T.rex and the Crater of Doom

  • Walter Alvarez
Penguin, £7.99

“Alvarez portrays a modern geology that builds on the interdisciplinary resources of physics, chemistry and astronomy to fashion a synthesis about how our planet has evolved⃛. One can read T.rex and the Crater of Doomin a single sitting and I recommend it highly — if only as a jumping-off point to other perspectives on this dramatic scientific revolution”, Clark R. Chapman, Nature 387, 33; 1997).

Born To Rebel: Birth Order, Family Dynamics and Creative Lives

  • Frank J. Sulloway
Abacus, £9.99

“Born To Rebelcontains a treasure-trove of information⃛. I doubt that anyone will ever again claim that the variable of birth order has been shown to be unimportant”, Howard Gardner, Nature 384, 125; 1996).

The Ovary of Eve: Egg and Sperm and Preformation

  • Clara Pinto-Correia
University of Chicago Press, $17.50, £13.95

“Her engrossing book is likely to remain for many years the most readable and informative — certainly the most enjoyable — account of the early scientific efforts to explain human conception⃛. It is a strength of The Ovary of Eve that it succeeds in fully appropriating the view-point of the scientists of the past, and makes the reader realize the nobility, the earnestness, the inevitability and the beauty of many of their constructs, even those condescendingly dismissed as ‘foolishness’ by less perceptive historians”, Frank Gonzalez-Crussi, Nature 390, 41; 1997).

Women Scientists in America, Volume Two: Before Affirmative Action, 1940-1972

  • Margaret W. Rossiter
John Hopkins University Press, £15

“⃛ assembled with the careful scholarship that has become Rossiter's hallmark. Once again, the quantity of material researched is enormous and my caveats are few⃛. I found the book heavier going than its predecessor, with fewer of the light touches of irony and humour that I had enjoyed so much before”, June Goodfield, Nature 380, 306; 1996).

Imagined Worlds

  • Freeman Dyson
Harvard University Press, $14, £8.50

“Dyson has a startlingly profound imagination, a willingness to take ideas as far as they can possibly go⃛. I think Dyson could write a better book about the future than this one. I think he could write a better book about the future than almost anyone; I wish he would”, Oliver Morton, Nature 387, 361; 1997).

Charles Darwin's Letters: A Selection 1825-1859

Edited by:
  • Frederick Burkhardt
Cambridge University Press, £9.95, $12.95