Books : The Best American Science Writing 2008
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 808
EAN: 9780061340413
ISBN: 0061340413
Label: Harper Perennial
Manufacturer: Harper Perennial
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 336
Publication Date: September 01, 2008
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Release Date: September 09, 2008
Sales Rank: 9775
Studio: Harper Perennial
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Editorial Review:
Product Description:
Edited by Sylvia Nasar, bestselling author of A Beautiful Mind and former economics correspondent for the New York Times, The Best American Science Writing 2008 brings together the premiere science writing of the year. Distinguished by the foremost voices and publications—among them Pulitzer Prize-winner Amy Harmon, Nobel Prizewinner Al Gore, and award-winning and bestselling author Oliver Sacks—this anthology is a comprehensive overview of our most advanced and most relevant scientific inquiries.
Average Rating: 
Rating:  -
I'm a huge fan of this series, vastly preferring it to the competing "Best Science and Nature Writing." But this is easily the weakest volume yet, largely due to an amazingly lazy job by editor Sylvia Nasar. There are four basic problems with the book:
1. The ridiculously narrow range of publications from which the essays are drawn. See "David M. Giltinan"'s review for details, and I completely agree with his analysis. To me, it seems like Nasar, a Columbia U journalism prof, essentially picked articles in publications she herself reads regularly and did little if any digging around in other sources. Pretty pathetic, really. But one can only blame Nasar so much. This has been a trend in the series as a whole. Someone should make a chart to confirm my impression, but it seems early volumes were much, much more diverse, with an increasing New York-centrism in recent years. Maybe series editor Cohen needs to be more adventurous in choosing volume editors? Give them firmer directives? Or just pay them more? Who knows, but it's becoming a real problem.
2. The even more ridiculously narrow range of topics covered. Here again, "Giltinan" has the numbers in his review. I read these volumes precisely to find out what's going on in non-biology fields, particularly mathematics, the various branches of physics, chemistry--even the occasional social science like archaeology, which has made appearances in years past. But this year it's all about jumping on the "it ... Read More
Rating:  -
In a series that's usually reliably interesting and intellectually stimulating, this year's collection was somewhat disappointing, due to an unusually narrow focus. In her introduction, Sylvia Nasar tells us that she gravitated to the stories that "people were talking about". An idiosyncratic interpretation of the criterion "best", and it shows. The articles in this book come from -
The New York Times : 9
The New Yorker : 6
The Wall Street Journal : 1
Wired : 1
Scientific American : 1
Policy Review : 1
Biomedical research : 15
The environment : 4
Based on this collection, one would be led to believe that there was nothing of note during the past year in - for example - astronomy, physics, chemistry, mathematics, computer science, oceanography, marine biology, economics, game theory, artificial intelligence, or nanotechnology.
One can only wish that Ms Nasar had cast a broader net in deciding what to include in this volume.
That said, the articles, by such established science writers as Jerome Groopman, Oliver Sacks, Stephen S. Hall, Richard Preston, Amy Harmon, Carl Zimmer, and Tara Parker-Pope, are interesting and well-written. Ms Harmon's piece on living life with the gene for Huntington's disease is exceptional. One might argue that, with four articles beating up on the pharmaceutical industry, coverage in that area could have been a little more balanced.
In summary, ... Read More
Rating:  -
I anxiously await the publication of this annual edition and the 2008 version does not disappoint. The guest editor this year (Sylvia Nasar - "A Beautiful Mind") picks which articles she thinks are the best and the selections reflect her interests. Whether you consider it good or bad, there is not a single hard science article. The selections are heavy on medicine, psychiatry, psychology, and the pharmaceutical industry. For a guaranteed good time - grab a copy, curl up, and enjoy yourself.
Amy Harmon - *one of my favorites - Would you want to know if you had the gene that led to an inheritable disease that was both physically and mentally crippling? The subject of this essay is a young woman whose grandfather died of Huntington's chorea.
Richard Preston - Lesch-Nyhan syndrome - so rare that one of the researchers knows almost every individual on earth that has been diagnosed. Those afflicted show dramatically the link between a single genetic mutation and aberrant behavior.
Thomas Goetz - Start-up companies that evaluate and interpret your DNA.
Carl Zimmer - Women in the US have a 39% chance of being diagnosed with cancer. Men have a 45% chance, and evolutionary biologists assure us they are not about to find a cure.
Tara Parker-Pope - NIH misread the hormone study of 2002. Women who use hormones to treat menopausal symptoms do not increase their risk of heart attacks or strokes. Their long-term health outlook ... Read More
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