It's that time again! Another chiropractor appointment and another coupon means another opportunity for a trip to the bookstore, and as usual I can't possibly leave empty handed. Here's what I got this time...
"The Dragons of Eden" - Carl Sagan
Dr. Carl Sagan takes us on a great reading adventure, offering his vivid and startling insight into the brain of man and beast, the origin of human intelligence, the function of our most haunting legends - and their amazing links to recent discoveries.
"The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark" - Carl Sagan
How can we make intelligent decisions about our increasingly technology-driven lives if we don't understand the difference between the myths of pseudoscience, New Age thinking, and fundamentalist zealotry and the testable hypotheses of science?
Casting a wide net through history and culture Sagan examines and authoritatively debunks such celebrated fallacies as witchcraft, faith healings, demons, and UFOs. And yet, disturbingly, in today's so-called information age, pseudoscience is burgeoning, with stories of alien abduction, "channeling" past lives, and communal hallucinations commanding growing attention and respect. As Sagan demonstrates with lucid eloquence, the siren song of unreason is not just a cultural wrong turn but a dangerous plunge into darkness that threatens our most basic freedoms.
"Ideas and Opinions" - Albert Einstein
Although countless volumes have been written about Albert Einstein's contributions to the scientific world, few works depict such a comprehensive and personal portrait of the man behind the legend.
Gathered under the supervision of Einstein himself, Ideas and Opinions contains essays from early in his career until his last writing of 1954, the year before his death, when Einstein was recognized as one of the most creative intellects of human history.
In the first part of the book, Einstein focuses on aspects of human existence beyond the scope of the purely scientific world, demonstrating a keen awareness of the importance of the moral and intellectual aspects of human nature - from equality and freedom to personal relationships and spiritual development. The second section of the books provides a thorough overview of Einstein's major contributions to science, described by Einstein himself in various letters and speeches.
Ideas and Opinions is the most definitive collection of Albert Einstein's popular writings. Subjects range from his theory of relativity, gravitation, and the space-time continuum to religion, human rights, economics, government, and nuclear war.
Einstein's stature as one of the most creative and progressive thinkers of the twentieth century is clearly demonstrated by his remarkable ability to penetrate directly to the heart of a subject, whether scientific or secular.
"Parallel Worlds: A Journey Through Creation, Higher Dimensions, and the Future of the Cosmos" - Michio Kaku
In this thrilling journey into the mysteries of our cosmos, bestselling author Michi Kaku takes us on a dizzying ride to explore black holes and time machines, multidimensional space and, most tantalizing of all, the possibility that parallel universes may lie alongside our own.
Kaku skillfully guides us through the latest innovations in string theory and its most recent iteration, M-theory, which posits that our universe may be just one in an endless multiverse, a singular bubble floating in a sea of infinite bubble universes. If M-theory is proven correct, we may perhaps finally find an answer to the question, "What happened before the big bang?" This is an exciting and unforgettable introduction to the cutting-edge theories of physics and cosmology from one of the preeminent voices in the field.
"Your Inner Fish: A Journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body" - Neil Shubin
Why do we look the way we do? What does the human hand have in common with the wing of a fly? Are breasts, sweat glands, and scales connected in some way? To better understand the inner workings of our bodies and to trace the origins of many of today's most common diseases, we have to turn to unexpected sources: worms, flies, and even fish.
Neil Shubin, a leading paleontologist and professor of anatomy who discovered Tiktaalik - the "missing link" that made headlines around the world in April 2006 - tells the story of evolution by tracing the organs of the human body back millions of years, long before the first creatures walked the earth. By examining fossils and DNA, Shubin shows us that our hands actually resemble fish fins, our head is organized like that of a long-extinct jawless fish, and major parts of our genome look and function like those of worms and bacteria.
Shubin makes us see ourselves and our world in a completely new light. Your Inner Fish is science writing at it's finest - enlightening, accessible, and told with irresistible enthusiasm.
