Kurzweil, Ray (2006) The Singularity is Near.

Controversial, yes, but if even a small percentage of his predictions are accurate, this may be the most important book written to date.

If you find A Brief History of Time rough going, try Hawking's newer and more readable The Universe in a Nutshell.

My review begins with a limerick, and then continues,

In the foreword to The Universe in a Nutshell, Stephen Hawking admits that the success of A Brief History of Time "was remarkable for a book that was not easy going."

That is an understatement. Despite critical acclaim for the accesibility of its writing, the complexity and counter-intuitiveness of its subject matter probably made Professor Hawking's earlier book one of the least read best-sellers in history.

He resisted requests to write a follow-up, he states, because he didn't want to write a sequel. Fortunately for those who are ready to grapple again with the curvature of space-time, the uncertainty principle, a quantum theory of gravity, evaporating black holes, and multidimensional string theory (sometimes referred to as the theory of everything), the professor who holds the Lucasian Chair of Mathematics once occupied by Sir Isaac Newton "[came] to realize that there is room for a different kind of book that might be easier to understand."

Fred Bortz -- Science and technology books for young readers (www.fredbortz.com) and Science book reviews (www.scienceshelf.com)

A Brief History of Time - Stephen Hawking
Published in 1988, I just flipped through it to see if it's too dated, but he ends with a discussion of string theory and I think this one should count as a classic.

The Language of the Genes - Steve Jones
Published in 1993, way before the human genome was sort of fully mapped, Jones communicates the science through a beautifully written account of the ways in which the evolution and shuffling of genes have shaped human lives.

I would second the nomination of Bill Bryson's Short History of Nearly Everything - well-known for writing travel books, he took 3 years to research this entertaining and pretty accurate overview of scientific knowledge.

Please visit my new blogsite where I've started to review books like:

Oxygen: the molecule that made the world - Nick Lane
which tells a brilliantly convincing story of how protection from oxygen free radicals and aerobic metabolism might have evolved in early life forms before photosynthesis itself.

- iid noise
www.bloglikelihood.blogspot.com

The Discoverers by Daniel Boorstin. A very readable and enjoyable overview of the history of science. Especially good for non-scientists.

Walter Isaacson's biography of Benjamin Franklin. I think this is an especially good biography of a person who applied scientific thinking to many areas of life.

The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature - Matt Ridley
Why are women sexy? And why do they sometimes want badboys and other times want the good guy?

The Mating Mind: How Sexual Choice Shaped the Evolution of Human Nature - Geoffrey Miller
A similar read to the Red Queen, but with a better treatment of why we have art and beauty.

The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature - Steven Pinker
Why the blank slate hypothesis fails miserably. And why this should not concern us.

Andy
www.pulltheskydown.com

First Light by Richard Preston. It's a non-fiction book where Preston follows a bunch of astronomers living on Mt. Palomar and watches/explains what it's like to be an astronomer. Fascinating look into the life of an astronomer, and a bunch of really interesting history on Palomar. Out of print, but consistently one of the highest rated sci-ed books out there.

Jason

The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature - Matt Ridley

Broca's Brain - Carl Sagan!

Gödel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter. Best described by its tagline: A Metaphorical Fugue on Minds and Machines in the Spirit of Lewis Carroll. Deeply profound ideas about the role of recursiveness, form and content.

Le Ton Beau de Marot by Douglas Hofstadter. Excellent exploration of the phenomenon of "creativity", the computational modelling of creativity, through the medium of translation.

Being There by Andy Clark. Excellent introduction to "Embodiment" -- the school of thought that includes body and environment as an integral part of cognitive systems.

Linked by Alberto-Laszlo Barabasi. About the discovery of free-scale networks and their pervasiveness in the natural and artificial worlds.

Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs. Classic of urban development.

Sexual Behaviour of the Human Male by Kinsey Pomeroy and Martin. A revolutionary (and controversial) attempt to objectively study the taboo.

too bad about the adults only thing. I just read alot of children's books about science and I have some faves.
I review youth books for the animal behavior society's award for the Best Children's Book about Animal Behavior.

When a youth category comes out, I'm happy to contribute.

DN Lee
Urban Science Adventures
www.urban-science.blogspot.com

A Short History of Nearly Everything
by Bill Bryson

Awesome overview book with lots of types of science included: geology, evolution, astronomy, etc. I've heard this recommended before, and friends have enjoyed it as much as I have.

The Ice - Stephen Pyne
best intro to the cryosphere, even 20 years later

The Beak of the Finch - Jonathan Wiener
evolution in microcosm in the Galapagos

The Revenge of Gaia - James Lovelock
planet in trouble from too many humans?

Storm World - Chris Mooney
global warming and extreme weather

The Ancestor's Tale - Richard Dawkins
evolution as narrative

The Discovery of Global Warming - Spencer Weart
the slow evolution of a large idea

The Genetic Strand - Edward Ball
family history through DNA

Biomimicry - Janine Benyus
design in nature

Reading the Rocks - Marcia Bjornerud
piecing together a history of a 4.5 billion year-old planet

Ice - Maria Gosnell
properties of solid water

Wonderful Life - Stephen Jay Gould
early evolutionary complexification

The Demon-Haunted World - Carl Sagan
science, religion, and ethics

Darwin's Dangerous Idea - Daniel Dennett
evolution for lay-persons

The Rock from Mars - Kathy Sawyer
ALH84001's significance for the ubiquity of life

Pulse - Robert Frenay
life forms as systems

Nature: An Economic History - Geerat Vermeij
a paleontologist oversteps his boundaries

Thanks for the pointer to my Science Shelf archive. I've actually been hoping for reader contributions there as well, since I can read at most a book or two each month. So I may ask some contributors to this thread for permission to reprint their reviews.

I'll start the list with my favorite of the year so far:

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

Here's an excerpt from my review:

Chapter by chapter, the authors introduce a wide range of insect species that bite, swarm, irritate, and even take up residence within and on the dinosaurs that readers know so well. They draw their stories from the fossil record, especially the amber of their expertise, comparing Cretaceous insects with their present-day descendents.

After discovering the ancient ecology, readers follow the authors into the laboratory where they analyze delicate evidence in the form of magnificent color images. Finally it is time to interpret findings and draw conclusions. While acknowledging that an asteroid impact brought a catastrophic end to the Cretaceous and the dinosaurs (at least the non-avian ones), the Poinars question whether the great reptiles may have already been in serious decline.

Had disease, parasitic infestation, and competition with insects already set them on a path toward extinction? That is not a new question, but it remains an important one in paleontology. It is the kind of question that continues to inspire scientists and readers alike.

Fred Bortz -- Science and technology books for young readers (www.fredbortz.com) and Science book reviews (www.scienceshelf.com)

1. The Double Helix- James Watson. A very good book to read if you want to get totally pumped for scientific discovery. He makes it seem so possible.

2. What Mad Pursuit- Francis Crick. Jim's partner-in-crime writes his own brief version of the story, and expounds on what happened to him afterward. Good science and good introspection.

3. American Prometheus-Kai Bird and Martin Shirwin. An extremely thorough look at the great J. Robert Oppenheimer, through the A-bomb and afterword. Both a look at a really unusual man and the results of dangerous science in a naive world.

4. The Great Influenza- John Barry. If you ever wanted the snot scared out of you by the possibility of a new flu pandemic, this is the one to read. Filled with science-centric chapters, and details the exploits of several great early microbiologists.

5. The Human, the Orchid and the Octopus- Jacques Cousteau. The last book by the great oceanographer, explorer and documentarian, this touching book gives a wise overview of the sea, its role in our lives, and the need to preserve it.

6. The Entire Oliver Sacks Collection (Awakenings, An Anthropologist on Mars, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, Musicophilia, Migraine). One of my all-time favorite authors, Sacks gives a view of neurology that is both erudite and humanistic. I have never not enjoyed his books. He gave me an entirely new perspective on the brain and the mind.

7. River of Doubt- Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey- Candice Millard. The biggest scientific stretch of this list, the book details the ex-president's big and nearly-fatal journey into an Amazon tributary on a naturalistic and mapping expedition. A great story that also contains great info on the rain forest. Will make you very glad you work in someplace air conditioned.

8. Signs of Life- How Complexity Pervades Biology- Ricard Sole and others. Gave my first insights into non-linear dynamics and their role in nearly every interesting system. Some math-heavy elements included for those who want to probe deeper.