Best Science Books 2012: San Francisco Chronicle

Another list for your reading, gift-giving and collection development pleasure.

Every year for the last bunch of years I’ve been linking to and posting about all the “year’s best sciencey books” lists that appear in various media outlets and shining a bit of light on the best of the year.

All the previous 2012 lists are here.

This post includes the following: San Francisco Chronicle Best books of 2012: 100 recommended books.

• Breasts: A Natural and Unnatural History by Florence Williams
• God's Hotel: A Doctor, a Hospital, and a Pilgrimage to the Heart of Medicine by Victoria Sweet
• The Great Animal Orchestra: Finding the Origins of Music in the World's Wild Places by Bernie Krause
• On a Farther Shore: The Life and Legacy of Rachel Carson by William Souder
• Rabid: A Cultural History of the World's Most Diabolical Virus by Bill Wasik and Monica Murphy
• Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic by David Quammen

I'm always looking for recommendations and notifications of book lists as they appear in various media outlets. If you see one that I haven't covered, please let me know at jdupuis at yorku dot ca or in the comments.

I am picking up most of my lists from Largehearted Boy.

For my purposes, I define science books pretty broadly to include science, engineering, computing, history & philosophy of science & technology, environment, social aspects of science and even business books about technology trends or technology innovation. Deciding what is and isn’t a science book is squishy at best, especially at the margins, but in the end I pick books that seem broadly about science and technology rather than something else completely. Lists of business, history or nature books are among the tricky ones.

And if you wish to support my humble list-making efforts, run on over to Amazon, take a look at Steve Jobs or The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks or maybe even something else from today's list.