My Current Library..

Books to read by 2014!! CHECKLIST

(Descriptions are from www.waterstones.com; reviews will be added as I conquer them!)

The Serpent's Promise, Steve Jones 

The Bible was the first scientific textbook of all; and it got some things right (and plenty more wrong). Steve Jones' new book rewrites it in the light of modern science. Are we all descended from a single couple, a real-life Adam and Eve? Was the Bible's great flood really a memory of the end of the Ice Age? Will we ever get back to Methuselah given that British life expectancy is still rising by six hours a day, every day? Many people deny the power of faith, many more the power of science. In this ground-breaking work, geneticist Steve Jones explores their shared mysteries - from the origins of life and humankind to sex, age, death and the end of the universe. He steps aside from the noisy debate between believers and unbelievers to show how the same questions preoccupy us today as in biblical times - and that science offers many of the answers. Erudite and accessible, The Serpent's Promise is a witty and thoughtful account of the ability and the limits of science to tell us what we are.

Delusions of Gender, Cordelia Fine

Are men from Mars and women really from Venus? Gender inequalities are increasingly defended by citing hard-wired differences between the male and female brain. That's why, we're told, there are so few women in science, so few men in the laundry room - different brains are just suited to different things. Not so, argues cognitive neuroscientist Cordelia Fine. Whether you've found yourself frustrated by the gender straitjacket that still constrains us, or failed to notice it, Fine's sparkling yet vehement attack on 'neurosexism' will be essential reading.

In Search of Schrodinger's Cat, John R. Gribbin

Quantum theory is so shocking that Einstein could not bring himself to accept it. It is so important that it provides the fundamental underpinning of all modern sciences. Without it, we'd have no nuclear power or nuclear weapons, no TV, no computers, no science of molecular biology, no understanding of DNA, no genetic engineering. In Search of Schrodinger's Cat tells the complete story of quantum mechanics, a truth stranger than any fiction. John Gribbin takes us step by step into an ever more bizarre and fascinating place, requiring only that we approach it with an open mind. He introduces the scientists who developed quantum theory. He investigates the atom, radiation, time travel, the birth of the universe, superconductors and life itself. And in a world full of its own delights, mysteries and surprises, he searches for Schrodinger's Cat - a search for quantum reality - as he brings every reader to a clear understanding of the most important area of scientific study today - quantum physics. In Search of Schrodinger's Cat is a fascinating and delightful introduction to the strange world of the quantum - an essential element in understanding today's world.

Permanent Present Tense: the man with no memory and what he taught the world, Suzanne Corkin

In Permanent Present Tense Suzanne Corkin tells the incredible story of the amnesiac Henry Gustave Molaison - known only as H.M. until his death in 2008 - and what he taught medical science, neuroscience and the world. In 1953, at the age of twenty-seven, Molaison underwent an experimental psychosurgical procedure intended to alleviate his debilitating epilepsy. The outcome was devastating - when Molaison awoke he was unable to form new memories and for the rest of his life would be trapped in the moment. But Molaison's tragedy would prove a gift to humanity, illuminating functions and structures of the brain and revolutionizing the neuroscience of memory.