Print List Price:	$16.99
Kindle Price:	$12.49 Save $4.50 (26%)
Sold by:	HarperCollins Publishers Price set by seller.

You've subscribed to ! We will preorder your items within 24 hours of when they become available. When new books are released, we'll charge your default payment method for the lowest price available during the pre-order period.

Update your device or payment method, cancel individual pre-orders or your subscription at
Your Memberships & Subscriptions

There was an error. We were unable to process your subscription due to an error. Please refresh and try again.

The Best American Science And Nature Writing 2020 by [Michio Kaku, Jaime Green]

Follow the Authors

Michio Kaku

Jaime Green

The Best American Science And Nature Writing 2020 Kindle Edition

by Michio Kaku (Author, Editor), Jaime Green (Author, Editor) Format: Kindle Edition

4.6 299 ratings

Part of: The Best American Science And Nature Writing (12 books)

See all formats and editions

Price

New from

Used from

Kindle

"Please retry"

$12.49

—

Paperback

"Please retry"

$4.99

$1.48

Kindle
$12.49 Read with Our Free App
Paperback
$4.99

101 Used from $1.48 34 New from $4.99

Great on Kindle

Great Experience. Great Value.

Enjoy a great reading experience when you buy the Kindle edition of this book. Learn more about Great on Kindle, available in select categories.

A collection of the best science and nature writing published in North America in 2019, guest edited by New York Times best-selling author and ground-breaking physicist Dr. Michio Kaku.

“Scientists and science writers have a monumental task: making science exciting and relevant to the average person, so that they care,” writes renowned American physicist Michio Kaku. “If we fail in this endeavor, then we must face dire consequences.” From the startlingly human abilities of AI, to the devastating accounts of California’s forest fires, to the impending traffic jam on the moon, the selections in this year’s Best American Science and Nature Writing explore the latest mysteries and marvels occurring in our labs and in nature. These gripping narratives masterfully translate the work of today’s brightest scientists, offering a clearer view of our world and making us care.

THE BEST AMERICAN SCIENCE AND NATURE WRITING 2020 INCLUDES
RIVKA GALCHEN • ADAM GOPNIK • FERRIS JABR • JOSHUA SOKOL • MELINDA WENNER MOYER • SIDDHARTHA MUKHERJEE • NATALIE WOLCHOVER and others

Part of series

The Best American Science And Nature Writing
Print length

386 pages
Language

English
Sticky notes

On Kindle Scribe
Publisher

Mariner Books
Publication date

November 3, 2020
File size

3695 KB
Page Flip

Enabled
Word Wise

Enabled
Enhanced typesetting

Enabled
See all details

Next 2 for you in this series See full series

Total Price: $22.48

Ayana Elizabeth Johnson
64
Kindle Edition
1 offer from $9.99
Ed Yong
161
Kindle Edition
1 offer from $9.99
Sy Montgomery
232
Kindle Edition
1 offer from $12.49
Michio Kaku
2,417
Kindle Edition
Editors' pickBest Nonfiction
1 offer from $11.99
Michio Kaku
1,366
Kindle Edition
1 offer from $13.99
Michio Kaku
262
Kindle Edition
1 offer from $13.99

Editorial Reviews

Review

“A must-buy.”—Booklist -- No Source --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

About the Author

JAIME GREEN, series editor, is a freelance writer and editor. She is the associate editor of Future Tense, a partnership of Slate, New America, and Arizona State University. Her first book, about how we imagine alien life in science and in fiction, will be published in 2023. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B081TTNWF8
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Mariner Books (November 3, 2020)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ November 3, 2020
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 3695 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 386 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #540,858 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #91 in Science Essays & Commentary (Kindle Store)
- #205 in Nature Writing
- #321 in Science Essays & Commentary (Books)

Customer Reviews:
4.6 299 ratings

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Videos

Help others learn more about this product by uploading a video!

Upload your video

About the authors

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.

Michio Kaku
Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.
Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.
Michio Kaku is the co-founder of String Field Theory and is the author of international best-selling books such as Hyperspace, Visions, and Beyond Einstein. Michio Kaku is the Henry Semat Professor in Theoretical Physics at the City University of New York.
Photo by Cristiano Sant´Anna/indicefoto.com for campuspartybrasil [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.
See more on the author's page
Jaime Green
Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.
Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.
Jaime Green is a science writer, essayist, editor, and teacher, and she is series editor of The Best American Science and Nature Writing. She received her MFA in Creative Nonfiction from Columbia, and her writing has appeared in Slate, Popular Science, The New York Times Book Review, American Theatre, Catapult, Astrobites, and elsewhere. She lives in Connecticut with her husband and son. Her book, The Possibility of Life, is about how we imagine extraterrestrial life, in science and science fiction.
See more on the author's page

Customer reviews

4.6 out of 5

299 global ratings

5 star		72%
4 star		20%
3 star		5%
2 star		2%
1 star		1%

How customer reviews and ratings work

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

daxtea

Good

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on September 21, 2022

Good book

Making natural and scientific ideas human and relatable

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on October 23, 2021

Verified Purchase

The essays in this collection are excellent examples of writing, making natural and scientific ideas human and relatable. Though some pieces get overly distracted with some central figure for my taste, most perfectly combine people, the search, and knowledge in a way that leaves me coming back to these stories again and again.

One person found this helpful

Helpful

Alf

This series is back on track

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on November 27, 2020

Verified Purchase

I get this anthology every year. The past five or so years have been disappointing as the subject matter has veered toward personalities and politics and away from science. But this one brings it back to its former glory.

34 people found this helpful

Helpful

Rob

Don’t miss out.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on March 21, 2021

Verified Purchase

You’ll get a world of information and learn plenty of science in a layman’s language.

4 people found this helpful

Helpful

Jwillcox

Great Reading

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 1, 2021

Verified Purchase

Wide variety of topics. Entertaining and enlightening read for science buffs.

6 people found this helpful

Helpful

Amazonian

Solid, reliable series

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on March 21, 2021

Verified Purchase

Excellent writing!

One person found this helpful

Helpful

Grumpy

As always, a good selection of interesting articles and essays.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on February 21, 2021

Verified Purchase

See above

2 people found this helpful

Helpful

Seven Kitties

A Step in the Right Direction

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on February 6, 2021

You have to have had your head under a rock to not notice the last few years that this series was hit hard by politics. No, not Trump, but the desperate attempt to be politically sensitive. And as a result, it chose some editors who were, well, not good. This isn't exclusive to the Science and Nature Writing series--the Best American Essays has fallen into the similar slump.

What I mean by their not good editors is they chose them for reasons of who they were (their celeb clout, as the young folks say) rather than by actual merit. And their picks were...well, preachy is one word for it (if you yourself are famous for preaching, you obviously prefer preachy texts as well), but also kinda...boring? Like I'd read most of them already because they'd been hyped up so much? And that was my real disappointment with the series in recent years--that it didn't feel that the editors were in the habit of widely reading science literature at all, and thus picked the already trendy stuff...which is already played out.

This volume is not a return to the former high standards, but it is a damn bit better than the last three years. There is, and the editors address it in their intros, a bit of that disconnect that everything has--we've been up to our sinuses in pandemic for the last 10 months, so it almost feels weird to read about 'normal' things like astronomy untouched by this damn virus that has managed to infect everything--but not only is there a good range of science involved, the essays also don't all slide into despair.

See, the last few years this series beat the climate change drum very hard. My issue with that is (no, I'm no climate denier, read on) that if you're writing 'climate change is real!!' in a book called Science and Nature Writing, chances are your audience already knows that, so...what exact work are you doing here? WE KNOW. Secondly, every single entry on that topic already tells us basically it's too late. Which, I mean, I don't expect science to blow smoke up my booty, but you can't tell me we need to do something, and then tell me in the same essay that there's essentially nothing to be done because it's already too late. And let's be honest. Reading 200 pages of gloom and doom are not a great read. Which is ironic since the bad choices were clearly chosen very much to push excitement in STEM. If you're into STEM and you read a book that tells you the world will be a barren cinder in 10 years...you don't really feel like going into STEM. Or doing much of anything except quietly weeping in a corner and then worrying about the damage the salt in your tears is doing.

SO, this book of course had a few climate essays, and they were much the same, but thankfully had a nice variety of other sciences covered. My favorite by far was the one on amber markets in China, and a close second is one involving a sort of renegade paleontologist discovering what might be the KT line. There's excitement (working toward the discovery of Planet IX) and awe (machine learning and AI) which is very, very welcome to return to the series.

My biggest bone to pick with this collection is that STUPID essay about the Camp Fire. It was gripping reading, harrowing with details and just impossible to put down. SO why am I calling it stupid? Because the author is so determined to blame Climate Change they don't even entertain the idea that one of the reasons (that anyone who has lived in wildfire country knows) that the Camp Fire and other recent California fire seasons have been so devastating is...Governor Newsom and his refusal to allow for controlled burns and brush clearing.

Let me repeat for any dummy about to open their mouths. I am NOT saying the Camp Fire wasn't bad in part due to climate change. I AM saying is that we need to consider ALL the factors, and, if we actually care about the people and preventing as much human damage as possible, become better stewards of the land by using the controlled version of Nature's own technique of controlled burns. Pointing to government ineptitude doesn't mean no fingers are pointing at climate change, but if we can't find all the causes of blame, we can't fix any of them. As climate change wreaks havoc on our world, we need capable leadership more than ever to protect the people involved and shepherd us into the new reality.

Anyway it was a decent read, for a change. I'd given up on this series, and only picked it up after seeing reviews that said much what I said--that the series used to be great, hit a slump, and this was the start of a better path. It's not the level it used to be, but then...is anything?

42 people found this helpful

Helpful

Top reviews from other countries

Translate all reviews to English

Michael W.

Spannende ausführliche Berichte aus der Wissenschaft

Reviewed in Germany 🇩🇪 on June 11, 2021

Verified Purchase

Diese Reihe (genau wie die australische Entsprechung) lese ich nun schon regelmäßig über viele Jahre. Wer sich für Naturwissenschaften aller Bereiche und auch für die dahinter stehenden Personen und Zusammenhänge interessiert und gerne ausführlicher in längeren gut geschriebenen Features informiert wird, ist hier genau richtig.

Translate review to English

JJ

best since a few years

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on November 18, 2020

Verified Purchase

Unlike some previous years, which focused on dramatic, long-winded accounts of adventures, this one offers some serious and recent science topics.

Gagné Simon

Nothing

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on December 3, 2020

Verified Purchase

Not as good as previous Brooks.

Ian Williams

Item is as described.

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on December 31, 2020

Verified Purchase

Item is as described.

See all reviews

Report an issue

Does this item contain inappropriate content?

Report

Do you believe that this item violates a copyright?

Report

Does this item contain quality or formatting issues?

Report

Amazon Music Stream millions of songs	Amazon Advertising Find, attract, and engage customers	6pm Score deals on fashion brands	AbeBooks Books, art & collectibles	ACX Audiobook Publishing Made Easy	Sell on Amazon Start a Selling Account

Amazon Business Everything For Your Business	Amazon Fresh Groceries & More Right To Your Door	AmazonGlobal Ship Orders Internationally	Home Services Experienced Pros Happiness Guarantee	Amazon Ignite Sell your original Digital Educational Resources	Amazon Web Services Scalable Cloud Computing Services

Audible Listen to Books & Original Audio Performances	Book Depository Books With Free Delivery Worldwide	Box Office Mojo Find Movie Box Office Data	ComiXology Thousands of Digital Comics	DPReview Digital Photography	Fabric Sewing, Quilting & Knitting

Goodreads Book reviews & recommendations	IMDb Movies, TV & Celebrities	IMDbPro Get Info Entertainment Professionals Need	Kindle Direct Publishing Indie Digital & Print Publishing Made Easy	Amazon Photos Unlimited Photo Storage Free With Prime	Prime Video Direct Video Distribution Made Easy

Shopbop Designer Fashion Brands	Amazon Warehouse Great Deals on Quality Used Products	Whole Foods Market America’s Healthiest Grocery Store	Woot! Deals and Shenanigans	Zappos Shoes & Clothing	Ring Smart Home Security Systems

eero WiFi Stream 4K Video in Every Room	Blink Smart Security for Every Home	Neighbors App Real-Time Crime & Safety Alerts	Amazon Subscription Boxes Top subscription boxes – right to your door	PillPack Pharmacy Simplified	Amazon Renewed Like-new products you can trust

Buy for others

Buying and sending eBooks to others

Follow the Authors

The Best American Science And Nature Writing 2020 Kindle Edition

Customers who viewed this item also viewed

Editorial Reviews

Review

About the Author

Product details

Videos

About the authors

Michio Kaku

Jaime Green

Customer reviews

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Top reviews from other countries