This article was originally published on The Editors’ Weekly , the official blog of the Editors’ Association of Canada .
This article was originally published on The Editors’ Weekly , the official blog of the Editors’ Association of Canada .
Rating: 4/5 Robert Lomas, The Man Who Invented the Twentieth Century: Nikola Tesla, Forgotten Genius of Electricity (London: Headline, 1999). This is an excellent non-academic biography (no source notes) of Nikola Tesla. I knew of Tesla, but it was nice to read his story from beginning to end. Lomas is obviously...
Rating: 1/5 Norman Doidge, The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science (New York: Viking, 2007). Wow. This book is the perfect example of how writing style can totally obscure (nay, all but obliterate) an otherwise sound and fascinating message. I found this book...
Rating: 4/5 Seth Mnookin, The Panic Virus (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2011). This book is a history of both vaccination itself and its opponents. The take-away message is that the media is not the place to go for truly balanced and accurate information about science and health. They are far more interested in ratings...
Rating: 3/5 Mike Brown, How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming (New York: Spiegel & Grau, 2010). When Pluto got demoted, I remember hearing about it, but I apparently didn’t care enough to do any reading about it. I had no idea how it happened or why. So when I saw this book sitting on the shelf, I felt a...
Rating: 3/5 Norman J. Hyne, Nontechnical Guide to Petroleum Geology, Drilling and Production (Tulsa: Pennwell, 2001). In my new job I edit materials surrounding the regulation of natural resource production in Alberta. While I have a background in science in general, oil and gas is not something I’ve had lots of...
Rating: 4/5 Ben Goldacre, Bad Science: Quacks, Hacks, and Big Pharma Flacks (Toronto, ON: McClelland & Stewart, 2010). I first saw Ben Goldacre on YouTube, where I saw his stand-up comedy routine in which he talks about the placebo effect. I decided to give his book a go. I liked it, but it came across overall as far...
Rating: 1/5 Anton Zeilinger, Dance of the Photons: From Einstein to Quantum Teleportation (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2010). I just can’t do it. I’m 100 pages in and I just can’t bring myself to slog through the other 200. I love science books, I am fascinated by physics, and I still want a math degree one...