Sorry Guys, Punxsutawney Phil says six more weeks of winter. More coats, more ice, and more time indoors- sigh. Luckily we have new books! Check out these new books, it will take up at least 4 out of 6 of those weeks.
The Invention of Air
by Steven Johnson
Riverhead Hardcover
# ISBN-10: 1594488525
"From The New Yorker
The author of Everything Bad Is Good for You provides an entertaining account of the eighteenth-century scientist and radical Joseph Priestley's monumental discovery that
plants restore something fundamental, what we now know as oxygen,to the air. Johnson
also offers a clear-sighted and intelligent exploration of the conditions that are
propitious to scientific innovation, such as the availability of coffee and the
unfettered circulation of information through social networks."- Amazon.com
Lightness of Being: Mass, Ether, and the Unification of Forces
by Frank Wilczek
Basic Books
# ISBN-10: 0465003214
"From Publishers Weekly
Grand unification theories have long been a holy grail in science. Nobel Prize–winning
physicist Wilczek, who has himself made notable contributions in this field, offers a
survey of everything in the universe from quarks to black holes, elucidating the
current scientific thinking on how matter and energy interact. The two main concepts
are the Grid and the Core. ... This book is not for most general readers, but will be a hit with hard-core science buffs."-Amazon.com
A Life in Twilight: The Final Years of J. Robert Oppenheimer
by Mark Wolverton
St. Martin's Press
# ISBN-10: 0312374402
“ 'A Life in Twilight cuts through the myth of the tragic, guilt-ridden scientist to
offer a convincing account of J. Robert Oppenheimer’s life and activities after the
Atomic Energy Commission labeled him a ‘security risk’ in 1954. ... Mark Wolverton also conveys a vivid picture of America’s political crosscurrents,
scientific and academic communities, and media-driven popular culture in the 1950s and
early ’60s.'
---Paul Boyer, author of By the Bomb’s Early Light: American Thought and Culture at
the Dawn of the Atomic Age"-Amazon.com
Hank Willis Thomas: Pitch Blackness
by Rene de Guzman (Author), Robin Kelley (Author), Hank Willis Thomas (Photographer)
Aperture
# ISBN-10: 1597110728
"Hank Willis Thomas gained wide recognition with his highly provocative series B(r)
ANDED, which addresses the commodification of African-American male identity by
raising questions about visual culture and the power of logos. Pitch Blackness, his
first monograph, includes selections from this series and several others. The book
begins with a deeply personal and interpretive re-telling of the senseless murder of
young Songha Willis, the artist's cousin, who was robbed at gunpoint and murdered
outside a nightclub in Philadelphia in 2000. It then charts Hank Willis Thomas' career
as he grapples with the issues of grief, black-on-black violence in America and the
ways in which corporate culture is complicit in the crises of black male identity. The
concluding section presents his newest body of work, Unbranded--in which he examines
advertising and media representation of African-Americans. With his characteristic
pointedness and dark humor, Willis Thomas shows in Pitch Blackness why he is
considered one of today's most compelling emerging artists."-Amazon.com