July DeweyCAT: the 500s (sciences)

July DeweyCAT – 500s

Science: math, astronomy, physics, chemistry, geology, fossils, prehistoric life, biology

Our July DeweyCAT is the 500s and contains books on the various sciences. This can sound a little daunting, but there are many great, readable options here.

A few nonfiction books in this category that I can recommend:
Gut: the Inside Story of our Body’s Most Underrated Organ by Giulia Enders
The Eternal Frontier by Tim Flannery
The Map that Changed the World by Simon Winchester
Krakatoa by Simon Winchester
A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking
Marie Curie and her Daughters by Shelley Emling
The Planet in a Pebble by Jan Zalasiewicz
Earth and Life by Richard Fortey
Annals of the Former World by John McPhee
The Sixth Extinction by Elizabeth Kolbert (this recently won the Pulitzer and I thought it was excellent)
Darwin’s Ghost: the Origin of Species Updated by Steve Jones
A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson
Brian Greene’s books

I’d also like to point out that this is my kids’ favorite section of the library. There are TONS of great nature books for kids. We’ve checked out books on every animal – sea, land, and air – that you can imagine. So if you have children in your life, take them to the 500s the next time you’re at the library!

If you’d like to read a fiction equivalent the options are enormous. Most science fiction would work, so I won’t go down the path of recommendations for that vast group of books.

Here are a couple historical fiction books that would work that I’ve read and enjoyed:
The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert (focus on botany)
Remarkable Creatures by Tracy Chevalier (focus on fossils)

Sorry I’m a little short on concrete ideas for fiction equivalents. Feel free to fill in the blanks!

Please share any recommendations and any books you read for this CAT in this thread and update the wiki with your reading. Happy reading!

I'm planning to read Under the Sea-Wind by Rachel Carson (578.77). It is one of the few books in the 500s which I have, and will count as a ROOT in the ROOT challenge. According to the introduction, it was Carson's favorite book of those she wrote.

I wrote down my possibilities as

Einstein: A Life in Science - it's a biography of Einstein but LT has the Dewey number as 530
Animals in Translation
What If? Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions

I read my selection early: Last Chance to See, by Douglas Adams and Mark Carwardine. Both the original book and the follow-up edition by Mark Carwardine and Stephen Fry (Last Chance to See: In the Footsteps of Douglas Adams) would be great choices.

I may end up reading some "unofficial" contenders for the challenge, depending on what turns up at the library.

I think I've decided on When Elephants Weep: The Emotional Lives of Animals by Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson (591.51).

I'm planning on reading either The Secret Life of Lobsters or Otter Country - maybe both if I get ambitious!

>3 Tara1Reads: Animals in Translation made my favourites list the year I read it. :-)

>5 dudes22: Also loved When Elephants Weep

I am planning on reading The Garden of the Gods by Gerald Durrell. This is the third book in his Corfu Trilogy.

I have quite a few on my tbr that would fit:

Life List: A Woman's Quest for the World's Most Amazing Birds / Olivia Gentile
On Thin Ice: The Changing World of the Polar Bear / Richard Ellis
Blue Meridian: The Search for the Great White Shark / Peter Matthiessen

Those are a few. I'll have to see what my library has, as well.

I've got a bunch I've been meaning to read on my shelves:
The Edge of the Unknown: 101 Things You Don't Know About Science And No One Else Does Either
Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science
Go Figure: The Numbers You Need for Everyday Life
Einstein: His Life and Universe
Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman
Undeniable: Evolution and the Science of Creation

I'll have to see what I feel like in a couple weeks.

>7 LibraryCin: I just read Animals Make Us Human last month and she mentions Animals in Translation a lot and just from a flip-through of my copy of Animals in Translation, the books appear to cover similar ground, so I don't really want to read Animals in Translation so soon after the other book. But I still plan to read that and more from Temple Grandin in the future.

>11 Tara1Reads: G'ah! And I've mixed the two up! I have read both, but it was Animals Make Us Human that made my favourites list the year I read it. Animals in Translation was good, too, and I'm sure I read them a few years apart.

>12 LibraryCin: I love Temple Grandin. But yeah those books do seem really similar so it's probably an easy mistake to make.

I'm planning to read:
The Origin of Species- Charles Darwin
A Short History of Nearly Everything- Bill Bryson
God is an Astronaut- Alyson Foster (fiction about botany)

other fiction about botany:
State of Wonder - Ann Patchet
Ship Fever: Stories - Andrea Barrett
Hannah's Garden- Midori Synder

A couple that I've considered are Giraffe Reflections 599.638 and The Voyage of the Beagle (508.80) but I may only get to Mammals of Minnesota Field Guide by Stan Tekiela.

I'm planning to read DNA USA by Bryan Sykes from my TBR stash.

I'd like to read Lab Girl by Hope Jahren.

I plan to read Longitude: the true story of a lone genius who solved the greatest scientific problem of his time by Dava Sobel.

I'm listening to The Sixth Extinction-- about 3 chapters in and enjoy it so far!

I have H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald and it's listed as 598.944 so woohoo!

>20 luvamystery65:, I have that one so that could be a possibility for me too

>20 luvamystery65: I'm so happy this fits because I thought I was going to skip this one.

>22 luvamystery65:, I looked through the library today and found some interesting choices but this one will be much easier and I have the audio, even better.

>23 Kristelh: I have the audio as well.

I don't know if I'll get to them but I'm looking at T-Rex and the Crater of Doom by Walter Alvarez (paleontology) and Hybrid: The History and Science of Plant Breeding by Noel Kingsbury (biology).

I might try reading Time's Arrow, Time's Cycle by Stephen Jay Gould which has been sitting on my shelf for years (and nicely works for this month's RandomCAT as well)...

I read this years ago but enjoyed it just as much this time: Longitude: the true story of a lone genius who solved the greatest scientific problem of his time by Dava Sobel. A short book well worth the few hours it takes to read.

Skim-read Go Figure: The Numbers You Need for Everyday Life - not a great book for me, but might be useful to others. It purports itself to be the kind of reference book you keep next to your dictionary or cookbook - not sure anyone would really do that! I either already knew about the subjects - what is pH, how to calculate simple and compound interest, how vision is measured, what do the numbers mean in your blood pressure reading - or I didn't really care (what biorhythm cycle am I in, fabric for your pattern, gambling probabilities).

I have a couple more I might get to this month since this one was so quick (and not great).

>27 VivienneR: I read that a few years ago and thoroughly enjoyed it. Picked it up as a Kindle daily deal this year. Will reread if time permits.

I read my first two books for the challenge over the long weekend: The West without Water (551.6978) and Eruptions that Shook the World (551.21). Both are rather academic in tone; the first covers the American West's climate history of wet and dry extremes, the second is pretty much everything you ever wanted to know about volcanic eruptions and their effects.

I have started Silent Spring by Rachel Carson, which will also work for the RandomCAT and BingoPUP :)

I finished Rendezvous mit Venus, a fictionalised account of an international astronomy project in 1761 and 1769, observing the passage of Venus across the sun. The French Academy of Science sent some of their astronomers half across the world to observe the phenomenon from different locations or invited corresponding members to do it from their own countries, and all this during the Seven Years War and other political upheavals. Very entertaining!

I finished The Garden of the Gods by Gerald Durrell.

I finished and reviewed American Serengeti: The Last Big Animals of the Great Plains by Dan Flores, about the few surviving large mammal species of the Great Plains region of the United States.

Finished H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald. A book that fits many a category but it is shelved as LP 598.944 MAC.

I finished Longitude by Dava Sobel. This was a really interesting and fairly short book about the search for a way to figure out longitude. It was interesting to hear the science behind it and the various paths that scientists and inventors went down to try to figure it out. Definitely recommended. I listened to the audiobook which was well done.

I finished and loved The Secret Life of Lobsters - turns out that lobsters are really amazing creatures and the people who fish for them are pretty interesting too.

>37 LittleTaiko: - I read that a couple of years ago and found it very interesting also.

>37 LittleTaiko: I read Linda Greenlaw's book about lobstering (The Lobster Chronicles) a while ago and had that same reaction (and I don't even like lobster!).

And speaking of Linda Greenlaw, I am currently listening to the audiobook of The Perfect Storm -- my library has this listed under the 900s but I think that it might fit in the 500s too with the information about fisheries and meteorology. (For those who don't get the Linda Greenlaw connection, she was the captain of the Andrea Gail's sister ship and so is in this book a fair amount).

Life List: A Woman's Quest for the World's Most Amazing Birds / Olivia Gentile
4 stars

Phoebe Snetsinger grew up in the mid-20th-century, and wanted to be a scientist. She received a good education, but in the 1950s, women (whether or not they had an education) got married and stayed home with the kids. Which is what Phoebe did. But, she was bored, so when she discovered birds when the kids were a bit older, she became obsessed. She spent most of the rest of her life travelling (and when not travelling, she was researching), so she could add as many of the 9,000 (ish, the number changed over the years) species of bird to her “life list” of which birds she'd seen. In 1981, she was diagnosed with cancer and given 1 year. She lived for many more years and, after her diagnosis, upped the frequency of her birding trips. In addition to ending up in many dangerous situations in her travels, her birding obsession came with a cost to her relationships with her husband and children.

I really enjoyed this. I became interested in birds after purchasing a bird feeder many years ago as entertainment for my two inside cats. So, the bird information (and a few drawings) was very interesting to me, though much of the book also focused on Phoebe's obsession, travelling, and how this affected her relationships and the rest of her life. This was very good.

Fiction

The White Plague / Frank Herbert
3 stars

When American scientist John O'Reilly and his family are in Ireland for a few months, a bomb goes off and his wife and two kids are killed. Something switches in his head and he wants revenge. He is able to create a plague that only kills women. He unleashes it in three countries, but it quickly spreads throughout the world.

It was ok. I thought the beginning and end were much better (for keeping me interested), but most of the middle part of the story dragged for me. The book was told from many different points of view, and there were a lot of characters to figure out. There were political and religious musings that weren't as interesting to me.

I finished The Soul of the Octopus by Sy Montgomery which unfortunately felt like it was more about the author than the wonderful sea creature.

>42 mamzel: That's a pity! I love reading about octopuses doing smart things, like predicting soccer game winners :)

>43 rabbitprincess: He rated a mention.

Finished Lab Girl by Hope Jahren, shelved 570.92 but also memoir.

I'm not quite done with my book yet, but thought I'd post it anyway as I expect to finish it in the next couple of days. I read When Elephants Weep: The Emotional lives of Animals by Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson. It was very interesting but has taken me all month to read because I kept feeling like I was sitting in a lecture. It's also 25 years old so most of what he writes about is not a new way of looking at animals any more.

>46 dudes22: I really enjoyed that one!

>39 leslie.98: - I just added her book to my wishlist. Thanks for letting me know about it!

I just finished reading When the Mississippi Ran Backwards : Empire, Intrigue, Murder, and the New Madrid Earthquakes by Jay Feldman which is classified as 551.22 (or QE535.2). I bought it on a riverboat cruise last week after hearing about the beginning of steamboats on the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. This book talks about the first steamboat trip from Pittsburgh to New Orleans. Although this book is classified as a science book, and discusses the New Madrid earthquakes (with some information about earthquakes in general), and a bit about the history of river transportation (the engineering behind the steamboat), much of the book gives a history of the early 19th century Indian wars west of the Allegheny Mountains plus the War of 1812 in that region. I personally feel it should have been classified as U.S. history. (Incidentally, the murder mentioned in the title is the murder of a slave in Kentucky by two nephews of Thomas Jefferson; the earthquakes uncovered evidence that the nephews had hidden.)