How Nature Works: The Science of Self-Organized Criticality

  • Per Bak
Springer, $18, £15.99

“This book is essential reading for those interested in complex systems in general. Its idiosyncratic personal style may intrigue as many as it turns off, but, like the similarly flawed classic book of Mandelbrot, it will reward a sufficiently sceptical reader.” Philip W. Anderson, Nature 383, 772–773 (1996)

Isaac Newton: The Last Sorcerer

  • Michael White
Perseus Books, $16

“Although Newton is today chiefly remembered for his theoretical work in Principia, he also spent much of his time doing experiments, even using equipment – or so argues Michael White in Isaac Newton: The Last Sorcerer.” Nature 392, 669 (1998)

Endless Frontier: Vannevar Bush, Engineer of the American Century

  • G. Pascal Zachary
MIT Press, $22, £15.50

“G. Pascal Zachary has written the first definitive and scholarly biography of Bush (1890–1974) … The work is extraordinarily well documented, with 73 pages of notes and a seven-page list of books and other sources.” Harvey Brooks, Nature 390, 34–35 (1997)