Royal Society science book prize shortlist (2009)

Royal Society announces science book prize shortlist

from Books: Books blog | guardian.co.uk

Guardian article on science book prize nominees

The shortlist is a smorgasbord of popular science writing offering a taste of evolutionary biology, statistics, archaeology, olfaction, good science and bad science

Today the Royal Society announced the shortlist for its science book prize. It's a strong field of contenders for the £10,000 prize money. Regular readers of the Guardian and fans of our Science Weekly podcast will already be familiar with the finalists. One of the shortlisted books was recently picked over by our Science Book Club, one of the authors writes a popular weekly column for the Guardian, and two have been guests on the podcast.

Sir Tim Hunt, who chairs the panel of judges, said: "There's clearly a large audience for books that explain science clearly and gracefully, and no shortage of authors. Choosing a final list of six books from the big boxes of books that arrived on our doorsteps – over 120 books were submitted – was a challenging pleasure."

Here's the shortlist:

What the Nose Knows: The Science of Scent in Everyday Life by Avery Gilbert
Olfaction expert Gilbert takes us on a journey through the world of aroma, describing the latest scientific discoveries and exposing popular misconceptions about smell. Apparently the human nose is almost as sensitive as the noses of many animals, including dogs; blind people do not have enhanced powers of smell; and perfumers excel at their jobs not because they have superior noses, but because they have perfected the art of thinking about scents.

Bad Science by Ben Goldacre (Harper Perennial)
Goldacre writes the popular Bad Science column on Saturdays in the Guardian. Like the column, his book is about the shoddy, misleading science we are bombarded with by the media and in advertising. The updated paperback edition includes a damning chapter on Matthias Rath, the vitamin-pill entrepreneur who unsuccessfully sued him for libel.

The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science by Richard Holmes
Holmes charts the rise of modern science in the late 18th century through the lives of botanist Joseph Banks, astronomer William Herschel, explorer Mungo Park and chemist Humphry Davy, and explores its influence on writers and romantic poets including Mary Shelley, Coleridge, Byron and Keats. Reviewing the book for the Science Book Club in May, Tim Radford wrote: "This is a rich, crowded book, with something luminous, provoking and instructive on every page. The discussions of the challenges of 18th century astronomy, or of the first faltering explorations of chemistry, are as illuminating as any formal scientific history, and twice as readable."

Decoding the Heavens: Solving the Mystery of the World's First Computer by Jo Marchant
Marchant tells for the first time the story of the 100-year quest to understand an ancient mechanism discovered at the bottom of the Mediterranean among the wreckage of an Ancient Greek shipwreck. What appeared to be a formless lump of rock turned out to be the most stunning scientific artefact to survive from antiquity. Marchant came into the studio in October to talk about the Antikythera mechanism for our Science Weekly podcast.

The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives by Leonard Mlodinow
Mlodinow uncovers the psychological illusions that prevent us understanding stockmarkets, lotteries, road safety ... and wine-tasting. According to the book jacket, he also "reveals the truth about the success of sporting heroes and film stars, and even how to make sense of a blood test".

Your Inner Fish: A Journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body by Neil Shubin
An expert in evolutionary history, Shubin "shows that if we want to know why we hiccup, the answer is in the way fish breathe; and explains why it is that fish teeth are surprisingly similar to human breasts."

The NY Times Book Review's Top Ten (2005,2009)

The New York Times named its 10 best books of 2009, noting that "after so many years, and so many lists, you might think the task of choosing the 10 Best Books would get easier. If only. The sublime story collections alone created agonies of indecision. So did the superb literary biographies we read--and deeply admired. But in the end the decisions had to be made."
2009's top 10:

Fiction

Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It by Maile Meloy (short stories)
Chronic City by Jonathan Lethem
A Gate at the Stairs by Lorrie Moore (Knopf)
Half Broke Horses: A True-Life Novel by Jeannette Walls (Scribner)
A Short History of Women by Kate Walbert (Scribner)

Nonfiction

The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science by Richard Holmes
The Good Soldiers by David Finkel
Lit: A Memoir by Mary Karr
Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World by Liaquat Ahamed
Raymond Carver: A Writer's Life by Carol Sklenicka

The New York Times Book Review yesterday listed its top 10 titles for 2005:

* Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami (Knopf, $25.95, 1400043662). "This graceful and dreamily cerebral novel, translated from the Japanese by Philip Gabriel, tells two stories--that of a boy fleeing an Oedipal prophecy, and that of a witless old man who can talk to cats."
* On Beauty by Zadie Smith (Penguin Press, $25.95, 1594200637). Smith shows "a crisp intellect, a lovely wit and enormous sympathy for the men, women and children who populate her story. "
* Prep: A Novel by Curtis Sittenfeld (Random House, $13.95, 081297235X). "This calm and memorably incisive first novel, about a scholarship girl who heads east to attend an elite prep school, casts an unshakable spell and has plenty to say about class, sex and character."
* Saturday by Ian McEwan (Talese/Doubleday, $26, 0385511809). "As bracing and as carefully constructed as anything McEwan has written."
* Veronica: A Novel by Mary Gaitskill (Pantheon, $23, 0375421459). A "mesmerizingly dark novel . . . narrated by a former Paris model."
* The Assassin's Gate: America in Iraq by George Packer (FSG, $26, 0374299633). "A comprehensive look at the largest foreign policy gamble in a generation."
* de Kooning: An American Master by Mark Stevens and Annalyn Swan (Knopf, $35, 1400041759). "A sweeping biography, impressively researched and absorbingly written."
* The Lost Painting by Jonathan Harr (Random House, $24.95, 0375508015). A "gripping narrative, populated by a beguiling cast of scholars, historians, art restorers and aging nobles, records the search for Caravaggio's Taking of Christ, painted in 1602 and rediscovered in 1990."
* Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 by Tony Judt (Penguin Press, $39.95, 1594200653). "Massive, learned, beautifully detailed."
* The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion (Knopf, $23.95, 140004314X). "A prose master's harrowing yet exhilarating memoir."

Places to go -- or to read about!

A listing of suggested places and experiences a well-traveled geographer
should experience. With a lot of help from the visitors to our Geography
Forum, here's the list...

Specific Locations

* Abu Simbel, Egypt
* Amazon River and Rainforest
* Anasazi Ruins in Southwest USA (Canyon de Chelly and Mesa Verde)
* Andalucia Region of Spain
* Angel Falls, Venezuela
* Angkor Wat, Cambodia
* Antarctica
* Arches National Park, Utah
* The Badlands
* Bay of Fundy
* The Berner Oberland and Zermatt, Switzerland
* Big Sur and Monterey Bay, California
* Brugge, Belgium
* Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah
* The Canadian Rockies
* Cappadocia, Turkey
* Carlsbad Caverns, New Mexico
* Channel Tunnel
* The Cliff Walk in Newport, Rhode Island
* Dubrovnik, Croatia
* Fez, Morocco
* The Fjords of Norway
* Four Corners, Colorado-Arizona-New Mexico-Utah
* Glacier National Park (especially Going-To-The-Sun Road), Montana
* Grand Canyon (North Rim)
* Great Barrier Reef, Australia
* Greenwich Observatory and stand on zero degrees longitude
* Guilin, China
* Ha Long Bay, Vietnam
* Hadrian's Wall and the Antonine Wall
* Hanalei Bay, Hawaii
* Hilo, Hawaii
* The islands of Lewis and Harris in the Outer Hebrides
* Istanbul, Turkey
* Lake Baikal
* The Lake District, England
* Macchu Picchu, Peru
* Mall of America, Minnesota
* Natural Bridge, Florida
* Nile River
* North and South Poles (if Michael Palin can go there, anyone can).
* Olympic National Park, Washington
* Panama Canal -- McCullough. Path Between the Seas and several others
* Paris, France
* Petra, Jordan
* Pompeii
* Prague, Czech Republic
* The Pyramids
* Rural Northern New England in the autumn (or any season for that matter)
* Sagres
* San Francisco, California
* Sears Tower, Chicago
* Sequoia National Park, California
* The Serengeti
* Shinto shrines in Kyoto and throughout Japan
* St. Petersburg, Russia
* Stonehenge (and Avebury)
* Straits of Gibraltar
* Suez Canal
* Sydney, Australia
* Tallinn, Estonia
* Tracy Arm, Southeast Alaska
* Uluru, Australia
* Venice and northern Italy
* White Mountains of New Hampshire
* Yellowstone National Park
* Yosemite National Park, California
* Zion Canyon's The Narrows

General Locations

* Cross the International Date Line
* Equator
* Explore a deep cave
* Find a place on earth where you cannot see any evidence of human impact
at all, including light pollution or noise
* A major desert
* Sail or boat across the major oceans
* See a huge city - L.A., Mexico City, Tokyo, Sao Paulo, N.Y.C., etc.
* See a large waterfall
* See the ocean, especially the Atlantic and Pacific
* See the view from the top floor of a really tall building
* Travel to a place with a different language and culture
* Visit a national capital (and capitol?)
* Visit a permafrost landscape
* Visit a point below sea level (on land)
* Visit each continent
* Visit every country on your home continent
* Visit one of the world's largest airports
* Visit each major climate zone (Koppen) -- Does the Biosphere count?
* Visit the geologic eccentricities of Iceland

Experiences

* Climb a mountain
* Cross an International Boundary
* Eat a different food from a different country every night for a month
* Experience a hurricane - no thanks
* Experience a significant earthquake - no thanks
* Feel hailstones larger than marbles
* Have a real friend in several countries
* Observe a tidal bore
* See a glacier calve
* See and hear a flash flood - no thanks
* See and smell a live volcano - no thanks
* See significant river or coastal flooding
* Speak at least two languages fluently - too late to speak, but reading I'd try
* View the Aurora Borealis or Aurora Australis
* Walk on a sand dune in a desert where you cannot see anything but sand
in any direction
* Witness an avalanche - no thanks
* Witness a solar eclipse
* Witness a tornado - no thanks
* Whale-watching in Baja California

NPR's Morning Edition: Summer's Best Reads

On NPR's Morning Edition, Susan Stamberg hosted three independent booksellers who shared their picks for the "Summer's Best Reads." Stamberg noted, "Whatever your reading pleasure--be it fiction, nonfiction, poetry, memoir or graphic novels--you're sure to find page after page of pleasant escape in the recommendations that follow." The choices:

Rona Brinlee, the Bookmark, Atlantic Beach, Fla.

The Four Corners of the Sky: A Novel by Michael Malone
The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa
The School of Essential Ingredients by Erica Bauermeister
The Selected Works of T. S. Spivet by Reif Larsen
Stone's Fall by Iain Pears

Chris Livingston, the Book Shelf, Winona, Minn.

Wicked Plants: The Weed That Killed Lincoln's Mother and Other Botanical Atrocities by Amy Stewart
The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir by Kao Kalia Yang
The Stolen Child by Keith Donohue
Laura Rider's Masterpiece by Jane Hamilton
A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick
Lucia Silva, Portrait of a Bookstore, Studio City, Calif.

Atmospheric Disturbances by Rivka Galchen
Tunneling to the Center of the Earth: Stories by Kevin Wilson
Mirrors by Eduardo Galeano, translated by Mark Fried
The Photographer by Emmanuel Guibert (text and illustrations) and Didier Lefevre (photographs)
Oh! A Mystery of Mono No Aware by Todd Shimoda, artwork by Linda Shimoda

Melissa Nathan Award for Comedy Romance 2009

The Marriage Bureau for Rich People by Farahad Zama won the £5,000 (US$8,298) Melissa Nathan Award for Comedy Romance. The Guardian reported that Zama, an IT director for an investment bank who wrote his book while riding on the train to work, "is the first man to win the award, and was the only male author on a shortlist of six."

"It's a little bit unusual that a man is writing in this genre," said Zama. "But my book is not a typical chick lit book. It's set in India, and deals with reasonably serious topics--but at heart it is a romantic novel. . . . In England at the moment there is a big divide between literary fiction and popular fiction. The fact that so many people do read for escape is an important factor that needs to be recognized. It doesn't mean that because something is comedy romance that the writing can't be good, or that deeper topics can't be addressed. It's just a matter of finding the balance."

The other shortlisted books were The Secret Shopper's Revenge by Kate Harrison, Bridesmaids by Jane Costello, Recipe for Disaster by Miriam Morrison, A Winter's Tale by Trisha Ashley and The Importance of Being Emma by Juliet Archer.

2005 Whitbread Book Awards

Awards: The Whitbread Five

The winners of the five categories of the Whitbread Awards (the last to be sponsored by Whitbread) were announced January 4, 2005:

Best novel: The Accidental by Ali Smith
First Novel: The Harmony Silk Factory by Tash Aw
Poetry Collection: Cold Calls by Christopher Logue
Biography: Matisse the Master: A Life of Henri Matisse: The Conquest of Colour: 1909-1954 by Hilary Spurling
Children's Book: The New Policeman by Kate Thompson

The five authors each receive £5,000 and compete for the Whitbread Book of the Year, which will be announced at a ceremony in London on January 24.

1/24: The £25,000 Whitbread Book of the Year award has gone to Matisse the Master by Hilary Spurling (Knopf, $40, 0679434291), which had won the best biography Whitbread award earlier this month (Shelf Awareness, January 4).

The chair of the judging panel said Spurling "has opened our eyes to great art, and done it in an extraordinary way." For her part, Spurling told the BBC that she was "gobsmacked."

Whitbread, since 1971 the main sponsor of the awards, which are open to residents of the Britain and Ireland, has announced that it will no longer be involved in the awards. A search is on for what next year may be the non-Whitbread.

Counterinsurgency reading list from Canadian Forces

From: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/blogs/witness-kandahar/know-thy-military-the-canadian-forces-reading-list/article1158648/

A partial list of the Canadian Forces' "suggested readings in counterinsurgency," follows below.

The upshot? Counterinsurgency (COIN, in military vernacular) ain't easy -- never was, never is, never will be.

And just because a country fears being drawn into a bloody quagmire, doesn't mean that it can't try to discern lessons from the bloody quagmires of ages past.

- Islam, Karen Armstrong (2002)

- Inside al-Qaeda, Rohan Gunarathna (2002)

- The War of Ideas: Jihad Against Democracy, Walid Phares (2007)

- The Battle for God: A History of Fundamentalism (2001)

- The Other Side of the Mountain: Mujahedeen Tactics in the Soviet Afghanistan War, Colonel Jalali (2000)

- Revolt in the Desert, T.E. Lawrence (2004)

- History of the Hanged: The Dirty War in Kenya and the End of Empire,

- Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain's Gulag in Kenya, Caroline Elkins, (2005)

- Pacification in Algeria: 1956-1958, David Galula (2005)

- The Irish War: The Hidden Conflict Between the IRA and British Intelligence, Tony Geraghty (2000)

- Fighting for Ireland? The Military Strategy of the IRA, M.L.R. Smith (1995)

- Strategy in Vietnam: The Marines and Revolutionary Warfare in I Corps, Michael Hennessy, (1997)

- Communist Revolutionary Warfare: From the Vietminh to Viet Cong, George Tanham, (1967)

- Defeating Communist Insurgency, The Lessons of Malaya and Vietnam, Sir Robert Thompson (2005)

- Counter-Guerrilla Operations: The Philippine Experience, Charles Bohannan (1962)

- COIN in a Test Tube: Analyzing the Success of the Regional Assistance Mission, Solomon Islands, Russell Glenn (2007)

- Modern Warfare: A French View of Counterinsurgency Roger Trinquier (1964)

- War in the Shadows: The Guerrilla in History, Robert B. Asprey (1994)

- Mars Learning: The Marine Corps Development of Small Wars Doctrine 1915-1940, Keith Bickel (2001)

- U.S. Army Counterinsurgency and Contingency Operations Doctrine 1860-1941, Andrew Birtle (1998)

- U.S. Army Counterinsurgency and Contingency Operations Doctrine 1942-1976, Andrew Birtle (1998)

And so on. ...

Feeback? colinfreezeisinafghanistan@gmail.com