Recommed me some pop-science published in the last couple of years?

Bryson is an enjoyable read, but some scientists complain that he gets some minor details wrong. Singh really knows what he's talking about, but you must like maths a little. I like Dawkins too by the way.

Guns, Germs and Steel, Jared Diamond. A million weeks on best seller lists for a reason, and it will stick with you much longer than The DaVinci Code.

I detest Dawkins - seeing him on TV is enough for me - but if y'all say so..

thx so far and keep 'em coming. xp

Brian Cathcart's got a great history of science book, called The Fly in the Cathedral, about the team that split the atom. Also I'd like to thank Aimless for that recommendation about species extinction. It's going on my Amazon wishlist, where I'm sure it will be ignored, as the Brian Greene has. I think my family don't believe in my desire to read pop science and think Mister Monkey is forcing me to beg for books on his behalf.

Started the first few chapters of "Flesh in the Age of Reason: The Modern Foundations of Body and Soul" by Roy Porter . I gave up on,I found it a bit polemic for my tastes--real enlightenment man stuff,if youre a true believer then this book is apparently the shizzle.

Speaking of elightenment men and big picture pop science books Id recommend Edward O Wilson's "Consilience". A bit dated and highly speculative in parts but brilliant nonetheless.

I was interested in the idea, but found the book very boring. It was laid out like a long, long article, where he set out his thesis at the beginning and seemed to just work through separate examples that proved his point. I gave it up halfway through, even though the theory seemed plausible, to me at least.

Started the first few chapters of "Flesh in the Age of Reason: The Modern Foundations of Body and Soul" by Roy Porter

I read his book on the Enlightenment, and thought it was great. But it was a history book. I tried to read his book of essays on the history of medicine, but it was not very interesting.

I just reviewed This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession by Daniel J. Levitin, it comes out this month. He's a cognitive psychologist and former record producer/engineer/musician who deftly explains who our brains perceive and process music -- brain chemistry and music theory for non-musicians and liberal arts majors. A reasonable amount of interest in the subject is required, though it is richly rewarded.

m coleman - yes heard of that (think we touched on this in the noize board). V little knowledge of brain chemistry, and what I know of it relating to music probably comes some doc or other w/Steven Pinker where he talked about how most ppl couldn't get a grip with anything that didn't have a melody in it (big fat NO to serialism then).

Does Levitin talk about 12-tone music related stuff?

All Simon Singh I've read is very enjoyable, I'd also add Big Bang to the list. And second the love for Brian Greene. Roger Penrose is fantastic, but he tends to get quite heavy on the maths quite quick (though he is quite honest about which bits you can skip if you don't fancy wading through pages of equations, and are prepared to take his proofs as explained.)

The Quark and the Jaguar by Murray Gel-Mann (did I spell that right?)

If you don't mind a heavy maths bias, John Barrow is good, as well. I've read his Book of Infinity and about to read his Book of Nothing.

Dawkins' The Selfish Gene is still a classic, but honestly, he just seems incapable of keeping his dogmatic atheism out of everything he writes these days, to the point where it is actually disruptive to the reading of his books.

I love this stuff. Bring on more of it!

Brian Greene is excellent, as is Simon Singh...if you want the math thing though, try Barry Mazur's "Imagining Numbers (particularly the square root of minus fifteen)" a whimsical and poetical explanation of imaginary numbers for the mathematically minded and the 'not-so...'

For another twist on pop science, for those wearied of unprovable cosmology and the creationist/darwinist debate, i harken to John McPhee's 'Annals of the Former World' Geology is fun and McPhee is at his best hounding around the western US with a cast of eccentric geologists exploring the history of the continent and the riches those layers of rock contain.

Oliver Sachs is fun. His memoir 'Uncle Tungsten' explores the history of the periodic table, and his own journey into neuroscience.

Lastly, i would recommend Steven Pinker. 'The Languange Instinct' is a lucid text on fairly current cognitive sciences, spiced with humorous clinical anecdotes...a good read.

Off topic Remy I see you’re a regular on ILB... I have to tell you I am related to Christopher Isherwood, hes a great uncle, Dad wrote to him as a child and received a number of letters back from him. So there you go!

(And a book by Mario Livio on the Golden Ratio and the aforementioned Miss Leavitt's Stars... argh, curse Foyles and their wonderful selection.)

i want a book about outer space. not about space exploration, but about all the different planets and what they are like and solar systems and galaxies and whatnot. any recommendations?

i guess not

Sorry, i missed this the first time round.
You might try The Cambridge Guide to the Solar System, by Kenneth Lang, or else The Grand Tour: A Traveller's Guide to the Solar System (which has cool stuff, but is a bit more gimmicky), though that second one features paintings as well as photos, whereas the first one has lots of lovely photos from Hubble and probes and such.