The Best American Science and Nature Writing series is always a great joy to pick up. This is the way to keep up with general science without spending hundreds of dollars on magazines and journals (well, not really, but it is a good series of books to read). This year Natalie Angier, the Pulitzer Prize winning author of _Woman: An Intimate Geography_ is the guest editor. None of the essays stand out as newborn classics, but they are good essays. And they cover the range of fields. Anthropology - Sarah Blaffer Hrdy's "Mothers and Others"
Biology - Frederick C. Crews' "Saving Us from Darwin" originally published in The New York Review of Books (Crews attacks every form of creationism and the blending of science and religion, including Gould, but offers us no alternative idea or solution-that's what kept this essay from being an instant classic); H. Bruce Franklin's "The Most Important Fish in the Sea" (ecology/conservation science); Gordon Grice's "Is That a Mountain Lion in Your Backyard?"; "The Dirt in the New Machine" by Blaine Harden (which is both an ecology and technology essays); "Life's Rocky Start", an essay on the origin of life on earth and the importance of minerals, by Robert M. Hazen; Anne Matthews' "Wall Street Losses, Wall Street Gains" which is about birdwatching and the World Trade Towers; Chet Raymo "A Little Reminder of Reality's Scale" (a brief piece from the Boston Globe); Peter Stark's embarrassing piece (at least he should be embarrassed by this half poorly written `fiction' with facts on jellyfish-the most poisonous one there is) titled "The Sting of the Assassin"; Joy Williams' "One Acre" about her little plot in Florida that she tried to keep ecologically safe and sound
Medicine - Barbara Ehrenreich's essay about her fight with breast cancer "Welcome to Cancerland" (a great essay that is also included in the Best American Essays"; Gary Greenberg's touching essay "As Good as Dead" (about a young boy who has a brain tumor in his head and his incredible courage to continue living and dreaming and planning for his future); Judith Newman's"I Have Seen Cancer's Disappear"
Psychology - Roy F. Baumeister's "Violent Pride" (written in a pseudo-highschool-science fair report style. This could have been a great study, but...): Malcolm Gladwell's "Examined Life" (about the SATs and test taking); "Dumb, Dumb, Duh Dumb" by Steve Mirsky (again, about our test scores); Daniel Smith "Shock and Disbelief" which is about ECT of things-yes, the pros of electroconvulsive therapy
Physics - K.C. Cole's "Mind Over Matter" (originally in the L.A. Times); the heavy material of Dark Matter by Karen Wright ("Very Dark Energy" which first appeared in Discover
Computers - Clive Thompson's "The Know-It-All Machine" which goes into artificial intelligence
And the others: Burkhard Bilger's essay on eating odd animals, "Braised Shank of Free-Range Possum"; "In the Realm of Virtual Reality" by Richard Conniff and Harry Marshall, which discusses pseudozoology (creatures like the Yeti and such); Garret Keizer's essay on sound and noise, "Sound and Fury" (from Harper's); Verlyn Klinkenborg's odd newspaper column, "The Pursuit of Innocence in the Golden State", which is about California, but more on a two sentence sociological statement; Robert Kunzig's "Ripe for Controversy" which discusses cheese and health regulations' Dennis Overbye's "How Islam Won, and Lost, the Lead in Science" ; Eric Schlosser's "Why McDonald's Fries Taste So Good"
and above all, these essays are easy enough for the layperson, but good for the expert as well.
