02.24, Friday 29 Feb 2008

Books read February 2008, with date finished:

There's been a smell, biochemistry and science theme: scent last month, then Aphrodite, Latour, Calvino and Essential Cell Biology. It's all felt a bit Powers of 10... not just from seeing the proteins behind the experience of taste and food, but reading straight-forward textbooks and simultaneously being aware the colossal energy and practice of science that went into producing facts.

Science in Action is the stand-out book this month. I studied physics at college, and have had heated debates both with those who regard science as entirely a social construction and those who believe in big-s Science (as a process and as outcomes. Mainly people without a science background curiously). Latour is the first I've read to describe science as I've seen it, and to show in a single breath the complex interplay of humans and nonhumans. Superb.

Follow-up posts: