Outstanding Books for the College Bound: Science and Technology

These titles are located throughout the library; please find the location in the catalog by clicking on the title.

Bradshaw, Gillian.  The Sand-Reckoner.  A youthful Archimedes comes into his own as a mathematician, an engineer, and a fascinating human being in this engaging novel. 

Brown, David.  Inventing Modern America: From the Microwave to the Mouse. Whose idea was it? – the human stories and faces behind American scientific and technological innovations and achievements. 

Bryson, Bill.  A Short History of Nearly Everything.  A renowned travel writer brings complex scientific concepts to life by describing how the universe and life as we know it came to be. 

Card, Orson Scott.  Ender’s Game.  In a world decimated by alien attacks, the government trains young geniuses like Ender Wiggin in military strategy with increasingly complicated computer games. 

Enzensberger, Hans.  The Number Devil: A Mathematical Adventure.  A boy dreams of a devil who guides him through a colorful, Alice in Wonderland-like world of mathematical concepts. 

Fagan, Brian.  The Little Ice Age:  How Climate Made History, 1300-1850.  Fagan provides a fascinating look at how climate change influenced the course of the last thousand years of Western history.  He highlights climate’s profound influence on the Viking discovery of North America, the Industrial and French Revolutions, and the Irish Potato Famine. 

Feynman, Richard.  What Do You Care What People Think?  Further Adventures of a Curious Character.  Quirky, hilarious, and fascinating memoirs from one of the last century’s greatest physicists cover everything from his early childhood to his work on the atomic bomb and his investigation into the Challenger explosion. 

Hawking, Stephen.  The Universe in a Nutshell.  The physics guru illuminates startling new theories about our world in a lavishly illustrated sequel to A Brief History of Time. 

Krauss, Lawrence.  Atom: An Odyssey from the Big Bang to Life on Earth and Beyond.  Follow a single oxygen atom on a fantastic voyage from the beginning of the universe and far into the future. 

Lambrecht, Bill.  Dinner at the New Gene Café: How Genetic Engineering is Changing What We Eat, How We Live, and the Global Politics of Food.  Lambrecht traces the scientific and political controversies surrounding the use of genetically modified organisms and the food we eat.

Porter, Roy.  Madness: A Brief History.  What is meant when we say “madness”?  Examine the wide range of possibilities this question covers, from witches to electric shock therapy to Prozac.

Preston, Richard.  The Demon in the Freezer.  A striking portrait of smallpox makes readers uncomfortably aware that it could rise again as a biological weapon of mass destruction. 

Roach, Mary.  Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers.  Discover the amazing life-after-death adventures of human bodies in this examination of how medical and research scientists use cadavers to make our lives better. 

Sobel, Dava.  Longtitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time.  The little known story behind the greatest innovation in navigational science- an 18th century version of the GPS.

Strauch, Barbara.  Primal Teen: What  New Discoveries about the Teenage Brain Tell Us About Our Kids.  Ever wonder what makes teens tick?  A tour of the teenage brain reveals startling new research about this pivotal and exciting time of life. 

Sykes, Bryan.  The Seven Daughters of Eve.   Fascinating mitochondrial DNA evidence supports the idea that almost all modern Europeans are descended from just seven women.

List adapted from www.ala.org/yalsa/booklists/obcb for Glendale Public Library

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