Winter Solstice Book Recommendation Post
And thread, if folks want to leave recommendations in comments
It’s that time of year when we’re rapidly careening toward the winter solstice-ish holiday of your choice, for which people may be considering the purchase of books as gifts for the readers in your lives. As you can see in the background of the above photo of the Chateau Steelypips Christmas tree, we have lots of books ourselves, and thus tend to have Opinions on these things, a few of which I thought I would offer here.
Non-Fiction Books I Blurbed:
This is a highly exclusive category, since I’m not a big enough Name to get many of these. There were a few, though; listing them in reverse order by release date:
— The Secret Science of Baby: The Surprising Physics of Creating a Human, from Conception to Birth--and Beyond by Michael Banks: Pretty much what it sounds like: a book about the physical science of making a new human. As you might expect, this involves a lot of fluid mechanics and messy materials stuff, topics which don’t get enough coverage in the pop-science literature, and Banks does a nice job with it all.
— Quantum Steampunk: The Physics of Yesterday's Tomorrow, by Nicole Yunger Halpern: Steampunk is not really my thing, but it appeals to a great many people, and the “steam” part very naturally lends itself to use as a hook for exploring thermodynamics, another branch of physics that’s underrpresented in the literature
Non-Fiction Book I Blurbed That Isn’t Out Yet:
You could pre-order this for someone who deserves it:
— Quantum Bullsh*t: How to Ruin Your Life with Advice from Quantum Physics, by Chris Ferrie: If you have been dying for a no-holds-barred uncensored take on quantum physics, well, this is the book for you. Not out until January, though, so you can’t put it under the tree…
New Fiction Books I Read and Enjoyed:
I haven’t been reading all that much these days, because I’ve been buried in work and generally don’t have the brain for anything more than dopey cell-phone games by the time I get to bed. I did read a few recent-ish things that are worth plugging, though:
— The Chosen Twelve by James Breakwell: A funny and touching book about the end of humanity. I read this on a plane back in the spring, and there are some more details in that post.
— Locklands by Robert Jackson Bennett (after the first two books of the trilogy…): I really enjoy Bennett’s books and also his Twitter presence. This trilogy is a fantastic bit of work: strikingly original and innovative magic, and an approach to the plot and characters that is simultaneously dark and gritty and surprisingly uplifting. I wrote more about it back in August, and recommend this very highly.
— The Iron Gate by Harry Connolly: This is a tiny bit of a cheat, as it’s a very recent release and I haven’t technically finished it yet (see above about lack of brain at bedtime). I really enjoy the Twenty Palaces series of which this is a part, though, and the set-up here is fantastic: Ray Lilly, the narrator and hard-boiled hunter of supernatural menaces, wakes up trapped in what’s basically a Scooby-Doo cartoon, victim of some power he can’t understand but is determined to fight. Connolly’s books are great, and I wish more people would buy them so he could afford to write more.
—The Quarrygate Gambit by Marshall Ryan Maresca: The latest in his ongoing Maradaine series (I think it may be the 15th book total?), all of which are good fun. This is a fantasy caper novel, where master thieves Asti and Verci Rynax are arrested under false pretexts and thrown into the notorious Quarrygate Prison, and their friends and families on the outside need to pull off an impossible theft to spring them. He’s another author whose books I would love to see bought and discussed more, so he can keep writing them and keep me supplied with fun reading material.
Shameless Self-Promotion:
Since there are a lot of new people reading this Substack, who may not have a long history with me, I’ll quickly plug my own pop-science books, of which there are now five (in reverse order of publication date):
A Brief History of Timekeeping: A look at the last several thousand years of the science and technology of tracking time, from solstice markers and sundials through mechanical clocks all the way to modern atomic clocks and GPS.
Breakfast With Einstein: A look at some of the surprising ways that exotic phenomena from quantum mechanics manifest in the course of mundane actvities that you do every day while getting up and getting ready for work.
Eureka: Discovering Your Inner Scientist: My book-length pitch for scientific thinking as a universal human activity that shows up all over the place, including as an integral part of things that non-scientists do for fun.
How to Teach Relativity to Your Dog: The physics of Special and General Relativity explained through imaginary conversations with the late, great Emmy, Queen of Niskayuna.
How to Teach Quantum Physics to Your Dog: My first book, and still the best seller of the lot, explaining quantum physics through imaginary conversations with our German Shepherd.
These all make great gifts, I can assure you.
And as a reward for tolerating my self-promoting, please feel free to use the comments thread here to plug your own stuff.
So, yeah, that’s some stuff you should consider reading. Here’s a button if this seems like an interesting range of tastes, and you want to hear more recommendations when I have time and energy to read:
And if you have books that you’d like to recommend, your own or favorite authors who need more press, the comments will be open: