#90 Holiday Book Shopping Guide

December 17, 2010 · One Comment

We help you plan your holiday gift-giving with an hour on the best books about science. We’re joined by a panel of former guests, including astronomer Nicole Gugliucci, psychotherapist Dana Blumrosen, and writer/performer Kennedy Goodkey. They’ll share their favorite science books, and help you fill out your holiday shopping list – even if you’re buying for yourself.

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Here’s a full list of books mentioned in this episode, arranged by the mentioner:
(For links to buy all the available books on the list, see this handy page, thoughtfully compiled by Tim Farley of What’s The Harm?)

Dana Blumrosen:
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks – Rebecca Skloot
Mistakes Were Made (but not by me) – Carol Tavris & Elliot Aronson
Autism’s False Prophets: Bad Science, Risky Medicine, and the Search for a Cure – Paul Offit
Fermat’s Last Theorem: The Epic Quest to Solve the Worlds Greatest Mathematical Problem – Simon Singh
Brain Cuttings: Fifteen Journeys Through the Mind – Carl Zimmer

Nicole Gugliucci:
Death From The Skies: These are the Ways the World will End… – Phil Plait
Scientific Paranormal Investigation: How to Solve Unexplained Mysteries – Ben Radford
Charlatan: America’s Most Dangerous Huckster, the Man Who Pursued Him, and the Age of Flimflam – Pope Brock
Max Goes To Mars: Science Adventures With Max The Dog – Jeffrey Bennett
Contact – Carl Sagan
Infected , Contagious – Scott Sigler (Trilogy.  Final book not yet released)

Kennedy Goodkey:
A Brief History Of Nearly Everything – Bill Bryson
The Transparent Society: Will Technology Force Us To Choose Between Privacy And Freedom? – David Brin
Arcadia – Tom Stoppard
Physics Of The Buffyverse – Jennifer Ouellette
Imagining Head-Smashed-In: Aboriginal Buffalo Hunting on the Northern Plains – Jack Brink

Desiree Schell:
Beyond Belief: Skepticism, Science and the Paranormal – Martin Bridgstock

Michael Kruse:
Bad Science – Ben Goldacre
Taking The Medicine: A Short History of Medicines Beautiful Idea, and our Difficulty Swallowing it – Druin Burch

Heidi Anderson:
Your Inner Fish: A Journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body – Neil Shubin

Jim Lippard:
The Copernican Revolution: Planetary Astronomy in the Development of Western Thought- Thomas Kuhn

Ben Radford:
The Demon Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark – Carl Sagan
How We Know What Isn’t So: The Fallibility of Human Reason in Everyday Life – Thomas Gilovich

Kylie Sturgess:
Believing in Magic: The Psychology of Superstition – Stuart A. Vyse

Ruth Seeley:
Massive: The Hunt for the God Particle – Ian Sample
Bright Sided: How Positive Thinking is Undermining America – Barbara Ehrenrich
Bad Ideas?: An Arresting History of Our Inventions – Sir Robert Winston
Newton And The Counterfeiter – Thomas Levenson
Inventing Green* – Alexis Madrigal (Due in Spring 2011)
The Sky’s Dark Labyrinth* – Stuart Clark (Not released)
Solar – Ian McEwan
The Honest Look – Jennifer Rohn
The Calculus Diaries: How Math Can Help You Lose Weight, Win in Vegas, and Survive a Zombie Apocalypse – Jennifer Ouellette
Written in Stone: Evolution, the Fossil Record, and our Place in Nature – Brian Switek

Austin Luton:
Instant Physics: From Aristotle to Einstein, and Beyond – Tony Rothman

Jason Jones:
Evolution: How We and All Living Things Came to Be – Daniel Loxton

Jenna Marie Griffith:
The Art of Evolution: Darwin, Darwinisms, and Visual Culture – Barbara Larson & Fae Brauer
Endless Forms: Charles Darwin, Natural Science, and the Visual Arts – Diana Donald and Jane Munro

John Logsdon:
Dr. Tatiana’s Sex Advice To All Creation: The Definite Guide to the Evolutionary Biology of Sex – Olivia Judson
Why Women Have Sex: Women Reveal the Truth About Their Sex Lives, from Adventure to Revenge (and Everything in Between) – Cindy Meston & David Buss
Sex at Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality – Christopher Ryan & Cacilda Jethá
Madame Bovary’s Ovaries: A Darwinian Look at Literature – David Barash & Nanelle Barash
The Score: How the Quest for Sex has Shaped the Modern Man – Faye Flam
Charles Darwin’s on the Origin’s of Species: A Graphic Adaptation – Michael Keller
The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution – Richard Dawkins

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