SCIENCE

RECOMMENDED READING FOR EXTRA CREDIT:

AP Chemistry/Advanced Chemistry & Physics:

• Discovery of the Elements, James Marshall — Historical description of discoveries related to the elements. Both a historical reference and an interesting read. A great way to understand the elements without "trying."
• Marie Curie: A Life, Susan Quinn — Drawing on new archival material, including Curie's journal, this biography presents new information about her life in Poland; her partnership with her husband; her affair, after her husband's death, with a married scientist which nearly cost her the Nobel Prize for chemistry in 1911; and the difficulty of being a female student in late 19th century Paris. Also clearly describes her scientific work and fits it into the larger story of the nuclear age.
• Serendipity: Accidental Discoveries in Science, Royston Roberts — Many of the things discovered by accident are important in our everyday lives: Teflon, Velcro, nylon, x-rays, penicillin, safety glass, sugar substitutes, and polyethylene and other plastics. And we owe a debt to accident for some of our deepest scientific knowledge, including Newton's theory of gravitation, the Big Bang theory of Creation, and the discovery of DNA. Even the Rosetta Stone, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the ruins of Pompeii came to light through chance. This book tells the fascinating stories of these and other discoveries and reveals how the inquisitive human mind turns accident into discovery. Written for the layman, yet scientifically accurate, this illuminating collection of anecdotes portrays invention and discovery as quintessentially human acts, due in part to curiosity, perseverance, and luck.
• Mendeleyev's Dream: the Quest for the Elements, Paul Strathern — Long smothered in the superstitions of alchemy, chemistry finally acquired the theoretical structure of a true science with the bold hypothesis of elemental periodicity first advanced by Dmitri Mendeleyev, an irascible Russian who claimed that it all came to him in a dream. But no mystical slumber could ever have prompted such a revelation without the prior wakeful labors of dozens of investigators. In a tale at once lively and far ranging, Strathern recounts the work of Mendeleyev's numerous predecessors--from Thales (who argued that all things come from water) to Cavendish (who gauged the strength of electrical charges by recording the pain they caused him). Strathern's account focuses on the discovery of concepts--explained for the nonscientist with merciful clarity--essential to Mendeleyev's vision, but it also explores the irreducible mysteries in the personalities of those who discovered the concepts. A book that brings lucidity to science while restoring human complexity to the scientists who do it: What more could a reader want?

Physics:

• The Physics of Baseball, Robert Adair — Blending scientific fact and sports trivia, Robert Adair examines what a baseball or player in motion does-and why. How fast can a batted ball go? What effect do stitch patterns have on wind resistance? How far does a curve ball break? Who reaches first base faster after a bunt, a right- or left-handed batter? The answers are often surprising -- and always illuminating. This newly revised third edition considers recent developments in the science of sport such as the neurophysiology of batting, bat vibration, and the character of the "sweet spot." Faster pitchers, longer hitters, and enclosed stadiums also get a good, hard scientific look to determine their effects on the game. Filled with anecdotes about famous players and incidents, The Physics of Baseball provides fans with fascinating insights into America's favorite pastime.
• The Restless Atom, Alfred Romer — This work details the twenty years before WW I, when the greatest intellects of many countries brought the world its first glimpse of the atom.
• From Alchemy to Chemistry, John Read — Broad, humanistic treatment concentrates on the great figures of chemistry and the ideas that revolutionized the science, from earliest history to the modern era. Much of the book is devoted to alchemy, but also the development of modern chemistry: atomic theory, nature of the elements, beginning of organic chemistry, much more. Broad in scope, erudite yet very readable, with few chemical equations or formulae.

Chemistry/ChemCom:

• Chemistry: Concepts and Problems, Clifford C. Houk, Richard Post — A guide to understanding the fundamentals of chemistry designed for the independent learner, presenting lessons, exercises, and tests for each topic covered.
• Discovery of the Elements, James Marshall — Historical description of discoveries related to the elements. Both a historical reference and an interesting read. A great way to understand the elements without “trying."
• Heads, Greg Bear — Researchers at Ice Pit Station are conducting two experiments, during which they attempt to reach Absolute-Zero temperature and record the memories of cryogenically frozen human heads. A bizarre cult, however, will resort to anything to end the research.
• More Chemistry & Crime, Samuel Gerber — This book uses headline-grabbing case studies to introduce readers to the science and practice of modern forensics. The book covers such topics as the detection of arsenic, toxicology, dust analysis, examination of arson evidence, and DNA typing.
• The Pale Horse, Agatha Christie — Was it really the Thomasina Tuckerton--dropout heiress turned bohemian beat girl--seen in a cafe brawl with another woman? Her obituary confirms it. Thomasina's unfortunate demise would have passed unnoticed if it hadn't been for the priest who suffered a fatal blow at the hand of a stranger only days later. What's the connection? A list of names hidden in father Gorman's shoes--among them, Miss Tuckerton's. It leads to a former country inn, now a house called, The Pale Horse, and a sinister pattern woven by three unusual ladies--a psychic, a medium, and a witch--each with a secret of her own.
• The Periodic Kingdom, P. W. Atkins — The periodic table of the elements is the grand, unified theory of chemistry. In The Periodic Kingdom, P. W. Atkins imagines the table as a landscape, with fields of metals, pools of mercury and bromine, clouds of gases, and the offshore island of rare earths. He describes the history of this metaphoric kingdom and shows how its laws are those of physical chemistry: they are the expression in the visible world of the invisible dance of subatomic particles. The Periodic Kingdom is an excellent book for students at any level who want to see the connections between chemistry, physics, and "real life."
• Serendipity: Accidental Discoveries in Science, Royston Roberts — Many of the things discovered by accident are important in our everyday lives: Teflon, Velcro, nylon, x-rays, penicillin, safety glass, sugar substitutes, and polyethylene and other plastics. And we owe a debt to accident for some of our deepest scientific knowledge, including Newton's theory of gravitation, the Big Bang theory of Creation, and the discovery of DNA. Even the Rosetta Stone, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the ruins of Pompeii came to light through chance. This book tells the fascinating stories of these and other discoveries and reveals how the inquisitive human mind turns accident into discovery. Written for the layman, yet scientifically accurate, this illuminating collection of anecdotes portrays invention and discovery as quintessentially human acts, due in part to curiosity, perseverance, and luck.
• Timeline, Michael Crichton — Michael Crichton's novel opens on the threshold of the twenty-first century. It is a world of exploding advances on the frontiers of technology. Information moves instantly between two points, without wires or networks. Computers are built from single molecules. Any moment of the past can be actualized -- and a group of historians can enter, literally, life in fourteenth-century feudal France. Imagine the risks of such a journey. Not since Jurassic Park has Michael Crichton given us such a magnificent adventure. Here, he combines a science of the future -- the emerging field of quantum technology -- with the complex realities of the medieval past. In a heart-stopping narrative, Timeline carries us into a realm of unexpected suspense and danger, overturning our most basic ideas of what is possible.
• Napoleon's Buttons: How 17 Molecules Changed History, Penny Le Couteur and Jay Burreson — Napoleon's Buttons is the fascinating account of seventeen groups of molecules that have greatly influenced the course of history. These molecules provided the impetus for early exploration, and made possible the voyages of discovery that ensued. The molecules resulted in grand feats of engineering and spurred advances in medicine and law; they determined what we now eat, drink, and wear. A change as small as the position of an atom can lead to enormous alterations in the properties of a substance-which, in turn, can result in great historical shifts. With lively prose and an eye for colorful and unusual details, Le Couteur and Burreson offer a novel way to understand the shaping of civilization and the workings of our contemporary world.
• The Alchemy of Air: A Jewish Genius, a Doomed Tycoon, and the Scientific Discovery That Fed the World but Fueled the Rise of Hitler, Thomas Hager — A sweeping history of tragic genius, cutting-edge science, and the discovery that changed billions of lives—including your own.
  At the dawn of the twentieth century, humanity was facing global disaster. Mass starvation, long predicted for the fast-growing population, was about to become a reality. A call went out to the world’s scientists to find a solution.
  This is the story of the two enormously gifted, fatally flawed men who found it: the brilliant, self-important Fritz Haber and the reclusive, alcoholic Carl Bosch. Together they discovered a way to make bread out of air, built city-sized factories, controlled world markets, and saved millions of lives. Their invention continues to feed us today; without it, more than two billion people would starve.
  But their epochal triumph came at a price we are still paying. The Haber-Bosch process was also used to make the gunpowder and high explosives that killed millions during the two world wars. Both men were vilified during their lives; both, disillusioned and disgraced, died tragically. Today we face the other un­intended consequences of their discovery—massive nitrogen pollution and a growing pandemic of obesity.
  The Alchemy of Air is the extraordinary, previously untold story of two master scientists who saved the world only to lose everything and of the unforseen results of a discovery that continues to shape our lives in the most fundamental and dramatic of ways.

Environmental Classes

• Earth in the Balance, Al Gore — A passionate and lifelong defender of the environment, Vice President Al Gore describes how human actions and decisions can endanger or safeguard our vulnerable ecosystem.
• The End of Nature, Bill McKibben — Whatever we once thought Nature was--wildness, God, a simple place free from human thumbprints, or an intricate machinery sustaining life on Earth--we have now given it a kick that will change it forever. Humanity has stepped across a threshold. In his free-ranging and provocative book, Bill McKibben explores the philosophies and technologies that have brought us here, and he shows how final a crossing we have made.
• The Diversity of Life, E.O. Wilson — In The Diversity of Life, Wilson takes a sweeping view of our planet's natural richness, remarking on what on the surface seems a paradox: "almost all the species that ever lived are extinct, and yet more are alive today than at any time in the past." (Wilson's elegant explanation is a scientific education in itself.) This great variety of species is, of course, threatened by habitat destruction, global climate change, and a host of other forces, and Wilson revisits his oft-stated call for the protection of wilderness and undeveloped land, noting that "wilderness has virtue unto itself and needs no extraneous justification." We should, he continues, regard every species, "every scrap of biodiversity," as precious and irreplaceable, without attempting to quantify that regard with utilitarian measures such as "bio-economics." A remarkably productive and influential scientist, Wilson is also a fine writer, and his survey of biodiversity makes for welcome and instructive reading.
• Making Peace with the Planet, Barry Commoner — In his monumental bestsellers, The Closing Circle and Science and Survival, Barry Commoner was one of the first scientists to alert us to the hideous environmental costs of our technological development. Now, twenty years later, Commoner reviews the vast efforts made in the public and private spheres to address and control the damage done and shows us why, despite billions of dollars spent to save the environment, we now find ourselves in an even deeper crisis. It is a book of hard facts and figures whose conclusion--that environmental pollution can be prevented only through fundamental redesign of the way we produce goods--demands basic changes all across America, from the highest offices in Washington, D.C., to your own kitchen garbage can.
• A Sand County Almanac, Aldo Leopold — Leopold's principal and extraordinary contribution to our world was to articulate the idea of a land ethic. The human relation to land, he wrote, "is still strictly economic, entailing privileges but not obligations." Leopold believed that the basis of successful conservation was to extend to nature the ethical sense of responsibility that humans extend to each other....The power of Leopold's argument-buttressed as it is by his clear, vigorous prose-has not been blunted in the least. In fact, his argument seems more urgently true now than ever.
• Tales from Watership Down, Richard Adams — The original Watership Down is one of those wonderful works that appeals to readers both young and old. The story of a group of rabbits on an adventure into unfamiliar yards, farms, and fields made for an imaginative, captivating journey. This latest work follows the aftermath of the original's climactic ending and includes the rabbits' retelling of various myths associated with their rabbit-hood, plus some new twists and developments. This is a captivating introduction to Adams's warren for first-time visitors, and those who loved the original Watership Down won't be disappointed.
• Watership Down, Richard Adams — One of the most beloved novels of our time, Richard Adams's Watership Down takes us to a world we have never truly seen: to the remarkable life that teems in the fields, forests and riverbanks far beyond our cities and towns. It is a powerful saga of courage, leadership and survival; an epic tale of a hardy band of adventurers forced to flee the destruction of their fragile community...and their trials and triumphs in the face of extraordinary adversity as they pursue a glorious dream called "home."
• The Wild Within, Paul Rezendes — Paul Rezendes has followed bobcats through swamps, wrestled a black bear, howled with coyotes at the edge of a moonlit field. Here, he tells the story of his extraordinary progression from motorcycle-gang leader to Zen woodsman, learning about compassion from a curious 750-pound bull moose and discovering the inseparability of life and death through a wrenching encounter between a coyote and a deer. With this book, he shows us how to live in the natural world--even if it's only within a local park or tree-lined street--moving soundlessly, watching where we put our feet, gauging the wind, and entering a new state of awareness. Dramatic and deeply spiritual, The Wild Within changes the way we see ourselves--and makes the world around us come alive.
• Genesis of a Duck Cop: Memories & Milestones, Terry Grosz — In his newest book, Genesis of a Duck Cop, award-winning author Terry Grosz takes the time to reflect on the events in his life that led him to a career defending wildlife, and the milestones that occurred within that career. With the same characteristic blend of outrage and humor that his readers have come to expect, this book also takes a look at the stories behind the man. The stories are numerous: there are heartbreaking tales of loss of innocence, the hilarious drama of coming-of-age, and the history of the courtship that led Grosz to his wife. Through it all, there are also the stories of adventure, rescue and danger that marked Grosz's earlier books. Learn how a boy who pitched hay, worked as a logger, played high school and college football, and discovered the beauty of the outdoors became the man who worked in state and federal wildlife enforcement for 32 years. And rediscover why, as people like him get more and more rare, we find that we need them more than ever.
• A Hunt for Justice: The True Story of a Woman Undercover Wildlife Agent, Lucinda Delaney Schroeder — For thirty years, Lucinda Delaney Schroeder held an unusual government position: she was one of the handful of women special agents with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. In August 1992, she accepted an assignment that forever changed — and endangered — her life. She posed as a big-game hunter in Alaska in order to infiltrate an international ring of poachers out to kill the biggest and best of that state's wildlife. A Hunt for Justice recounts her dramatic story — a story she was not legally permitted to write about until her retirement in 2004.

Biology

• A Feeling for the Organism: the Life and Work of Barbara McClintock, Evelyn Fox Keller — Presents a biography of Barbara McClintock, drawing from interviews with the scientist to discuss her formative years, and following her career as a maverick in the field of genetics.
• The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher, Lewis Thomas — An exploration through essays of the relationships between all things.
• Microbe Hunters, Paul de Kruif — Describes the achievements of some of the pioneers in the field of bacteriology including Leeuwenhoek, Spallanzani, Koch, Pasteur, Reed, and Ehrlich.
• The Double Helix: A Personal Account of the Discovery of the Structure of DNA, James D. Watson — By identifying the structure of DNA, the molecule of life, Francis Crick and James Watson revolutionized biochemistry and won themselves a Nobel Prize. At the time, Watson was only twenty-four, a young scientist hungry to make his mark. His uncompromisingly honest account of the heady days of their thrilling sprint against other world-class researchers to solve one of science's greatest mysteries gives a dazzlingly clear picture of a world of brilliant scientists with great gifts, very human ambitions, and bitter rivalries. With humility unspoiled by false modesty, Watson relates his and Crick's desperate efforts to beat Linus Pauling to the Holy Grail of life sciences, the identification of the basic building block of life. Never has a scientist been so truthful in capturing in words the flavor of his work.
• Silent Spring, Rachel Carson — A hard look at the effects of insecticides and pesticides on songbird populations throughout the United States and the consequent declining numbers that has brought silence. This book set off a wave of environmental legislation and revitalized the ecological movement.
• The Sacred Balance: Rediscovering Our Place in Nature, David Suzuki — The economy and global competitiveness are the bottom line for society and governments, or so says conventional wisdom. But what are the real needs that must be satisfied to live rich, fulfilling lives? This is the question David Suzuki explores in this wide-ranging study. Suzuki begins by presenting the concept of people as creatures of the Earth who depend on its gifts of air, water, soil, and sun energy. He shows how people are genetically programmed for the company of other species, and suffer enormously when we fail to live in harmony with them. And he analyzes those deep spiritual needs, rooted in nature, that are also a crucial component of a loving world. Drawing on his own experiences and those of others who have put their beliefs into action, The Sacred Balance is a powerful, passionate book with concrete suggestions for creating an ecologically sustainable, satisfying, and fair future by rediscovering and addressing humanity's basic needs.
• A Short History of Nearly Everything, Bill Bryson — In A Walk in the Woods, Bill Bryson trekked the Appalachian Trail -- well, most of it. In In A Sunburned Country, he confronted some of the most lethal wildlife Australia has to offer. Now, in his biggest book, he confronts his greatest challenge: to understand -- and, if possible, answer -- the oldest, biggest questions we have posed about the universe and ourselves. Taking as territory everything from the Big Bang to the rise of civilization, Bryson seeks to understand how we got from there being nothing at all to there being us. To that end, he has attached himself to a host of the world’s most advanced (and often obsessed) archaeologists, anthropologists, and mathematicians, traveling to their offices, laboratories, and field camps. He has read (or tried to read) their books, pestered them with questions, apprenticed himself to their powerful minds. A Short History of Nearly Everything is the record of this quest, and it is a sometimes profound, sometimes funny, and always supremely clear and entertaining adventure in the realms of human knowledge, as only Bill Bryson can render it. Science has never been more involving or entertaining.
• What Evolution Is, Ernst Mayr — At once a spirited defense of Darwinian explanations of biology and an elegant primer on evolution for the general reader, What Evolution Is poses the questions at the heart of evolutionary theory and considers how our improved understanding of evolution has affected the viewpoints and values of modern man.
• Gregor Mendel: Planting the Seeds of Genetics, Simon Mawer — In an engaging narrative enhanced by beautiful illustrations, Mawer details Mendel’s life and work, from his experimentation with garden peas through his subsequent findings about heredity and genetic traits. Mawer also highlights the scientific work built on Mendel’s breakthroughs, including the discovery of the DNA molecule by scientists Watson and Crick in the 1950s, the completion of the Human Genome Project in 2003, and the advances in genetics that continue today.
• Never Cry Wolf : Amazing True Story of Life Among Arctic Wolves, Farley Mowat — More than a half-century ago the Canadian Wildlife Service assigned the naturalist Farley Mowat to investigate why wolves were killing arctic caribou. Mowat's account of the summer he lived in the frozen tundra alone — studying the wolf population and developing a deep affection for the wolves (who were of no threat to caribou or man) and for a friendly Inuit tribe known as the Ihalmiut ("People of the Deer") — is a work that has become cherished by generations of readers, an indelible record of the myths and magic of wild wolves.
• The Hot Zone: A Terrifying True Story, Richard Preston — A highly infectious, deadly virus from the central African rain forest suddenly appears in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. There is no cure. In a few days 90 percent of its victims are dead. A secret military SWAT team of soldiers and scientists is mobilized to stop the outbreak of this exotic "hot" virus. The Hot Zone tells this dramatic story, giving a hair-raising account of the appearance of rare and lethal viruses and their "crashes" into the human race. Shocking, frightening, and impossible to ignore, The Hot Zone proves that truth really is scarier than fiction.
• Chromosome 6, Robin Cook — In his most prophetic thriller yet, Robin Cook challenges the medical ethics of genetic manipulation and cloning. In the jungles of equatorial Africa, a biotechnology giant has taken transplant surgery and animal research to a new level. Where one mistake could bridge the evolutionary gap between man and ape — and forever change the genetic map of our existence....
• The Demon in the Freezer, Richard Preston — Chronicles the reaction of the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) to the September 11 attacks and the October 2001 anthrax attacks, focusing on USAMRIID's top virologist, Peter Jahrling, and his work to combat the possible development of a superpox virus by terrorists worldwide.
• Killer Germs, Barry Zimmerman — Killer Germs takes readers on a fascinating (sometimes horrifying) journey into the amazing world of viruses, bacteria, protozoa, fungi, and worms and explores the roles they have played in shaping the course of human history. From biblical plagues, to the AIDS crisis, to supergerms of the future, this covers the whole gamut of diseases that have threatened humanity since its origins.
• The Demon Under the Microscope : from battlefield hospitals to Nazi labs, one doctor's heroic search for the world's first miracle drug, Thomas Hager — In medical-writer Hager's opinion, sulfa, not penicillin, is the first real miracle drug, and he feels its discovery is too often overlooked and underappreciated. His effort to amend this insult commences by tracing the life of physician Gerhard Domagk, from his days as a German military medical assistant during World War I to his belated Nobel Prize, and focusing on Domagk's unwavering quest for cures for the world's most devastating infections. As a callow college student, Domagk left school to perform his patriotic duty as an enlistee only to find, once in the thick of combat, that patriotism wasn't enough to sustain him when he and his fellows suffered serious battlefield injuries. But it wasn't the injuries per se as much as the seemingly inevitable and too-often crippling or fatal infections of the wounds that set the young man on a lifelong mission. The drama of his undertaking, performed in the face of fierce competition and opposition from other physicians and scientists, unfolds as a well-told tale of trailblazing science.
• The Animal Dialogues : Uncommon Encounters in the Wild, Craig Childs — The Animal Dialogues tells of Craig Childs' own chilling experiences among the grizzlies of the Arctic, sharks off the coast of British Columbia and in the turquoise waters of Central America, jaguars in the bush of northern Mexico, mountain lions, elk, Bighorn Sheep, and others. More than chilling, however, these stories are lyrical, enchanting, and reach beyond what one commonly assumes an "animal story" is or should be. The Animal Dialogues is a book about another world that exists alongside our own, an entire realm of languages and interactions that humans rarely get the chance to witness.
• Phineas Gage: A Gruesome but True Story About Brain Science, John Fleischman — Phineas Gage was truly a man with a hole in his head. A railroad construction foreman, Phineas was blasting rock near Cavendish, Vermont, in 1848 when a thirteen-pound iron rod was shot through his brain. Miraculously, he survived another eleven years and became a textbook case in brain science. But he was forever changed by the accident, and what happened inside his brain will tell you a lot about how your brain works and what makes us who we are.
• Tree: A Life Story, David Suzuki & Wayne Grady — "Only God can make a tree," wrote Joyce Kilmer in one of the most celebrated of poems. In Tree: A Life Story, authors David Suzuki and Wayne Grady extend that celebration in a "biography" of this extraordinary — and extraordinarily important — organism. A story that spans a millennium and includes a cast of millions but focuses on a single tree, a Douglas fir, Tree describes in poetic detail the organism's modest origins that begin with a dramatic burst of millions of microscopic grains of pollen. The authors recount the amazing characteristics of the species, how they reproduce and how they receive from and offer nourishment to generations of other plants and animals. The tree's pivotal role in making life possible for the creatures around it — including human beings — is lovingly explored. The richly detailed text and Robert Bateman's original art pay tribute to this ubiquitous organism that is too often taken for granted.
• Your Inner Fish: A Journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body, Neil Shubin — Why do we look the way we do? What does the human hand have in common with the wing of a fly? Are breasts, sweat glands, and scales connected in some way? To better understand the inner workings of our bodies and to trace the origins of many of today's most common diseases, we have to turn to unexpected sources: worms, flies, and even fish.
  Neil Shubin, a leading paleontologist and professor of anatomy who discovered Tiktaalik—the "missing link" that made headlines around the world in April 2006—tells the story of evolution by tracing the organs of the human body back millions of years, long before the first creatures walked the earth. By examining fossils and DNA, Shubin shows us that our hands actually resemble fish fins, our head is organized like that of a long-extinct jawless fish, and major parts of our genome look and function like those of worms and bacteria.
  Shubin makes us see ourselves and our world in a completely new light. Your Inner Fish is science writing at its finest—enlightening, accessible, and told with irresistible enthusiasm.

Earth Science

• The Complete Idiot's Guide to Astronomy, Christopher G. De Pree — Updated and revised, this third edition covers new advances and discoveries and is repositioned to focus more on provocative cosmology topics. Highlights include the latest news regarding the possibility of life on Mars, images of newly discovered extrasolar planets and asteroid flybys, the latest information on the Big Bang, the latest speculation on the possibility of extraterrestrial life, the most up-to-date information and images from current missions, and NASA's next steps.
• Galileo's Daughter, Dava Sobel — Galileo Galilei's telescopes allowed him to discover a new reality in the heavens. But for publicly declaring his astounding argument--that the earth revolves around the sun--he was accused of heresy and put under house arrest by the Holy Office of the Inquisition. Living a far different life, Galileo's daughter Virginia, a cloistered nun, proved to be her father's greatest source of strength through the difficult years of his trial and persecution. Drawing upon the remarkable surviving letters that Virginia wrote to her father, Dava Sobel has written a fascinating history of Medici--era Italy, a mesmerizing account of Galileo's scientific discoveries and his trial by Church authorities, and a touching portrayal of a father--daughter relationship. Galileo's Daughter is a profoundly moving portrait of the man who forever changed the way we see the universe.
• The Map that Changed the World, Simon Winchester — In 1793, a canal digger named William Smith made a startling discovery. He found that by tracing the placement of fossils, which he uncovered in his excavations, one could follow layers of rocks as they dipped and rose and fell -- clear across England and, indeed, clear across the world -- making it possible, for the first time ever, to draw a chart of the hidden underside of the earth. Determined to expose what he realized was the landscape's secret fourth dimension, Smith spent twenty-two years piecing together the fragments of this unseen universe to create an epochal and remarkably beautiful hand-painted map. But instead of receiving accolades and honors, he ended up in debtors' prison, the victim of plagiarism, and virtually homeless for ten years more. Finally, in 1831, this quiet genius -- now known as the father of modern geology -- received the Geological Society of London's highest award and King William IV offered him a lifetime pension. The Map That Changed the World is a very human tale of endurance and achievement, of one man's dedication in the face of ruin. With a keen eye and thoughtful detail, Simon Winchester unfolds the poignant sacrifice behind this world-changing discovery.
• The Riddle of the Compass, Amir D. Aczel — The story of the compass is shrouded in mystery and myth, yet most will agree it begins around the time of the birth of Christ in ancient China. A mysterious lodestone whose powers affected metal was known to the Chinese emperor. When this piece of metal was suspended in water, it always pointed north. This unexplainable occurrence led to the stone's use in feng shui, the Chinese art of finding the right location. However, it was the Italians, more than a thousand years later, who discovered the ultimate destiny of the lodestone and unleashed its formidable powers. In Amalfi sometime in the twelfth century, the compass was born, crowning the Italians as the new rulers of the seas and heralding the onset of the modern world. Retracing the roots of the compass and sharing the fascinating story of navigation through the ages, The Riddle of the Compass is Aczel at his most entertaining and insightful.
• A Short History of Nearly Everything, Bill Bryson — In A Walk in the Woods, Bill Bryson trekked the Appalachian Trail -- well, most of it. In In A Sunburned Country, he confronted some of the most lethal wildlife Australia has to offer. Now, in his biggest book, he confronts his greatest challenge: to understand -- and, if possible, answer -- the oldest, biggest questions we have posed about the universe and ourselves. Taking as territory everything from the Big Bang to the rise of civilization, Bryson seeks to understand how we got from there being nothing at all to there being us. To that end, he has attached himself to a host of the world’s most advanced (and often obsessed) archaeologists, anthropologists, and mathematicians, traveling to their offices, laboratories, and field camps. He has read (or tried to read) their books, pestered them with questions, apprenticed himself to their powerful minds. A Short History of Nearly Everything is the record of this quest, and it is a sometimes profound, sometimes funny, and always supremely clear and entertaining adventure in the realms of human knowledge, as only Bill Bryson can render it. Science has never been more involving or entertaining.
• An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore — Gore’s groundbreaking, battle cry of a follow-up to the bestselling Earth in the Balance is being published to tie in with a documentary film of the same name. Both the book and film were inspired by a series of multimedia presentations on global warming that Gore created and delivers to groups around the world. With this book, Gore, who is one of our environmental heroes — and a leading expert — brings together leading-edge research from top scientists around the world; photographs, charts, and other illustrations; and personal anecdotes and observations to document the fast pace and wide scope of global warming. He presents, with alarming clarity and conclusiveness — and with humor, too — that the fact of global warming is not in question and that its consequences for the world we live in will be disastrous if left unchecked. This riveting new book — written in an accessible, entertaining style — will open the eyes of even the most skeptical.
• Earth in the Balance: Ecology and the Human Spirit, Al Gore — A passionate and lifelong defender of the environment, Vice President Al Gore describes how human actions and decisions can endanger or safeguard the vulnerable ecosystem that sustains us all. Probes the roots of the environmental crisis and offers a bold and forceful vision of a new, more sustainable path.

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