Science Friday - The Best Science Books For Summer 2024

Episode Date: July 5, 2024

It’s officially summertime, and a new season of reading is here! Two science writers and voracious readers have compiled their summer reading recommendations, just for Science Friday fans. Before you head out for a week at the beach, start packing for that road trip, or stock up for a long staycation, we’ve got the list of science-y summer reads, straight from those familiar with the best on the shelf.Joining guest host Diana Plasker to offer listeners their recommendations are Riley Black, a Salt Lake City-based science writer and the author of several books, including The Last Days of the Dinosaurs: An Asteroid, Extinction, and the Beginning of Our World; and Deborah Blum, director of the Knight Science Journalism program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and author of several books, including The Poison Squad: One Chemist’s Single-Minded Crusade for Food Safety at the Turn of the Twentieth Century, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts.Transcripts for this segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

What nerdy science books are you going to read the summer? I love how many books there are now that are basically touching moss, right? So it's like going into the forest and thinking about trees or flowers or things that are tangible but seem to have their own world. It's Friday July 5th and you're listening to Science Friday. I'm sci-fri producer Dee Petersmith. It's officially summertime. The days are long, the hammocks are strung up and the season of reading is finally here. And you might be looking for some fun books that have more of a sciencey twist to them.

Well, two science writers and voracious readers have compiled their summer reading recommendations just for Science Friday fans. So before you head out for your summer plans, we've got the list of summer science reads straight from those familiar with the best on the shelf. Here's I Fry's Senior Manager of Experiences and ahead of our book club Diana Plasker with more. Riley Black is a science writer and the author of several books, including one of my personal favorites, The Last Days of the Dinosaurs, an asteroid, extinction, and the beginning of. of our world. She's based in Salt Lake City, Utah. And Deborah Blum is the director of the Knight Science Journalism Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She's also the author of several books, including The Poison Squad, One Chemist's Single-Minded Crusade for Food Safety

at the turn of the 20th century. She's based in Cambridge Mass. Welcome both of you to Science Friday. Oh, always lovely to be on. Thank you. So glad to be here. Thanks. All right, Deb, you have your pulse on the science journalism and publishing worlds. Are there science topics that people are drawn to in their book choices these days? Yes, I think a lot of people are trying to figure out climate change as it tends to rewrite our history, rewrite the planet. I think that people just remain fascinated by some of the ways that science makes the world more interesting, more beautiful. People are always drawn to the kind of books that allow you to look at the world in a new way and kind of go well. Yeah, I find myself drawn to those books basically every time I walk into the library.

Riley, do your reading choices vary throughout the years? Do you find yourself drawn to different books in the summer than in the winter? Oh, entirely. I tend to gravitate more towards narratives or sort of unconventional science books in the summertime. I feel like when autumn and winter is more time to do a lot of research. and thinking about, you know, big questions and science are kind of getting lost in something. But I like as it gets warmer to look for people writing science books in ways that we don't normally see that are a lot outside of the, I'm a scientist or I'm a journalist who's going

to tell you everything about this particular topic, but looking for alternate ways to get some of these bigger points or kind of act as a prompt to get out and look at something. Like I love how many books there are now that are basically touching moss, right? So it's like going into the forest and thinking about mushrooms or trees or flowers or things that are accessible and tangible but seem to have their own world. And I know I'm very attracted to those books as things get warmer. As a science writer and author, do you have a favorite subject, a favorite science subject that you like writing about? Well, I feel like that one I kind of wear it on my sleeve a little bit because I'm kind of the dinosaur lady. Literally, yeah.

Yeah, for a number of years now. But I love prehistory in general. I love the prompt that fossils in the past gives us, whether we're talking about people uncovering it or the organisms themselves, thinking about, you know, what was it like to be in that world, either when our ideas were different or just when the world itself was very different, that it requires some imagination, requires a buy-in from the reader to really experience where I'm not just telling you this.

It's kind of like when I go to visit a museum. and I have friends, you know, attending with me and they ask me about a fossil or a, you know, skeleton or something like that and drawing those stories out. And that's the sort of stuff that I love writing about. So it's mostly focused on old dead stuff, usually with big scary teeth. But it's really science that we can bring some imagination to is really what I love writing about. Deb, what about you? Are there subject matters that you're like, oh, I got to, I got to keep writing about this. Yes. And actually, you know, dead things with big scary teeth are probably a lot nicer than some of the things I write about.

But I said, I'm a chemistry and toxicology journalist, and I want to give you a shout out first to chemistry, which a lot of people are afraid of, but it's a fundamentally gorgeous science that explains so much about the world we live in, right? Just, I want to put that out there first. I tend to write about, you know, the evil side of chemistry. So I've written about murder, how we catch killers. I've written about terrible things that go into our food. I'm currently working on a book about female poisoners and serial killers.

So again, that sounds cool. The dark side of chemistry. It is very cool, actually. But so I'm drawn to those kinds of things. A lot of the books that I read, you know, and going back to summer, I'm like, oh, no, not another book about a terrible person. And so I will read something by Riley or I'll read something about some, you know, really cool aspect of science. Or sometimes I read fiction just to get away from all the nonfiction I'm reading every day. I'm not the first person to make this joke.

But, you know, in our circles, it's like never cross Deborah. Like, this is the one person that, like, if she wanted to disappear you with poison, like, would know every root to do stuff. She's got the intel. I do. I have a poison ring. and I'm not afraid to use it. Well, with that, Deb, let's get to a few of your recommendations. Can you give us your top three best science beach reads for this summer?

Sure. And I should say none of them are about chemistry, particularly. But, and this is cheating a little. This is a book I reviewed positively for The New York Times, but Every Loving Thing by Jason Roberts. It's a science history book, but it's about the race to figure out how to classify life on Earth. And if that sounds boring, he makes it just fascinating and funny and contentious and human

and just also full of issues of social justice, the decisions we make about who matters and who doesn't matter. It's really a wonderful book. And I also like the weight of nature, how a changing climate is changing our brain. This is by Clayton Page Aldrin. And one of the reasons I like it is because it's so unexpected. So many of the books that we read about climate change have to do with the physics of climate change, fire, terrible events. This is just looking about us in a changing planet and the way we're responding and the way our bodies are responding. And it's gorgeous in the way he writes. I mean, it's a stunningly beautifully written book. Finally, going back to my, let's actually read about something that's just beautiful and cool, Rebecca Boyle's book, Our Moon. It has a long subtitle, How the Earth's Celestial Companion Transform, the Planet-Guided Evolution and Made Us Who We Are,

which may sound a little grandiose, but she does a really great job of showing how the moon has made our lives more interesting and shaped them in all kinds of ways. So all of those are on my top read list for summer. It's a great book also to read for the summer because it's warm out and you can look up at the moon. 100% right. And we just had a total solar eclipse evolving the moon this year, right? Just a remarkable reminder of what a celestial world we live in as well. So it really is a great fit for a summer read.

Riley, let's go to your top three recommendations for your summer science reading. you have? Sure. So surprising no one, the first one is a dinosaur book of sorts. It's primarily a history and it's dinosaurs at the dinner party by Edward Dolnick. And at first glance, I thought this was going to be a book that we've heard these stories before. I've set in 19th century England talking about the origins of paleontology as a science. But it's more than that. And it got at three things or three major concepts. I feel like we often take for granted. But if you think about them in the context of their time, are entirely mind-blowing. And that is that, you know, life is very, very old, almost incomprehensibly old, that extinction is a reality. And evolution is also

a reality tied to extinction and these other concepts, that life has been changing, taking new forms over immense time periods and how we came to understand that. And it's kind of wild to look back. And we're driving species to extinction before we recognize extinction as a concept within Western society. And this book really gets at that. It takes this particular event, this peculiar moment. It's often almost like a joke in paleontology, this 1853 dinner. We have all these anatomists and scientists having dinner inside an Aguon model on Year's Eve and saying, like, how did we get there? How did this ridiculous moment kind of become a symbol from these serious scientific questions? And it's also kind of cut up and retold in such a way that it's great for the beach.

So you can like, you know, read a chapter or to jump in the ocean, come back out, pick up where you left off and it doesn't require too much like intense concentration on all these threads. The second one, it's my kind of off-speed pitch for this one, but who's afraid of gender by Judith Butler? And it's a philosophy book, but as we well know, we need philosophy in science. And this is something that affects me very much when I was reading it. Number one, like I wanted to highlight almost every single line. I realized that wouldn't be useful to run highlight or an entire book. But is that poignant and I think important in this moment where particularly, you know, as you can guess, I have a vested interest in this, you know, as a transgender woman, seeing headlines constantly

in people who normally deny science starting to talk about the importance of science of sex and gender and all this stuff that's kind of bizarre. And Butler's book really puts it into perspective. Like, why now? Where is this manufactured controversy coming from? How it preys upon sort of the misconceptions that we might hold about the relationship between sex, gender, our expectations about these things. So I feel like it reminds me very much of books that Naomi Oreskes would write, like, Merchants of Doubt and things like that, where, like, this is happening now. So it's not even the look back, but I think an important book for this moment.

And then the third is actually a science fiction book, but I love the way that it talks about intelligence, and it's Rain Nailers the Mountain in the Sea. And, you know, I know Science Friday love cephalopods as well. you just had your lovely cephalopod week. And it was great as always. Yes. I mean, I always make sure I catch like everything y'all are doing for that one because they're just, they're fascinating, they're wonderful.

But recognizing the intelligence of these organisms and in the scientific setting, really giving space to think about what would it be like to experience the world as a cephalopod, to be able to communicate through, you know, colors, changes, and textures and things like that. So even though it's about a team of human scientists in this sort of very kind of sci-fi thriller sort of setting, I feel like I have some incredibly poignant things to say about how we recognize consciousness, intelligence, and behavior in other species and our responsibility in those interactions. When we start to recognize these things in other species, how do we interact with them when we don't share a common language? And it's just a lovely book that I think makes a great read to take to the waterside and think about what's living in there.

Yeah, I love that. That was another one of my favorites from last year as well, so I'm glad you mentioned it. A quick note, this conversation was recorded in front of a live Zoom audience. For more information about how to join a future live stream, head to sciencefriday.com slash live stream. This is Science Friday. I'm Diana Plasker with the best list of summer reading recommendations just for Science Friday fans. We have a suggestion from one of our listeners, Barbara in Chattanooga, Tennessee, who said, They recommend Crossings, How Road Ecology is Shaping the Future of Our Planet by Ben Goldfarb. And they said, this is such an eye-opening, important book. You'll never look at a road the same way.

This was actually another one of my favorites from last year. Deb Riley, did either of you get a chance to read this one? Yes, and I love that book. And Ben Goldfarb is a wonderful writer and journalist, right? And the way he makes you look at the connections between urban development and nature and the way we've reshaped the lives of animals around us is so important and fascinating. And, you know, just thinking, putting yourself in the place of animals whose total migration paths are disrupted by our roads. And watching the ways we're starting to get smarter about that.

And what I guess I want to say about that book is I think it's a hopeful book because it's not just, look what we've screwed up. It's awesome, look what we're doing to make this better, right? All the tunnels and bridges and different passages that we're starting to put in. I could not agree more. It's a wonderful book. Yeah, I haven't read it yet, but now I'm going to have to. This sounds fantastic. You have to, Riley.

Yes, it makes me think of, like, being in Yellowstone, seeing the bison who used the roads and things like that, how much we've, you know, changed the world around us through our roadways. So, yeah, sign me up for that one. We do have an anonymous question from one of our Zoom listeners who says, says, do you have any recommendations for sports science books? What do you think? Sports science books? I know there's science and sports, but do you have any book recommendations? I was going to say this is not obviously my area of expertise, and this is not an incredibly recent book, but I highly recommend Christy Ashwindon's book, Good to Go, which is a sports book that looks at the science of recovery.

in particular. So it's both about sports, but it's also about the different things that's ways that sports can stress and injure our bodies and how we rebuild. It's really smart. It's a terrific. I mean, I sound like a cheerleader here, but it really is a terrific book. And I say that in spite of the fact that, you know, I don't follow a lot of sports with incredible enthusiasm outing myself, right? And, And so the fact that I still found this book fascinating speaks, I think, to how good it is. I'm also not a big sports person. So we'll leave that one. Thanks, Deb, for your recommendation for that listener.

Well, let's keep going with your recommendations. You sent me a list, and we've got a few more on that list. Riley, would you mind telling us a few more of those titles? Sure. So this one is not out until very early September, but, you know, very useful. then for, you know, kind of that end of summer, days are getting a little shorter. Time is Infinite Life by Jules Howard, and it's about the biology and evolutionary history of eggs. And, you know, we have a lot of these kind of single subject, you know, science books and stuff.

But what I really love about Jules' approach for this is taking a little bit of narrative, taking a little bit of fiction informed by science and paleontology, and kind of using that to set the scene and then bring the reader out into some, of our latest discoveries about eggs in these evolutionary moments in which they change. So it's one of the books that they go sort of into the distant past, the very origins of, you know, when an egg is and then go up through time through, you know, the Devonian and the Triassic and Jurassic, you know, all the way to, you know, the relative present and unpacking how, like, our personal connection to eggs and where we come from, but also all these unexpected sort of twists and turns

along the way, and I appreciate that Jules really questions some of, you know, the classic narratives that we have an evolutionary history. So it's the idea that, you know, moving away from the water was this almost like triumphant moment for life on land, you know, our lizard-like ancestors, amongst the pro no mammals. And now it's like, you know, they just really were looking for soft soil to put their eggs in to stay moist. It wasn't, you know, some great big move-out moment where they say goodbye to the water forever. So I feel like it's a book that really loves its subject. And I like the way that it combines some different ways of storytelling, along with some of the latest scientific discoveries. Amazing. Deb, what about you? Can you give us another really great science summer title?

Sure. And moving forward like Raleigh did, I wanted to give a shout out to a couple of books that actually just came out today on the 25th, which I was lucky enough to read early. One of them is Becoming Earth by Ferris Jobber, which looks at the Earth as a living entity. And in the It's in the wonder of science category, it will make you almost feel the breath of the planet, right? And think about the amazing way that the Earth reshapes itself. It's just really a fascinating book. And the other one that also comes out today is frostbite, how refrigeration changed our food, our planet, and ourselves on this theme of everything changing us and everything around us. but it's by Nicola Twilli who is on that podcast, Gastropod.

And it is about, if you think about it, just the way the fact that we can keep things cold. Food, ourselves, drink, changes everything, right? Changes everything about the way we live. And she goes into deep freezes and, you know, food delivery places. So it's smart and it's fun. And also, it really strikes me. especially since we've just been through a heat wave in Boston, that a book about cold is the perfect summer book, right?

It really is. Yeah, that sounds like a great one. It's a lot of fun. Just to throw another one in there. This is a much older book, you know, it's approaching 100 years old now. But one of my favorites to read in the summertime is John Steinbex, The Log from the Sea of Cortez. And for a couple of reasons, one is that we don't have a whole lot of modern science books quite like this. I feel like often we're very concerned about balancing the latest discoveries

that's sort of semi-autobiographical approach in a lot of books. But this is really, it is a journal really is kind of a lot of talking about this journey, you know, down Baja, California, through the Sea of Cortez, and what these researchers, you know, so many decades ago, experienced. And I love its emphasis on curiosity that you can kind of feel the jargon coming off as, as it's proceeding this one particular encounters. You know, when we stop talking about, like, you know, we're looking at the invertebrates of the littoral zone or whatever. So, like, we're curious what lives here. We're just, we would like to see, have you seen anything neat lately?

And just finding these moments of connection. And I feel like that is so important, been so inspiring for me as a writer as well, keeping that curiosity at the forefront that we are not trying to, you know, shove an encyclopedia at somebody, but relate through these moments of wonder and even just questions, even if we can't find the answers, but just the fact that we're asking these questions. And I really love the book for that, that reason. And it's a great sort of science adventure book.

We've got a question from one of our listeners here. Rebecca from Austin, Texas, has a question just about the concept of science books. Go ahead, Rebecca. You know, when I was filling out my list of favorite science books, I started thinking, are they going to reject this? Like Ian McEwn's Machines, Machines like Me, or Clara and the Sun about artificial intelligence a little bit. and memory place.

I think it's amazing. But anyway, I'm new to the Science Friday Book Club, and we're just trying to totally understand what's acceptable for a science book. Great question, Rebecca. Go ahead, Deb. I was going to say, you know, to me, science is everything, right? I mean, it's something that we actually try to make journalists see.

Every single story has a science part of it if you're willing to look for it. And I think we should be sort of open-hearted and generous, and what we think about is a good science book or a good science story. Briefly, Ian McEwan's book, Enduring Love, the main character in that is a science writer, right? And it's a really wonderful book in all kinds of ways, and one of the conundrums it poses is actually the title. When we say enduring love, do we mean love endures,

or love is something that we have to endure, right? and I love Ian McEwen, actually. He's a wonderful writer, and the way he explores those kind of complicated ethical issues is one of his strengths, and I think is also important in the way we think about science. Riley, what about you? I mean, it's hard to, you know, edit something that was said so perfectly,

but I was going to mention, you know, Debra's Buck, the Poisoner's Handbook, which was a huge inspiration for me as I was beginning to write some of my books as well. I know, I swear I'm not a ringer. This is enthusiasm. But I love that, like, in so many of the scenes that you said, it feels like you're in the room with some of these investigators or people who had, you know, found a body and trying to work this out. And just like, I remember flipping through being like, how are they going to figure this out? And I love that you wrote that book and continue to write, you know, along those themes. I love books that bring in some narratives and different perspectives who are not afraid to play a little bit with the unknown or curiosity or just even emotion, that this is not just a about distilling what we know down in a news you can use package. Those books are, you know,

everywhere and they're important and they're great. But I think in this particular moment in science books and writing, I love seeing people who are kind of breaking out of formats a little bit, who are telling stories in different ways. And I'm not trying to pat myself on the back with it, but like in the last days of the dinosaurs, I wrote it as a narrative trying to put the reader there in the prehistoric past. And I was so worried when this book was going to say, well, this is like fiction. How can you possibly know any of this? This is not science. And the exact opposite happen in its reception. And I want to see more of that from my peers and colleagues and other writers. And there will always be a place for, you know, books that, you know, give you a crash

course on a subject that you always want to know about an organ system and ecology, a concept or something like that. But I love when someone clearly has a passion and can envision what it is that they're talking about and you feel it come through the page. I have a very cinematic kind of imagination. So when that clicks, I love science books that do that. We have time for a few more recommendations, Deb. We haven't gotten to your whole list. So do you want to tell us about a few more summer science books for listeners? Yes. This is another book that is related to climate change, which just came out this spring, and that is Lessons for Survival by Emily Rabbitto. It's a collection of essays. And it's based around the idea of here I am a parent in what feels like a perilous time,

as it does to all of us in the age of climate change. And so how do I parent well? And as she does this, she looks at issues of climate change and temperature and wildlife and social justice. And so she weaves together, like, our lessons in survival are not just about climate change, but how we tried to do our best in this very complicated, speaking of science being everything, world that we live in. And it's just a really emotionally powerful book. Right. I really enjoyed reading it and also the ways that it made me thing.

And really quickly, if I have a minute, I also wanted to recommend the Black Angels, Maria Smilis' book about the black nurses who were. were imported into New York to help fight the tuberculosis epidemic of the early 20th century. And until she did this book, had really gotten no credit or no visibility for the heroic work than she did, which brings me back to Riley's point about narrative writers. I've always thought that narrative writers and their ability to put you in the moment, take you there, make you part of that story, we rescue stories that have been lost. They were not interesting to someone else.

They vanished into history because they didn't catch the imagination or they were something flat. But a narrative writer can take a story that's lost and bring it to modern, roaring life. And this book does that. And I think it actually is one of the most important things that we do. Sometimes as narrative writers, we rescue history. We don't let it disappear. Here we make it breathe right on the page. Thank you.

I love that. And I agree. I am finding myself drawn to these narrative books more and more. And thank you for writing them, Riley, and Deb. I mean, they're great. Riley, I think we're missing a few of your recommendations as well. Do you want to tell us your last recommendations for summer science books? Sure.

One of the ones I've really just started by love it so far. And I love the question. It's the light eaters, basically, about plants. and questions involving what do plants really sense or perceive in this question of consciousness and plants. And even though, like, I don't think that part of it can really be answered. And, you know, the author Zerjy puts it in, you know, context by the conclusion for what I understand. I just love that this is being asked. This is being explored. That there was kind of this opening up, you know, decades ago when they could play music for your plans, talk to your plans, things like that.

and there was a lot of pushback against it. You know, a plant's just a plant. He just grows towards the light, and that's generally what it does. And now we've realized how much they are reacting and perceiving the world around them. And I feel like it's one of those books that, like, I love just the enthusiasm with which that question is being asked. And I didn't initially put it on my list. It's, you know, by a friend of mine so you can take it with a grain of salt. But Bethany Brookshire's past, I think it's so lovingly written.

It's so much work clearly on the page, but I love the exploration of just not like a pest as an animal in the wrong place, but just like, what creates these animal villains? So why do we keep creating basically our own problems in these antagonistic relationships of everything from, you know, rats to elephants? And how do we learn to live with these animals that we've inadvertently basically selected to live with that we've decided, we've made them villains and decided to live with them. and it's just a very thoughtful and curious exploration of that idea. Before we wrap up, I want to put us all in the reader's shoes for a second. Imagine they go to their local bookstore and can't find any of your recommendations in stock, but they don't want to leave empty-handed. What advice would you give to them in finding a high-quality, readable, science-focused book for this summer?

Deb, what do you think? I mean, a lot of times I'll just look for the staff recommendations when I'm in a bookstore. And indie bookstores, especially not to diss the non-Indy bookstores, but indie bookstores are great about putting books forward and writing little summaries about what they are. And so some of my favorite browsing is just reading through staff recommendation. Usually there's dedicated science sections, and you can find some of that there. But that or just asking at the bookstore are two of my favorite ways to figure things out sometimes. Absolutely.

Yeah, I think, you know, looking at the staff recommendations, especially at Indies, you know, talking to, you know, who's working there. And so because they will be able to probably, you know, respond to what kind of book you're looking for because it's not just subject area, right? It's like, do you want something that's more narrative? Do you want to learn everything there is to know about this particular topic? And I think, you know, that intent is part of, you know, what will help you achieve your goals. Even if you just go straight to the science and nature section. And you're saying, like, I am looking for a book to read in. my hammock on my couch on vacation, whatever else. And once you have that context in mind,

I feel like things jump out a little bit more in terms of what's going to catch your curiosity. That's all the time we have today. Thanks to our Zoom audience for your fabulous questions and suggestions. And thank you to my guests, Riley Black, science writer and the author of The Last Days of the Dinosaurs and many others. And Deborah Blum, director of the night science journalism program and the author of several books, including The Poison Squad. Thank you both so much for being here. Always lovely to join. Thank you. Thank you so much.

And if you happen to not be taking notes and need a list of the titles mentioned by our guests today, we've got you covered. Go to our website, ScienceFriday.com slash summer books to find all the books mentioned in today's conversation, plus a few extra we didn't have time to talk about today. That's sciencefriiday.com slash summer books. And that's all the time we have for today. Lots of folks help make the show happen, including Annie Niro, Emma Gomez, Charles Bergquist,

Danielle Johnson. Tomorrow we'll get the backstory on the juicy political history of panda conservation. But for now, I'm SciFRI producer Dee Petershmit. See you then.