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Science Book Store Online Here is a list of biography books that I have personally found enjoyable and worthy to buy and read. If you know of any other good and interesting books that you would like to see here, please just let me know via e-mail. |
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Book
Categories:
Physics & Astro Chemistry Biology & Med Geology |
 Galileo's
Daughter: A Historical Memoir of Science, Faith, and Love - Everyone
knows that Galileo Galilei dropped cannonballs off the leaning tower of
Pisa, developed the first reliable telescope, and was convicted by the
Inquisition for holding a heretical belief--that the earth revolved around
the sun. But did you know he had a daughter? In Galileo's Daughter, Dava
Sobel (author of the bestselling Longitude) tells the story of the famous
scientist and his illegitimate daughter, Sister Maria Celeste. Sobel bases
her book on 124 surviving letters to the scientist from the nun, whom Galileo
described as "a woman of exquisite mind, singular goodness, and tenderly
attached to me." Their loving correspondence revealed much about their
world: the agonies of the bubonic plague, the hardships of monastic life,
even Galileo's occasional forgetfulness.
Click here to order this book!
 'Surely
You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!' : Adventures of a Curious Character -
A series of anecdotes shouldn't by rights add up to an autobiography, but
that's just one of the many pieces of received wisdom that Nobel Prize-winning
physicist Richard Feynman (1918-88) cheerfully ignores in his engagingly
eccentric book, a bestseller ever since its initial publication in 1985.
Fiercely independent (read the chapter entitled "Judging Books by Their
Covers"), intolerant of stupidity even when it comes packaged as high intellectualism
(check out "Is Electricity Fire?"), unafraid to offend (see "You Just Ask
Them?"), Feynman informs by entertaining. It's possible to enjoy Surely
You're Joking, Mr. Feynman simply as a bunch of hilarious yarns with the
smart-alecky author as know-it-all hero. At some point, however, attentive
readers realize that underneath all the merriment simmers a running commentary
on what constitutes authentic knowledge: learning by understanding, not
by rote; refusal to give up on seemingly insoluble problems; and total
disrespect for fancy ideas that have no grounding in the real world.
Click here to order this book!
 Great
Feuds in Science : Ten of the Liveliest Disputes Ever - "The facts,
even the theories, are history. It is the process that is the living science;
that's what makes the activity exciting to those who practice it," science
writer Hal Hellman observes. "Often, however, the process of scientific
discovery is charged with emotion.... Holders of an earlier idea may not
give it up gladly." Hellman describes some of the most emotional, dramatic,
and personal debates in scientific history. He rounds up the usual suspects--Galileo
versus the pope, Newton versus Leibniz, Cope versus Marsh, evolution versus
Creation--but also includes less well known, but no less interesting, conflicts:
Wallis versus Hobbes on squaring the circle, Voltaire versus Needham on
embryos. And he boldly includes two conflicts in which (some) of the combatants
are still alive: Don Johanson versus the Leakeys on human origins and Derek
Freeman versus the ghost of Margaret Mead on Samoa. Never a dull moment.
Click here to order this book!
 Charles
Darwin : Voyaging : A Biography - Few lives of great men offer so much
interest--and so many mysteries--as the life of Charles Darwin, the greatest
figure of nineteenth-century science, whose ideas are still inspiring discoveries
and controversies more than a hundred years after his death. Yet only now,
with the publication of Voyaging, the first of two volumes that will constitute
the definitive biography, do we have a truly vivid and comprehensive picture
of Darwin as man and as scientist. Drawing upon much new material, supported
by an unmatched acquaintance with both the intellectual setting and the
voluminous sources, Janet Browne has at last been able to unravel the central
enigma of Darwin's career: how did this amiable young gentleman, born into
a prosperous provincial English family, grow into a thinker capable of
challenging the most basic principles of religion and science? The dramatic
story of Voyaging takes us from agonizing personal challenges to the exhilaration
of discovery; we see a young, inquisitive Darwin gradually mature, shaping,
refining, and finally setting forth the ideas that would at last fall upon
the world like a thunderclap in The Origin of Species. Few lives of great
men offer so much interest--and so many mysteries--as the life of Charles
Darwin, the greatest figure of nineteenth-century science, whose ideas
are still inspiring discoveries and controversies more than a hundred years
after his death. Yet only now, with the publication of Voyaging, the first
of two volumes that will constitute the definitive biography, do we have
a truly vivid and comprehensive picture of Darwin as man and as scientist.
Drawing upon much new material, supported by an unmatched acquaintance
with both the intellectual setting and the voluminous sources, Janet Browne
has at last been able to unravel the central enigma of Darwin's career:
how did this amiable young gentleman, born into a prosperous provincial
English family, grow into a thinker capable of challenging the most basic
principles of religion and science? The dramatic story of Voyaging takes
us from agonizing personal challenges to the exhilaration of discovery;
we see a young, inquisitive Darwin gradually mature, shaping, refining,
and finally setting forth the ideas that would at last fall upon the world
like a thunderclap in The Origin of Species.
Click here to order this book! |
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 John
Glenn : A Memoir - At a time when overwritten biographies arguably
provide too much information about their subjects, astronaut turned politician
turned astronaut John Glenn's breezy memoir is welcome. His life story
is simply told, not terribly reflective but enormously compelling: an Ohio
boy grows up to become the first American to orbit the earth, takes a shot
at the presidency but misses, and triumphantly returns to outer space as
a senior citizen and national hero. Following a section on his youth, Glenn
describes being a fighter pilot in the Second World War and Korea (where
he lived in the same Quonset hut as baseball legend Ted Williams), as well
as a test pilot. The highlight of the book is Project Mercury, the early
NASA effort that hurled Glenn 150 miles above the planet in a tiny capsule--"flying
from one day into the next and back again."
Click here to order this book!
 Edison
: A Life of Invention -
Edison's name is on 1,093 U.S. patents--more than any other person's. It is a measure of his renown that his surname alone suffices for the title of this book. Israel, managing editor of the Rutgers University edition of Edison's papers, has explored thoroughly the five million pages of documents housed at the Edison National Historic Site in West Orange, N.J., and so he is well positioned to discuss the eminent inventor's achievements. That he does with care and clarity. The well-known inventions--the incandescent lightbulb, the phonograph, the kinetoscope for motion pictures, the carbon transmitter for telephones--are all here in detail, and so are the lesser-known ones as well as some Edisonian projects that did not succeed. Israel also paints a clear portrait of the man. One learns, among other things, of Edison's difficult relationships with his children, his indifference to his appearance and his singular notions about diet. Edison may well have been the "Inventor of the age," as he was orotundly described in the Grand Prize that he won at the Universal Exposition of 1878 in Paris, but he was in addition a complex and intriguing human being. Click here to order this book!
 Albert
Einstein : A Biography - His name connotes incomparable genius even
for those who cannot fathom his famed theory. Yet the man who unveiled
the deepest secrets of the universe has himself long remained an enigma
to his admirers. But now, in an exhaustively researched narrative, Folsing
unravels the enigma as he depicts the surprising variety of figures who
all fit within Einstein's life story: the hot-tempered little boy who threw
a chair at his tutor; the talented violinist who thrilled Saturday-afternoon
gatherings with his interpretations of Beethoven; the brokenhearted husband
who wept at the Berlin train station as his marriage crumbled; the neophyte
psychologist who dined with Jung and corresponded with Freud; the ardent
pacifist who willingly performed tasks for the German war machine; the
skeptic who rejected his ancestral religion yet risked his station and
even his life by affirming his Jewishness; the aging revolutionary who
fought against the young turks creating quantum physics. Folsing deserves
high praise for allowing the nonspecialist to share the singular mental
odyssey that culminated in Einstein's remarkable discoveries, especially
the theory of relativity. But he deserves even higher praise for exposing
the vulnerabilities and inadequacies that made Einstein, for all his genius,
one of us--an oft-perplexed and frustrated human being. As long as readers
care about Einstein's character as well as his formulas, this book will
attract and deserve attention. Bryce Christensen Copyright© 1997,
American Library Association. All rights reserved.
Click here to order this book!
 Rocket
Boys (aka October Sky) - Inspired by Werner von Braun and his Cape
Canaveral team, 14-year-old Homer Hickam decided in 1957 to build his own
rockets. They were his ticket out of Coalwood, West Virginia, a mining
town that everyone knew was dying--everyone except Sonny's father, the
mine superintendent and a company man so dedicated that his family rarely
saw him. Hickam's smart, iconoclastic mother wanted her son to become something
more than a miner and, along with a female science teacher, encouraged
the efforts of his grandiosely named Big Creek Missile Agency. He grew
up to be a NASA engineer and his memoir of the bumpy ride toward a gold
medal at the National Science Fair in 1960--an unprecedented honor for
a miner's kid--is rich in humor as well as warm sentiment. Hickam vividly
evokes a world of close communal ties in which a storekeeper who sold him
saltpeter warned, "Listen, rocket boy. This stuff can blow you to kingdom
come." Hickam is candid about the deep disagreements and tensions in his
parents' marriage, even as he movingly depicts their quiet loyalty to each
other. The portrait of his ultimately successful campaign to win his aloof
father's respect is equally affecting. --Wendy Smith
Click here to order this book! |
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