News Archive
Best Science Books of 2021
November 28, 2021
John Dupuis and Joanne Manaster have returned for another year of science book recommendations! This is a companion blog to the 28 November 2021 episode The One About Science Books, 2021 Edition: below is a list of the science books we talked about, and links to where you can purchase them on Amazon if that's what you'd like to do. As usual, we've added our affilate tag to these links so if you buy something from Amazon because we sent you, we get a little kickback (usually around $0.50).
While we do provide Amazon links below, this year we do hope you'll turn to your local bookstore first if you have one and can purchase the books safely. Support your local bookstore if you can!
Note: this page uses javascript to give you Amazon links appropriate for the country your IP resolves to. We don't store or track your IP: the javascript just checks it to build an Amazon link for the store most relevant to you. If some of the below links aren't working, make sure you don't have javascript blocked.
Joanne Manaster
- The New Climate War: The Fight to Take Back Our Planet by Michael Mann
- How to Avoid a Climate Disaster: The Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need by Bill Gates
- Under a White Sky: The Nature of the Future by Elizabeth Kolbert
- Under the Sky We Make: How to Be Human in a Warming World by Kimberly Nicholas
- Saving Us: A Climate Scientist's Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World by Katharine Hayhoe
- Regeneration: Ending the Climate Crisis in One Generation by Paul Hawken
- A Bigger Picture: My Fight to Bring a New African Voice to the Climate Crisis by Vanessa Nakate
- Our Biggest Experiment: An Epic History of the Climate Crisis by Alice Bell
- After Cooling: On Freon, Global Warming, and the Terrible Cost of Comfort by Eric Dean Wilson
- The Genome Defense: Inside the Epic Legal Battle to Determine Who Owns Your DNA by Jorge Contreras
- Genomic Politics: How the Revolution in Genomic Science Is Shaping American Society by Jennifer Hochschild
- The Genetic Lottery: Why DNA Matters for Social Equality by Kathryn Paige Harden
- The Genome Odyssey: Medical Mysteries and the Incredible Quest to Solve Them by Euan Ashley
- The Sound of the Sea: What Seashells Can Tell Us About the Past and Future: Seashells and the Fate of the Oceans by Cynthia Barnett
- The Kissing Bug: A True Story of a Family, an Insect, and a Nation's Neglect of a Deadly Disease by Daisy Hernandez
- The Arbornaut: A Life Discovering the Eighth Continent in the Trees Above Us by Meg Lowman
- A Most Remarkable Creature: The Hidden Life and Epic Journey of the World's Smartest Birds of Prey by Jonathan Meiburg
- Not on My Watch: How a renegade whale biologist took on governments and industry to save wild salmon by Alexandra Morton
- Fire and Ice: The Volcanoes of the Solar System by Natalie Starkey
- Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law by Mary Roach
- The Disordered Cosmos: A Journey into Dark Matter, Spacetime, and Dreams Deferred by Chanda Prescod-Weinstein
- The Brilliant Abyss: Exploring the Majestic Hidden Life of the Deep Ocean, and the Looming Threat That Imperils It by Helen Scales
- Half Lives: The Unlikely History of Radium by Lucy Jane SantosB08NT4JPS2
- Bright Galaxies, Dark Matter, and Beyond: The Life of Astronomer Vera Rubin by Ashley Jean Yeager
- The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race by Walter Isaacson
- Ravenous: Otto Warburg, the Nazis, and the Search for the Cancer-Diet Connection by Sam Apple
- A Dominant Character: How J. B. S. Haldane Transformed Genetics, Became a Communist, and Risked His Neck for Science: The Radical Science and Restless Politics of J. B. S. Haldane by Samanth Subramanian
- Aesop's Animals: The Science Behind the Fables by Jo Wimpenny
- Atlas of the Invisible: Maps and Graphics That Will Change How You See the World by James Cheshire and Oliver Uberti
- Blue: In Search of Nature's Rarest Color by Kai Kupferschmidt
- The Kitchen Pantry Scientist Biology for Kids: Science Experiments and Activities Inspired by Awesome Biologists, Past and Present by Liz Lee Heinecke and illustrated by Kelly Anne Dalton
- Ms. Adventure: My Wild Explorations in Science, Lava, and Life by Jess Phoenix
- The Loneliest Polar Bear: A True Story of Survival and Peril on the Edge of a Warming World by Kale Williams
- Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
- Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro
- The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson
- Beasts Before Us: The Untold Story of Mammal Origins and Evolution by Elsa Panciroli
- The Ascent of Information: Books, Bits, Genes, Machines, and Life's Unending Algorithm by Caleb Scharf
- Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest by Suzanne Simard
- T: The Story of Testosterone, the Hormone that Dominates and Divides Us by Carole Hooven
- Hawking Hawking: The Selling of a Scientific Celebrity by Charles Seife
- Super Volcanoes: What They Reveal about Earth and the Worlds Beyond by Robin George Andrews
- Women in White Coats: How the First Women Doctors Changed the World of Medicine by Olivia Campbell
- The Doctors Blackwell: How Two Pioneering Sisters Brought Medicine to Women and Women to Medicine by Janice Nimura
- The Man from the Future: The Visionary Life of John von Neumann by Ananyo Bhattacharya
- Hot Mess: What on earth can we do about climate change? by Matt Winning
- Sticky: The Secret Science of Surfaces by Laurie Winkless
- Racing Green: How Motorsport Science Can Save the World by Kit Chapman
- Carbon Queen: The Remarkable Life of Nanoscience Pioneer Mildred Dresselhaus by Maia Weinstock
- The Last Days of the Dinosaurs: An Asteroid, Extinction, and the Beginning of Our World by Riley Black
- Why Sharks Matter: A Deep Dive with the World's Most Misunderstood Predator by David Shiffman
- Kill Shot: A Shadow Industry, a Deadly Disease by Jason Dearen
- This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends: The Cyberweapons Arms Race by Nicole Perlroth
- First Platoon: A Story of Modern War in the Age of Identity Dominance by Annie Jacobsen
- Icebound: Shipwrecked at the Edge of the World by Andrea Pitzer
- Radiant: The Dancer, The Scientist, and a Friendship Forged in Light by Liz Lee Heinecke
- Four Lost Cities: A Secret History of the Urban Age by Annalee Newitz
- Beloved Beasts: Fighting for Life in an Age of Extinction by Michelle Nijhuis
- First Light: Switching on Stars at the Dawn of Time by Emma Chapman
- The Knowledge Machine: How Irrationality Created Modern Science by Michael Strevens
- Good Thinking: Why Flawed Logic Puts Us All at Risk and How Critical Thinking Can Save the World by David Robert Grimes
- Life's Edge: The Search for What It Means to Be Alive by Carl Zimmer
John Dupuis
- Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest by Suzanne Simard
- The Way of the Hive: A Honey Bee's Story by Jay Hosler
- Arriving Today: From Factory to Front Door -- Why Everything Has Changed About How and What We Buy by Christopher Mims
- Neglected No More: The Urgent Need to Improve the Lives of Canada's Elders in the Wake of a Pandemic by André Picard
- My Remarkable Journey: A Memoir by Katherine Johnson, Joylette Hylick and Katherine Moore
- First Platoon: A Story of Modern War in the Age of Identity Dominance by Annie Jacobsen
- The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race by Walter Isaacson
- Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law by Mary Roach
- Pipe Dreams: The Urgent Global Quest to Transform the Toilet by Chelsea Wald
- The Rose Code by Kate Quinn
- Sapiens: A Graphic History, Volume 2: The Pillars of Civilization by Yuval Noah Harari, illustrated by Daniel Casanave
- Billionaires: The Lives of the Rich and Powerful by Darryl Cunningham
- The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2021 edited by Ed Yong and Jaime Green
- The Curie Society by Heather Einhorn, Adam Staffaroni, Janet Harvey; illustrated by Sonia Liao; edited by Joan Hilty
- Bug Boys: Outside and Beyond by Laura Knetzger
- Flash Forward: An Illustrated Guide to Possible (and Not So Possible) Tomorrows by Rose Eveleth with contributions from Sophie Goldstein and Matt Lubchansky
- The Sandwalk Adventures by Jay Hosler
- Last of the Sandwalkers by Jay Hosler
- The Bone Code by Kathy Reichs
- X-Men: Dark Phoenix Saga Complete Collection by Chris Claremont, Jo Duffy; illustrated by John Byrne, Mike Collins, John Buscema, and Jerry Bingham
- The Arbornaut: A Life Discovering the Eighth Continent in the Trees Above Us by Meg Lowman
- The Disordered Cosmos: A Journey into Dark Matter, Spacetime, and Dreams Deferred by Chanda Prescod-Weinstein
- An Ugly Truth: Inside Facebook's Battle for Domination by Sheera Frenkel and Cecilia Kang
- Nightmare Scenario: Inside the Trump Administration's Response to the Pandemic That Changed History by Yasmeen Abutaleb and Damian Paletta
- The Premonition: A Pandemic Story by Michael Lewis
- Tractor Wars: John Deere, Henry Ford, International Harvester, and the Birth of Modern Agriculture by Neil Dahlstrom
- World War II at Sea: A Global History by Craig Symonds
- Serving the Reich: The Struggle for the Soul of Physics under Hitler by Philip Ball
- Engineers of Victory: The Problem Solvers Who Turned The Tide in the Second World War by Paul Kennedy