First, let me just say how totally awesome you all are. I now have so many science books written by women that if I read nothing else, I’d have plenty to read for well over a year or more. So thank you all for making such fantastic suggestions. I’ve put them into a list with links to WorldCat. They are in no particular order. If you think of any others I should add to the list, please let me know!
- Unnatural selection : choosing boys over girls, and the consequences of a world full of men by Mara Hvistendahl
- Superbug : the fatal menace of MRSA by Maryn McKenna. MRSA is a staphylococcus bacteria infection that does not respond to antibiotics.
- By Jennifer Ouellette:
~The calculus diaries : how math can help you lose weight, win in Vegas, and survive a zombie apocalypse
~Black bodies and quantum cats : tales from the annals of physics
~The physics of the Buffyverse - By Deborah Blum:
~The poisoner’s handbook : murder and the birth of forensic medicine in Jazz Age New York
~Sex on the brain : the biological differences between men and women
~Ghost hunters : William James and the search for scientific proof of life after death - Blood work : a tale of medicine and murder in the scientific revolution by Holly Tucker
- Decoding the heavens : a 2,000-year-old computer– and the century-long search to discover its secrets by Jo Marchant
- By Dava Sobel:
~Longitude : the true story of a lone genius who solved the greatest scientific problem of his time
~Galileo’s daughter : a historical memoir of science, faith, and love
~The planets
~A more perfect heaven : how Copernicus revolutionized the cosmos - Geek nation : how Indian science is taking over the world by Angela Saini
- Living dolls : the return of sexism by Natasha Walter. While not technically a science book, this contains an excellent chapter that is all about science.
- By Gabrielle Walker:
~Snowball Earth
~An Ocean of Air: Why the Wind Blows and Other Mysteries of the Atmosphere - Zeroes + ones : digital women + the new technoculture by Sadie Plant
- The knife man : the extraordinary life and times of John Hunter, father of modern surgery by Wendy Moore
- By Lisa Randall:
~Knocking on heaven’s door : how physics and scientific thinking illuminate the universe and the modern world
~Warped passages : unraveling the mysteries of the Universe’s hidden dimensions - The private life of the brain : emotions, consciousness, and the secret of the self by Susan Greenfield
- The immortal life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
- By Mary Roach:
~Packing for Mars : the curious science of life in the void
~Stiff : the curious lives of human cadavers
~Spook : science tackles the afterlife
~Bonk : the curious coupling of science and sex - Field notes from a catastrophe : man, nature, and climate change by Elizabeth Kolbert
- By Sue Halpern:
~Can’t remember what I forgot : the good news from the front lines of memory research
~Four wings and a prayer : caught in the mystery of the monarch butterflies - By Natalie Angier:
~The canon : a whirligig tour of the beautiful basics of science
~Woman : an intimate geography. I’ve read this one and it is most excellent!
~The beauty of the beastly : new views on the nature of life - By Cordelia Fine:
~A mind of its own : how your brain distorts and deceives
~Delusions of gender : how our minds, society, and neurosexism create difference - By Anne Fausto-Sterling:
~Sex/gender : biology in a social world
~Sexing the body : gender politics and the construction of sexuality - By Cynthia Eagle Russett:
~Sexual science : the Victorian construction of womanhood
~Darwin in America : the intellectual response, 1865-1912 - Physics on the fringe : smoke rings, circlons, and alternative theories of everything by Margaret Wertheim
- By K.C. Cole:
~The universe and the teacup : the mathematics of truth and beauty
~The hole in the universe : how scientists peered over the edge of emptiness and found everything
~First you build a cloud : and other reflections on physics as a way of life
~Something incredibly wonderful happens : Frank Oppenheimer and the world he made up
~Mind over matter : conversations with the cosmos - The midnight disease : the drive to write, writer’s block, and the creative brain by Alice Flaherty. I’ve read this one and it is a really fascinating look into the brain and creativity.
- Another day in the frontal lobe : a brain surgeon exposes life on the inside by Katrina Firlik
- The philosophical baby : what children’s minds tell us about truth, love, and the meaning of life by Alison Gopnik
- By Marlene Zuk:
~Sexual selections : what we can and can’t learn about sex from animals
~Riddled with life : friendly worms, ladybug sex, and the parasites that make us who we are
~Sex on six legs : lessons on life, love, and language from the insect world - By Sy Montgomery:
~Quest for the tree kangaroo : an expedition to the cloud forest of New Guinea
~Saving the ghost of the mountain : an expedition among snow leopards in Mongolia
~Walking with the great apes : Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey, Biruté Galdikas - Dr. Tatiana’s sex advice to all creation by Olivia Judson
- By Clea Koff:
~Bone woman
~Freezing - Baby catcher : chronicles of a modern midwife by Peggy Vincent
- Women, science, and technology : a reader in feminist science studies by Mary Wyer, ed.
- Not by a woman, but about a woman scientist: Passionate minds : Emilie Du Châtelet, Voltaire, and the great love affair of the Enlightenment by David Bodanis
- Naming nature : the clash between instinct and science by Carol Kaesuk Yoon
- By Danah Zohar:
~The quantum self : human nature and consciousness defined by the new physics
~The quantum society : mind, physics and a new social vision - By Rachel Carson:
~Silent spring
~The sea around us. I’ve heard this is all kinds of awesome
~The edge of the sea
~Under the sea wind - By Jane Goodall:
~In the shadow of man
~Through a window : my thirty years with the chimpanzees of Gombe
~Jane Goodall : 50 years at Gombe : a tribute to five decades of wildlife research, education, and conservation - By Arabella Buckley:
~The Fairy-Land of Science (1879)
~Through Magic Glasses and Other Lectures (1890) - By Lynn Margulis:
~Chimeras and consciousness : evolution of the sensory self
~Dazzle gradually : reflections on the nature of nature
~Mind, life, and universe : conversations with great scientists of our time - By Sarah Blaffer Hrdy:
~The woman that never evolved
~Mother nature : a history of mothers, infants, and natural selection
~Mothers and others : the evolutionary origins of mutual understanding - Woman the gatherer by Frances Dahlberg
Update (12/24/2011): I’ve added a few more suggestions to the list and will continue to update as I discover new authors or receive additional suggestions.
Wow, that’s a fantastic list. I think you’ve just added a bunch to my TBR, too…
What an amazing list! I can’t wait to track some of these down. Have to add one recommendation of my own: Naming Nature:the Clash between Instinct and Science by Carol Kaesuk Yoon.
Thank you so much for this! Definitely bookmarking it for future use.
Jeane, it is a list of great variety. I hope you enjoy investigating them as much as I know I am going to!
Claire, thanks! I will add your suggestion to the list!
Nymeth, and thank you for the great suggestions you made! Hope you find some new good reading
Wow this is amazing! I am behind on all my blog reading and commenting, but I wouldn’t have been much use. I don’t know any non-fiction science books by women – or at least, I didn’t before now!
Bookmarked! Have you read ‘Henrietta Lacks’ by Rebecca Kloot? It was the ‘in’ science title of the year I think.
Thanks very much to those who commented and for compiling this for the rest of us. Danah Zohar’s work has been recommended to me, as well, which is rooted in quantum physics, but I have no idea which titles one might recommend.
What research you’ve gone into making this list! Informative post, Stefanie. Some of these titles are simply fascinating. I seldom read science related books, fiction or non-fiction, I admit, but this list sure piques my curiosity. And only recently have I ventured into the delightful, Newbery Award winning science fiction written for ‘young adults’ by Madeleine L’Engle, A Wrinkle In Time. It’s definitely not just a book for young readers, I mean, the scientific concepts and the literary allusions in there are just beyond me.
This list is several kinds of awesome. I’m going to add a few to my project for next year as well. There is a woman physicist who writes in the tradition of Brian Greene, it might be Lisa Randall – who is already on your list – but the name doesn’t sound quite familiar enough to me. I will do some checking and come back if it turns out to be another writer.
What a great list … thanks for putting this together Stephanie … the only ones of these I knew were Dava Sobel and Mary Roach. I haven’t read Sobel yet, though did see a fascinating dramatisation of Longitude, but I have read Mary Roach’s Stiff and was absolutely riveted by it.
(PS Sorry I missed the post asking for titles …. Christmas busyness resulted in my missing your post).
My science-based reading is woefully lacking, let alone science written by women. Thanks for the suggestions!
Thanks for sharing this list as I would not have been any help at all–I don’t read as much nonfiction as I’d like and nearly nothing in the way of science books. There is all sorts of good stuff here (the only author who came to mind is Dava Sobel, who I already see on your list). Happy reading. Which one will you start with?
What an awesome list! I saw your post asking for recommendations, and all I could think of was Lisa Randall and Natalie Anger. I’m glad to there are tons more to learn about and read.
Litlove, it’s an amazing list, isn’t it? I owe it all to the many wonderful suggestions.
Jodie, I have not read the book about Henrietta Lacks but I have heard lots of good things about it.
Buried in Print, thanks for the additional recommendation! I’ll look her up and get her on the list.
Arti, I am glad the list piques your curiosity! I hope you find something worth exploring on it. I am a closet science nerd so all of these books have my geeky heart fluttering in anticipation!
Michelle, glad you like the list. If you think of who that writer is, be sure to let me know and I will update the list with her!
Whisperinggums, thanks! I am glad you like the list. And I’ll be updating it, so if you think of anyone else I should add let me know!
Grad, I hope you find something interesting to try on the list.
Danielle, I will very likely start with Lisa Randall since I already have her first book, and then I will branch out from there. So much to explore!
Rebecca, thanks! There were so many great suggestions.
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