Science Mag's Summer Reading List

Science senior editor Barbara Jasney and book review editor Sherman Suter asked their "advisers, reviewers, and colleagues" for summer book recommendations (subscription required). The list is heavy on the non-fiction, but a few science fiction novels made the cut. Here are the suggested books with a bioscience base:

Fiction

• Brian Davison, chief scientist for Systems Biology and Biotechnology at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, recommends Robert J. Sawyer's Frameshift.

  This medical thriller includes genetic disorders, in vitro fertilization, health insurance, Neandertal genomics, Nazi war criminals, and a love story between researchers occurring in the near future at UC Berkeley. Perhaps not the author's best, but an exciting read that could be a movie with Adrien Brody and Sandra Bullock

• Science news editor Colin Norman recommends Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go.
  

  Science fiction set in current times, the novel explores a morally repugnant use of science and the society that condones it. In his understated but beautiful prose, Ishiguro imbues this ultimately chilling tale with warmth and understanding.

If you prefer "Lab Lit" to science fiction there are selections for you too:

• Science editor-in-chief Donald Kennedy recommends Allegra Goodman's Intuition. Kennedy notes that there are "certain characters who are modeled closely enough on players in widely known cases to encourage identification [...]".
• U.C. Berkeley molecular and cell biology professor of Daniel Koshland recommends the old classic Arrowsmith by Sinclair Lewis.
• Colin Norman recommends William Boyd's Brazzaville Beach. It's not set in a lab, but the characters are involved in primate research in Africa.
  

Other novels that were recommended are David Mitchell's Ghostwritten, Ian McEwan's Saturday, China Miéville's Perdido Street Station, and Jonathan Lethem's Motherless Brooklyn.

Non-Fiction

• Angela Creager, a Princeton history professor who studies the history of biology, recommends A Guinea Pig's History of Biology by Jim Endersby and Charles Darwin: Voyaging and Charles Darwin: The Power of Place by Janet Brown.
• Vicki Funk, senior curator of the Smithsonian's Department of Botany, recommends Michael Pollan's The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World
• Roger Glass, Director of the NIH Fogarty International Center, recommends Richard Dawkins' The Ancestor's Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution
• Senior editor Pam Hines recommends Darwin's Voyage of the Beagle and Norman Cantor's In the Wake of the Plague: The Black Death and the World It Made. It's not about biology per se, but about the effect of biology on society.
• Daniel Koshland recommends Paul de Kruif's Microbe Hunters, and Hans Zinsser's Rats, Lice, and History.
• Marcia McNutt, President of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, recommends Nancy Burnett and Brad Matsen's The Shape of Life, companion to the PBS series of the same name.
  
• Helga Nowotny, Vice President of the European Research Council, recommends Randolph Nesse and George Williams' Why We Get Sick: The New Science of Darwinian Medicine
• Science online editor Stewart Wills recommends Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach.
• Nobel prize winner Lewis Wolpert, a developmental biologist at University College, London, recommends Roy Porter's The Greatest Benefit to Mankind: A Medical History of Humanity.

Plenty to keep even the most voracious reader entertained for most of the summer. If not check out the full article for the entire list of recommendations.

Tags:science fiction, biology, lab lit, summer reading, Robert F. Sawyer, Kazuo Ishiguro, Allegra Goodman, Sinclair Lewis, William Boyd