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They have extraordinary powers, but you’d never call them superheroes
Adulthood Rites (Xenogenesis Trilogy #2) by Octavia E. Butler @@@@ (4 out of 5) In this worthy sequel to Dawn, the opening book in Octavia Butler’s much-admired Xenogenesis Trilogy, the focus shifts...
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A promising but disappointing new science fiction novel
Planetfall by Emma Newman @@@ (3 out of 5) Renata Ghali, known to all as Ren, is seventy years of age and expects to live to two hundred. Like the thousand others in the tiny colony they’ve established...
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The story of autism, brilliantly told
NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity by Steve Silberman @@@@@ (5 out of 5) Only in the last two decades has a consensus about autism developed among the psychiatrists,...
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35 great biographies I’ve reviewed
I’ve read a lot of biographies since I began posting book reviews in January 2010. Well over three dozen, actually. I’m listing here the 35 that I can recommend, omitting several that underwhelmed me...
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30 good books on science and medicine
Living as we do surrounded by the prodigious spawn of the scientific method, we’ve grown accustomed to thinking of nearly everything as a manifestation of science. At least I have. So it came naturally...
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27 biographies worth reading
One of the very best ways to gain insight into history and the ways of the world around us is to read biographies. Which explains why I read them so frequently. Over the more than six years since I...
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The unlikely story of life on Earth
A Most Improbable Journey: A Big History of Our Planet and Ourselves by Walter Alvarez @@@@ (4 out of 5) UC Berkeley professor Walter Alvarez tackles the emerging field of Big History from his...
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The 5 best books of 2016
I’d already written up my list of the 10 best books of the year when the editors of Berkeleyside asked me to supply them with a list of my five top picks. (I’ll post the longer list next week.) Picking...
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8 great books on Big History: New perspectives on world history
Less than three decades ago an American historian named David Christian who was teaching at an Australian university at the time launched a new approach to world history. His unique take on the subject...
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Science history and science explained in 33 excellent popular books
Astronomy. Epidemiology. Lexicography. Microbiology. These are among the thirty different scientific fields discussed and explained in the thirty-three excellent books about science that I’ve read and...
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