Best Books of 2009Top 10 Books: ScienceWelcome to our Best of 2009 top 10 lists for Science. We've put our editors' picks and our 2009 bestsellers for each category on the same page together, so you can easily compare. Click on "Editors' Picks" to see our editors' list of the best science books of 2009, including our top pick, The Age of Wonder, Richard Holmes's delightfully masterful group biography of the adventurous scientists of Britain's Romantic age. And click on "Customer Favorites" to find the bestselling science books at Amazon.com during 2009. (Ranked according to customer orders through October. Only books published for the first time in 2009 are eligible.) See more editors' picks and customers' favorites in our Best of 2009 Store.
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1.
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How We Decide
by Jonah Lehrer
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 (243 customer reviews)
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Currently unavailable
Houghton Mifflin Company
January 1, 2009
Hardcover
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2.
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The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution
by Richard Dawkins
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 (409 customer reviews)
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Currently unavailable
Free Press
September 22, 2009
Hardcover
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From Publishers Weekly
SignatureReviewed by Jonah LehrerRichard Dawkins begins The Greatest Show on Earth with a short history of his writing career. He explains that all of his previous books have naïvely assumed the fact of evolution, which meant that he never got around to laying out the evidence that it [evolution] ...
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3.
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The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care
by T. R. Reid
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(263 customer reviews)
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Out of Print--Limited Availability
The Penguin Press
August 20, 2009
Hardcover
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From Publishers Weekly
Washington Post correspondent Reid (The United States of Europe) explores health-care systems around the world in an effort to understand why the U.S. remains the only first world nation to refuse its citizens universal health care. Neither financial prudence nor concern for the commonweal explains the American position, according ...
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4.
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The Evolution of God
by Robert Wright
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(138 customer reviews)
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In Stock
Little, Brown and Company
June 8, 2009
Hardcover
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| List Price: | $25.99 | | Price: | $17.13 | | You Save: | $8.86 (34%) |
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From Publishers Weekly
In his illuminating book, The Moral Animal, Wright introduced evolutionary psychology and examined the ways that the morality of individuals might be hard-wired by nature rather than influenced by culture. With this book, he expands upon that work, turning now to explore how religion came to define larger and ...
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5.
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Why Evolution Is True
by Jerry A. Coyne
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(234 customer reviews)
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Out of Print--Limited Availability
Viking Adult
January 22, 2009
Hardcover
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From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. With great care, attention to the scientific evidence and a wonderfully accessible style, Coyne, an evolutionary geneticist at the University of Chicago, presents an overwhelming case for evolution. Ranging from biogeography to geology, fro...
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6.
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Rapt: Attention and the Focused Life
by Winifred Gallagher
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(38 customer reviews)
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Out of Print--Limited Availability
Penguin Press HC, The
April 16, 2009
Hardcover
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Amazon.com Review
Amazon Exclusive: Winifred Gallagher on Rapt A wise research psychiatrist once told me that he had identified life's greatest problem: How to balance self and others, or your need for independence with your need for relationship? Since writing ...
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7.
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The Invention of Air
by Steven Johnson
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(83 customer reviews)
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Out of Print--Limited Availability
Riverhead Hardcover
December 26, 2008
Hardcover
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From Publishers Weekly
SignatureReviewed by Simon Winchester This is an intelligent retelling of a rather well-known story, that of Joseph Priestley, the Yorkshire dissenting theologian and chemist, and then went on to emigrate to America and advised the creators of the new republic—Thomas Jefferson, most notably—on how best to run their country. ...
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8.
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Theo Gray's Mad Science: Experiments You Can Do At Home - But Probably Shouldn't
by Theodore W. Gray
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(36 customer reviews)
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In Stock
Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers
March 25, 2009
Hardcover
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| List Price: | $24.95 | | Price: | $16.71 | | You Save: | $8.24 (33%) |
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Review
“This is a fabulous book, and a real education, too – a beautiful introduction to hands-on chemistry. Theo Gray brings us dozens of experiments in minute, clear, and loving detail, and each one becomes a door onto the marvels of how chemicals react. Whether he is showing us how ...
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9.
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The Philosophical Baby: What Children's Minds Tell Us About Truth, Love, and the Meaning of Life
by Alison Gopnik
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(27 customer reviews)
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Out of Print--Limited Availability
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
August 4, 2009
Hardcover
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From Publishers Weekly
Psychologist Gopnik (The Scientist in the Crib) points out that babies have long been excluded from the philosophical literature, and in this absorbing text, she argues that if anything, babies are more conscious than grownups. While adults often function on autopilot, getting through their busy days as functional zombies, ...
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10.
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Signature in the Cell: DNA and the Evidence for Intelligent Design
by Stephen C. Meyer
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(345 customer reviews)
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Currently unavailable
HarperOne
June 23, 2009
Hardcover
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Review
“Signature in the Cell is a defining work in the discussion of life’s origins . . . the powerful case Meyer presents cannot be ignored in any honest debate. . . [T]his book is an engaging, eye-opening, and often eye-popping read” (American Spectator )“A decisive case based upon breathtaking ...
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