VisibleGhost's Science

A first post to get things rolling. I'll check my reading list for 2009 and come back and post my science reading for the year.

I'm just going to start from scratch here and see what gets read for the remainder of 2009.

1. The Ancestor's Tale, Richard Dawkins

I picked this one to start my challenge for no other reason than I bought it new when it came out and it has been sitting on my shelf ever since. I needed to read it someday so today I got it started. It is the evolutionary timeline being told from present to past. Not bad so far.

Well, I'm 100 pages into The Ancestor's Tale. This book is covering a lot of evolutionary subjects.

I did receive Threads From the Web of Life: Stories in Natural History by Stephen Daubert from the LT MemberGiveaway program. It came from Vanderbilt University Press. It is a new hardcover that is illustrated by the author's brother. The offer asked for a review so I'm going to start reading it before I finish the Dawkins book. It has 162 pages- minus the illustrations, maybe 140 page of text- so it shouldn't take too awful long to read it.

The Ancestor's Tale looks really interesting - how are you liking it so far?

sjmccreary, I am enjoying the journey through time in The Ancestor's Tale. Because of the huge time span involved, Dawkins is touching on numerous hypotheses presented in evolution. He is only spending a page or two on most of them but mentioning a lot of other books on those subjects if one wants to delve deeper.

Things like, brain size, body size, bipedalism (amazing number of ideas on why that came about), the early humanoid fossils found to date and the arguments surrounding them, and so on. A large volume of information is offered but so far it is not overwhelming or tedious.

Hey, I actually finished a science book. Only a month and some days after I started this challenge. It was Threads from the Web of Life which I received from LT Member Giveaway program. I don't think I would have ever stumbled upon it without the program. It was a natural history books I enjoyed. I wrote a review in my 75 thread but didn't want to repeat it here. I'm still making progress with The Ancestor's Tale.
http://www.librarything.com/work/2154163/reviews

I'm now 3/4 of the way through The Ancestor's Tale by Dawkins. It's good. There is a lot of information to absorb which is why it's being read at a slow pace.

Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet by Mark Lynas is an accessible global climate change book. Some of the scenarios are quite bleak.

The Age of Wonder by Richard Holmes is history of science in the Romantic era. There are some great portrayals of some of the main players in science at the time in England. Almost my favorite science book of the year.

I think In Search of Memory: The Emergence of a New Science of Mind by Eric R. Kandel will end being my favorite science book of the year though. It's a blend of memoir and science. It really brings out how long some of the research takes to come to understand some of the processes of nature. Decades in many cases. It takes a dedication that is uncommon to secure some of this knowledge.

I've got a good start on Complexity: A Guided Tour by Melanie Mitchell which I'm enjoying.

If I finish Complexity and Ancestor's Tale by the end of the year (and I should), that will bring me to six since the May start of this challenge.

These books look great! (And some of them have found their way onto my wishlist as a result). I'm still hoping to finish 6 books by year-end as well, but you're ahead of me!