Where is your nonfiction section please.
Last year, I read nephrologist Dr. Jason Fung's The Obesity Code, which was eye-opening for me. It made me realize that something I sometimes did naturally or inadvertently -- skipping meals or snacks -- was actually a benefiting weight loss. It clicked for me, because in the periods I'd inadvertently fasted -- either from being... Continue Reading →
Because my blogging has reached new productivity lows, I'm trying to at least gather some thoughts on the past year's reading. Trying! As I mentioned, I continued to read most heavily this year in the area of pop science and psychology. It's time to accept that I'll never get around to full reviews for these.... Continue Reading →
Programming note: It's been a long, inadvertent break; oops! I'm in Berlin, where my husband is working, and we're moving from a little temporary apartment into our own. I've been trying to work as normal while dealing with the move, buying every piece of furniture, houseware, appliance, etc. (a nightmare), and taking time for bike... Continue Reading →
Isn't science grand? Let's look at some very different recent releases in pop science. Ravenous: Otto Warburg, the Nazis, and the Search for the Cancer-Diet Connection, by Sam Apple Did you know that Hitler was obsessed with both sugar and cancer? He was! He was also consuming the former in the worst possible proportions if... Continue Reading →
Why Fish Don't Exist: A Story of Loss, Love, and the Hidden Order of Life, by Lulu Miller Chaos will get them.Chaos will crack them from the outside — with a falling branch, a speeding car, a bullet — or unravel them from the inside, with the mutiny of their very own cells. Chaos will... Continue Reading →
Hooked: Food, Free Will, and How the Food Giants Exploit Our Addictions, by Michael Moss Food resonates so large in our memory because food looms so large in our lives. The act of eating touches everything we experience, everywhere we go, everyone we know, and everything we feel. As much as we are what we... Continue Reading →
Interestingly, three new books are out this month addressing scientific definitions of life and its hazy boundaries in some way. I've read them all. (What a contemplative time it's been, for better or worse.) Let's discuss! Mr. Humble and Dr. Butcher: A Monkey's Head, the Pope's Neuroscientist, and the Quest to Transplant the Soul, by... Continue Reading →
Book review: Gory Details, by Erika Engelhaupt Beyond satisfying my own weird inquisitiveness, the larger goal of Gory Details has always been to create a place where it's OK to talk about gross, taboo, or morbid topics -- and then to examine them, up close, through the lens of science. Science writer and editor Erika... Continue Reading →
For some reason this summer, I was weirdly drawn to ocean and/or whale-related nonfiction. Topics that I always appreciate learning something about, but I'm not sure why I felt such a pull now. Maybe the yearning to be elsewhere and if that elsewhere is as far-feeling as possible from the world as we know it,... Continue Reading →
Book review: Clean: The New Science of Skin, by James Hamblin (Amazon) James Hamblin is a doctor of preventive medicine and staff writer at The Atlantic. His latest book, Clean: The New Science of Skin, looks at the mix of confusing messaging around what actually works in skincare, the scientific limits of products against their purported... Continue Reading →
Review: The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating, by Elisabeth Tova Bailey (Amazon / Book Depository) Twilight vanishes the hills into the mountains; then all is lost to the dark. Elisabeth Tova Bailey was at the end of a vacation, staying at a hotel in an Alpine village, when she started to feel ill. Her... Continue Reading →
Book review: Bad Science, by Ben Goldacre (Amazon / Book Depository) The hole in our culture is gaping: evidence-based medicine, the ultimate applied science, contains some of the cleverest ideas from the past two centuries, it has saved millions of lives, but there has never once been a single exhibit on the subject in London’s... Continue Reading →
What's Nonfiction? 