A fascinating collection of two dozen of the best science & nature writing of the year and they all deserve to be included. Not a clunker in the bunch. ( )

I found myself reaching the end of an article wishing I had a link to tweet it. Some fantastic authors are included-Oliver Sacks, Jaron Lanier, Jonathan Franzen and Malcolm Gladwell are just a few, and the collection was edited by Mary Roach.

My favorite essay in the book was Letting Go by Atul Gawande. Originally published in the New Yorker, the essay explores our health care system and how we choose to die.



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An informative and interesting collection of writings on varied subjects. Some favorites were:
"Lies, Damned Lies, and Medical Science" by David H. Freedman, showing the shaky ground medical "experts" are often on, and why we need to go slowly before following every recommendation thrown at us.
"Letting Go" by Atul Gawane, thoughtful article on end of life decisions and how the medical world's purpose can differ from a terminal person's purpose for their last days.
"Nature's Spoils" by Burkhard Bilger, fun insight into the world of fermentation.
"Spectral Light" by Amy Irvine, good suspense story blended with the idea of meeting and understanding opposite political views.
"Face Blind" by Oliver Sacks, Fascinating. Didn't know this was a thing.

Least favorite:
"The Whole Fracking Enchilada" by Sandra Stiengraber, hyperbolic, strawman arguments, inflammatory and a poor read. I don't think Fracking is a great idea, but this article would never have convinced me of that.
"Fertility Rites" by Jon Cohen, Um. Yuck. Masturbating monkeys.
"Sign Here if You Exist" by Jill Sisson Quinn, Poorly reasoned, hard to get what her point was. Wasps? Her mom's inadequate theological answers? Author's inadequate and poorly reasoned raging against God? Meh.

There were very few articles in this collection I didn't care for. Not that I agreed with all of them, but most were interesting and well written. Some were enlightening. Considering it is ten years old, it would be interesting to follow up on some of them to see where things in that discipline have got to today. ( )

Whether this collection truly represents the best science and nature writing of 2010 or not, I couldn't say, but I certainly can say that it's an interesting, generally high-quality collection of articles and essays on a variety of topics, from black-market kidney sales to same-sex albatross couples to the importance of cleaning up space junk. It is skewed a fair bit towards biology, medicine, and the environment, with a low proportion of hard science pieces, but that's not a complaint, merely an observation. And I can also say that I'm kicking myself for only just now discovering this series and am considering going back and picking up the volumes from earlier years. ( )

An interesting collection of essays. Several made me want to do some more research on their topics. ( )