{"id":5585,"date":"2018-12-07T14:58:27","date_gmt":"2018-12-07T22:58:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.danamackenzie.com\/blog\/?p=5585"},"modified":"2018-12-07T15:16:30","modified_gmt":"2018-12-07T23:16:30","slug":"a-good-list-to-be-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/?p=5585","title":{"rendered":"A Good List to Be On"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>This morning, my co-author Judea Pearl sent me an e-mail: &#8220;Did you know about this?&#8221; Well, no, I didn&#8217;t. Here&#8217;s what &#8220;this&#8221; means:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<!--[if lt IE 9]><script>document.createElement('audio');<\/script><![endif]-->\n<audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-5585-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"http:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/scifri-segments\/scifri201812076.mp3?_=1\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/scifri-segments\/scifri201812076.mp3\">http:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/scifri-segments\/scifri201812076.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Science Friday, probably the nation&#8217;s most-listened-to radio show for science news, has named <em>The Book of Why<\/em> as one of its <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencefriday.com\/segments\/the-best-science-books-of-2018\/\">best science books of the year<\/a> for 2018. It was one of eighteen books chosen. Here they are in alphabetical order. (That way, <em>The Book of Why<\/em> is near the top instead of at the bottom, the way it is on the Science Friday web page!) I&#8217;ll leave out the subtitles except when it&#8217;s necessary to understand what the book is about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><em>Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup<\/em>, by John Carreyrou<\/li><li><em>The Book of Why<\/em>, by Judea Pearl and Dana Mackenzie<\/li><li><em>Broad Band: The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the Internet<\/em>, by Claire Evans<\/li><li><em>Chesapeake Requiem<\/em>, by Earl Swift<\/li><li><em>The Dialogues: Conversations about the Nature of the Universe<\/em>, by Clifford Johnson<\/li><li><em>The Dinosaur Artist<\/em>, by Paige Williams<\/li><li><em>Dispatches from Planet 3<\/em>, by Marcia Bartusiak<\/li><li><em>Heart: A History<\/em>, by Sandeep Jauhar<\/li><li><em>How to Change Your Mind<\/em>, by Michael Pollan<\/li><li><em>In Search of the Canary Tree<\/em>, by Lauren Oakes<\/li><li><em>Losing the Nobel Prize<\/em>, by Brian Keating<\/li><li><em>The Mystery of the Exploding Teeth<\/em>, by Thomas Morris<\/li><li><em>Nine Pints<\/em>, by Rose George<\/li><li><em>The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs<\/em>, by Steve Brusatte<\/li><li><em>Rising: Dispatches from the New American Shore<\/em>, by Elizabeth Rush<\/li><li><em>She Has Her Mother&#8217;s Laugh<\/em>, by Carl Zimmer<\/li><li><em>Spying on Whales<\/em>, by Nick Pyenson<\/li><li><em>What the Eyes Don&#8217;t See<\/em>, by Mona Hanna-Attisha<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Now I have to admit: I haven&#8217;t read any of these books, except for the one that I (co-)wrote. Shame on me! I do have <em>In Search of the Canary Tree<\/em> on my Amazon wish list, because I read a glowing review of it this week in <em>Science<\/em>. I am impressed that Science Friday says that <em>She Has Her Mother&#8217;s Laugh<\/em> is &#8220;clearly Zimmer&#8217;s best book,&#8221; because he has written a lot of books. <em>Broad Band<\/em> and <em>Nine Pints<\/em> (a book about blood) split my vote for the best title. In general, blood had a pretty good year (<em>Nine Pints<\/em>, <em>Heart<\/em>, and metaphorically speaking, <em>Bad Blood<\/em>). Of course, climate change had a good year; <em>Chesapeake Requiem<\/em>, <em>Rising<\/em>, and <em>In Search of the Canary Tree<\/em> all have to do with that topic. And dinosaurs are another evergreen topic (<em>The Dinosaur Artist<\/em>, <em>The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs<\/em>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As for me, I&#8217;m just happy to be sitting at the same banquet table as these folks. It gives me the same spine-tingling, &#8220;Wow, is this happening?&#8221; feeling that I had the week our book came out. It&#8217;s possible that Judea and I will make it onto some other year-end best-of lists (I certainly hope so!), but this is the first one, so it&#8217;s special to me. And it&#8217;s a pretty great list to be on.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This morning, my co-author Judea Pearl sent me an e-mail: &#8220;Did you know about this?&#8221; Well, no, I didn&#8217;t. Here&#8217;s what &#8220;this&#8221; means: Science Friday, probably the nation&#8217;s most-listened-to radio show for science news, has named The Book of Why as one of its best science books of the year for 2018. It was one [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":80,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[14,235],"tags":[4214,4216,3931,1275,4215,1992,4213,4217],"class_list":["post-5585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-literature","category-off-topic","tag-best-of-2018","tag-blood","tag-book-of-why","tag-book-reviews","tag-climate-change","tag-dinosaurs","tag-science-friday","tag-spine-tingling"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/80"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5585"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5585\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5586,"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5585\/revisions\/5586"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}