I wouldn't call these books light reading, but they talk about sometimes difficult scientific concepts using a strong narrative. They're mostly considered pop (or popular) science. I'm also fond of fiction, particularly science-fiction, mostly dystopias with robots, but I decided not to include them in this list.
Click on the pictures for an Amazon link for more information.
Many are available through the library too.
Tubes: A Journey to the Center of the Internet
Andrew Blum, 2012 HarperCollins
Andrew Blum, annoyed at his slow internet connection, follows the cord from his wireless router. From box to wire to box to wire again, to nondescript buildings and open fields, even under the Atlantic Ocean, Blum discovers the secrets behind what seems to appear from thin air and connect us.
"But as if in a fairy tale, the squirrel cracked open the door to a previously invisible realm behind the screen, a world of wires and spaces in between. The chewed cable suggested that there could be a way of stitching the Internet and the real world together again into a single place. What if the Internet wasn't an invisible elsewhere, but actually a somewhere?"
The Clockwork Universe
Edward Dolnick, 2011 HarperCollins
"If [Robert] Boyle was around, Robert Hooke was sure to be nearby. Hooke was hunched and fidgety--'low of stature and always very pale'--but he was tireless, and he could build anything. For the past five years he had worked as Boyle's assistant cobbling together equipment and designing experiments. Hooke was as bad-tempered and sharp-tongued as Boyle was genial."
How Carrots Won the Trojan War
Rebecca Rupp, 2011 Storey Publishing
Rebecca Rupp tells little know facts about the origins and cultural significance of the vegetables that we are (hopefully!) eating everyday. Did you know that Pythagorus--of the Pythagorean Theorem--is known as the "Father of Vegetarianism"? Or that asparagus could grow in Martian soil? Or that cucumbers used to be called "cowcumbers"? While reading this book, I went to produce aisle and looked at the vegetables in a new light, now knowing their secrets.
"When scrutinized under an electron microscope, cabbage leaves prove to be covered with minuscule lumps and bumps, which are in turn coated with tiny water-shedding wax crystals. Water, poured on a cabbage, simply rolls down the surface of these waxy bumps, collecting grime as it goes, which is why cabbage leaves are so sparklingly clean after a rain."
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
Rebecca Skloot, 2010 Crown
Cells named HeLa were the very first cells to reproduce, or undergo mitosis, reliably in a laboratory setting. The scientist who first cultured these cells, first sent cells samples to other scientists, then began to sell them until they were spread throughout the world, bought, sold, and reproduced, tested, and even sent into space. Her cells helped scientists cure diseases and create pharmaceuticals Now the total number of cells as much as 100 Empire State buildings.
But those initial cells came from one woman, Henrietta Lacks, a poor African American woman and mother of 5 children died of an aggressive cancer in 1951. Her family was not given a penny, and an apology from John Hopkins Hospital for taking her cells without permission is only very recent.
How would you feel if you didn't know that enough of your own cells to create thousands of your body were bought and sold?
These books I will be reading soon, reviews to come.
The Violinist's Thumb
Same Kean, 2102 Little, Brown, and Company
This is a book about genetics. I read the first page so far, and I found this passage amusing!
"This might as well come out up front, first paragraph. This is a book about DNA--about digging up stories buried in your DNA for thousands, even millions of years....And yes, I'm writing this book despite that fact that my father's name is Gene. As is my mother's name. Gene and Jean. Gene and Jean Kean. Beyond being singsong absurd, my parents' names let to a lot of of playground jabs over the years: my every fault and foible was traced to 'my genes'....Bottom line is, I dreaded learning about DNA and genes in science classes growing up because I knew some witticism would be coming within about two seconds of the teacher turning her back."
The Disappearing Spoon
Sam Kean 2010, Little, Brown, and Company
Wicked Bugs and Wicked Plants
Amy Stewart 2011, 2009, Algonquin Books
Uncle Tungsten and Seeing Voices
Oliver Sacks, 2002 Vintage
Napoleon's Buttons
Penny Le Couteur 2004, Tarcher
Books by Rachel Carson that I am re-reading
Silent Spring and The Edge of the Sea
Rachel Carson 1962, 1955 Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, reprinted 2002, 1998
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