, 148 pages In her breakthrough work The Vagina Monologues, Eve Ensler set out to free women from feeling shame and embarrassment about their most intimate body part through a series of stories and poems, many wickedly funny, and most sincere and moving. In her latest work, I Am an Emotional [...]
By Jon Bowermaster Public Affairs, $15.95, 319 pages This is a companion book to the Jacques Perrin and Jacques Cluzaud film that was eight years in the making. Though the book is tied in with the film, it is not illustrated with stills from the film. Jon Bowermaster, who edited Oceans, collected the 31 essays [...]
