In case you missed it, The Royal Society posted the longlist for its 2011 Winston Prize for Science Books a couple of weeks ago. The list includes 13 books that all look absolutely outstanding, and the shortlist goes up at the end of September before the winner is finally chosen in November.
Joan Brady, courtesy of the Guardian, gave the first book on this list, Alex’s Adventures in Numberland, a stellar review. A few others that look exceptionally noteworthy include Ian Sample’s book exploring the Higgs boson, and what appears to be two gems that help readers uncover at least a small slice of the science behind understanding human action: Oren Harman’s, The Price of Altruism: George Price and the Search for the Origins of Kindness and The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves by Matt Ridley.
Just in case this is getting a bit too left-brained for you, Guy Deutscher makes the list with Through the Language Glass: How Words Colour Your World, which delves into the science of language.
At least a few of these will be making my Year of 100 Books list (which I am indeed still slogging though, slowly buy surely). Keep us posted if any of these make it home from your local library for summer reading.