Best Science Books 2012: The New Scientist [Confessions of a Science Librarian]

Another list for your reading, gift-giving and collection development pleasure.

Every year for the last bunch of years I’ve been linking to and posting about all the “year’s best sciencey books” lists that appear in various media outlets and shining a bit of light on the best of the year.

All the previous 2012 lists are here.

This post includes the following: .

• Connectome: How the brain’s wiring makes us who we are by, Sebastian Seung
• Gravity’s Engines: How Bubble-Blowing Black Holes Rule Galaxies, Stars, and Life in the Cosmos by Caleb Scharf
• Hallucinations by Oliver Sacks
• Immortality: The Quest to Live Forever and How It Drives Civilization by Stephen Cave
• Like a Virgin: How Science Is Redesigning the Rules of Sex by Aarathi Prasad
• Pieces of Light: The new science of memory by Charles Fernyhough
• Regenesis: How Synthetic Biology Will Reinvent Nature and Ourselves by George M. Church
• The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty: How We Lie to Everyone—Especially Ourselves by Dan Ariely
• The Hour Between Dog and Wolf: Risk Taking, Gut Feelings and the Biology of Boom and Bust by John Coates
• The Particle at the End of the Universe: How the Hunt for the Higgs Boson Leads Us to the Edge of a New World by Sean Carroll

I’m always looking for recommendations and notifications of book lists as they appear in various media outlets. If you see one that I haven’t covered, please let me know at jdupuis at yorku dot ca or in the comments.

I am picking up most of my lists from Largehearted Boy.

For my purposes, I define science books pretty broadly to include science, engineering, computing, history & philosophy of science & technology, environment, social aspects of science and even business books about technology trends or technology innovation. Deciding what is and isn’t a science book is squishy at best, especially at the margins, but in the end I pick books that seem broadly about science and technology rather than something else completely. Lists of business, history or nature books are among the tricky ones.

And if you wish to support my humble list-making efforts, run on over to Amazon, take a look at Steve Jobs or The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks or maybe even something else from today’s list.