It was about this time last year that I began putting together a ‘further reading’ list for A level biologists. It was to be included in the ‘welcome booklet’ that we gave the year 12’s at the start of the year. The task was harder than you might expect. It’s easy to find good books about genetics and evolution, but other aspects of biology just don’t get written about that much. Surveying the biology teachers at school found that we had, more or less, all read the same books (these were therefore included in the list), but finding a range of books to list that we knew were good was worryingly difficult.
It’s a shame that I did not know about the Royal Society Prize for Science Books. I do now. ‘The world’s most prestigious award for science writing’ (their words, not mine) have published their longlist for this year’s award, and it makes for interesting reading.
I have to admit, I have only read one of the books on the list, the rather fabulous ‘Bad Science’ by Ben Goldacre. It’s good enough to make it onto next years further reading list. But I’m ashamed to say I haven’t even heard of any of the other books, yet alone read any of them! So, as a committed scientist, I plan to read at least one of the books on the list. I’ll be reading ‘The drunkard’s walk: How randomness rules our lives’, by Leonard Mlodinow. I’ll let you know how it goes!
The shortlist will be announced on 25th June 2009, and the winner on 15th September 2009, so you may prefer to wait until then to pick one. But do pick one! I’d love to hear from anyone who has read any of these books and could give me a review of it. If it’s good enough I’ll let everyone know.
The short list
http://royalsociety.org/bookspage.asp?id=8563
The winner…
http://royalsociety.org/book.asp?id=8560