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Best Science Books of 2014

December 12, 2014

In this week's episode, Desiree Schell sits down with a panel of avid science readers to discuss the best science of books of 2014. We played a little fast and loose with the 2014 rule: Many of the books we talked about were released in 2014, some are old classics, and all of them would make excellent Christmas gifts for any science enthusiast in your life.

Our Panelists

Brian Clegg is the author of many popular science and math books, including most recenlty "Final Frontier: The Pioneering Science and Technology of Exploring the Universe", "The Quantum Age: How the Physics of the Very Small has Transformed Our Lives", and "Extra Sensory: The Science and Pseudoscience of Telepathy and Other Powers of the Mind", among many others. He's also an avid reader of science books, and regularly writes reviews for the online blog Popular Science.

John Dupuis is a science and engineering librarian at the Steacie Science and Engineering Library at York University in Toronto. John has a Masters of Library and Information studies degree, and blogs at Confessions of a Science Librarian. His research and professional interests include science books, the future of academic libraries, open access advocacy, scholarly communications in computer science, and Canadian science policy. He can be found online at his blog Confessions of a Science Librarian, and on his Tumblr, where he keeps track of issues in Canadian Science Policy.

Rachelle Saunders is our very own producer and one of the hosts here at Science for the People, and since our team goes through a lot of science books every year, we thought a member of our team should represent as well.

Their Favourite Books

A list of science books discussed during the panel is below, organized by each panel representative.

Brian Clegg

John Dupuis

Rachelle Saunders

Desiree Schell

More Great Books from Our Panelists

One hour is never enough! Our panelists all had more books they wanted to talk about but didn't get a chance to discuss on the show. Fortunately, they were willing to send along their notes to make sure the rest of the best didn't get missed even if they couldn't get on air.

Brian Clegg

John Dupuis

Rachelle Saunders

Are there great science books that came out this year that have been tragically left off the list? Share your favourites in the comments below!