Lari's Bookshelf

I thought I'd give those who follow me here a little update on a few things that have been going on. Books and Beer For those following me on Google Plus , you may already know about last week's " Books and Beer Hangout " hosted by Epublish Unum's Evo Terra and Jeff Moriarty . My co guest was everyone's favorite bad astronomer Phil Plait . The subject of the show: writing and publishing science based books  (hence, the reason my last post was a booklist for the non-science reader ). It was my first public hangout, and it turned out to be such a blast. The post-show hangout, or "Hang Over," allowed for people to come into the hangout and ask us questions. I was so happy that peeps were interested in libraries and librarianship. There was also some discussion as to the future of publishing and the need for traditional publishers to re evaluate their business strategies with ebooks. We also ruminated on the possibility of a zombie apocalyp...

Here is a booklist (that is currently, by no means, comprehensive) of books that are non-fiction (for the most part), with a particular focus on science related issues. The goal of this list is to highlight some good "crossover" books to readers who generally don't already read science books, or to the layperson interested in learning something new. I am trying to keep the list limited to books that have been published in the last decade, but preferabely published in the last 3-4 years. If you would like to make a suggestion to add a book to the list, please leave a comment. I also will be listing some crossover appeals/genres that might pique a non-science reader's interest. (Ordered by most recent pub year.) Leo Geo and His Miraculous Journey Through the Center of the Earth by Jon Chad (2012) "Intrepid explorer Leo Geo is heading off on a mission into the unknown. With science as his sidekick, he intends to tunnel his way to the center of the...

Those of you, who know me, know that I am a sucker for science-y things. I'm even more of a sucker for science-y, auto-tuned things. So when I found out there was a new Symphony of Science video, I nearly squeed myself to death. If you haven't seen the other Symphony of Science Vids, I'm so sorry for you. Get up to speed right now. Some of my favorites include: We Are All Connected , Poetry of Reality , The Unbroken Thread , and  A Glorious Dawn . But really, they all are pretty much brilliant. I probably account for half of all the YouTube view hits. The thing I liked about the latest one is that it reminded me of what I learned about in one of my fairly recent reads, The Grand Design by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow. In it, the authors write a lot about particle wave duality , and how the structure of the universe on a grand scale seems to operate under different laws than the cosmos on a quantum scale. It was amazing. They talked a lot about ...