Science-Book Challenge
Melanie, who is a regular visitor here at Bearcastle Blog, writes about books and books that she's read and books that she's going to read at her blog, The Indextrious Reader. A common–shall we say, "characteristic"?–of book lover is excess. Visitors to our home will recognize that we keep what some people would consider and excess number of books in the house. (I will not say "too many"!) As book lovers, I don't think we're alone in this.
I don't know how many books Melanie has–one would guess, however, that it's more than she has space for–but she seems to exhibit other entertaining excesses. For one, she loves an awful lot of books and, happily, she writes about them for our edification. She also seems to love book challenges, a peculiar adjunct to blogging in which one undertakes to read a certain number of books in a certain period that conform to certain rules. The one that I find most appealing at the moment is the "Chunkster Challenge", requiring that one read a certain number of large books over the course of the year; Melanie writes about it here. I suspect that I will easily fulfill the basic requirements of this challenge (to read four books longer than 750 pages this year), since I rather dislike reading small books.
The Science-Book Challenge
Inspired by Melanie's industry, I decided I would issue my own book challenge: "The Science-Book Challenge". This is self-serving, naturally, and related to a project of Ars Hermeneutica, as is most of my activities, seemingly including breathing and eating.
As you know, Ars Hermeneutica has as part of its mission inspiring people to enjoy science for themselves. We also think that books are great things. Therefore, we believe that encouraging people to read books that help them understand how science works is a good thing.
As part of that encouraging project, we keep a growing collection of Book Notes online. Each note is intended as a short, easily digested short piece that helps visitors decide on a book to read, or prioritize some titles according to their own interests. The Book Notes are written by friends and volunteers. For several reasons# we like to encourage new voices with new notes about new books to our list. Generally speaking, we prefer notes about books we liked, but it doesn't always work out that way.
And so, the challenge:
- Read three nonfiction books this year related to the theme "Living a Rational Life", broadly construed. Each book should have something to do with science, how science operates, or science's relationship with its surrounding culture. The books might be popularizations of science, they might be history, they might be biography, they might be anthologies.
- After you've read it, write a short note about the book; 500 words would suffice. What goes in the note? The things you would tell a friend if you wanted to convince said friend to read it, too. Naturally, you can read some of the existing Book Notes for ideas.
- Don't worry if you find that you've read a book someone else has also read; we welcome multiple notes on one title.
- Get your book note to me and I'll post it with the other Book Notes in that section at Science Besieged. Email, comments here, or the Book Note submission form all work.*
- Tell two other people about The Science-Book Challenge.
[update: Melanie suggested a graphic to accompany the Science-Book Challenge, and the one shown above is what I came up with. The background is part of the Hubble Deep-Field Image, so those are real galaxies and nebulae; you'll have to take my word for it that the stack of books contains all science titles.]
[update / 20 January: The book challenge now has its own official page at Ars Hermeneutica where I can keep information sorted out about challengers, their books, and their book notes / reviews. Feel free to reference / respond to either one.]
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# Among those reasons: a) it increases diversity of outlook and opinion; b) it helps us expand our list faster and recommend more good but unknown books; and c) it helps us convince the IRS that our status as a public charity is well-deserved by demonstrating that we have broad-based community support.
* We can discuss copyright at that time. We ask at least for nonexclusive permission to use your note in our website project. For a range of possibilities, look at this book note.
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I welcome comments -- even dissent -- but I will delete without notice irrelevant, rude, psychotic, or incomprehensible comments, particularly those that I deem homophobic, unless they are amusing. The same goes for commercial comments and trackbacks. Sorry, but it's my blog and my decisions are final.
on Saturday, 12 January 2008 at 20.58
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Well, Jeff, how can I not join your challenge now?? This is actually a great idea; reminds me not to neglect more serious science-related reading while I'm wallowing in all that fiction!
on Saturday, 12 January 2008 at 21.47
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Melanie, I was sure I could pull you in if I played the hook real gently, but I am glad to hear that you'll take the challenge. Good luck!
By the way, I don't mind if you take the reading seriously, but the books you choose needn't be all that serious.
on Sunday, 13 January 2008 at 15.35
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[…] ic one, so in my 'rules,' it's allowed. It's called The Science Book Challenge and the rules are pretty simple. Read three science-y non-fic books this year, then […]
on Sunday, 13 January 2008 at 15.36
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I'm joining in the fun! I've talked about it in this post.
on Sunday, 13 January 2008 at 17.16
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Hi Jeff, Eva left me a comment about your challenge – and I've posted it to my blog A Novel Challenge…hope that will help you get interested participants!
Wendy
on Monday, 14 January 2008 at 07.31
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I posted about this Challenge on my blog, but have not yet made up my list.
Science Challenge
on Tuesday, 15 January 2008 at 04.22
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I too have joined in! Although I have not decided on the books, I have talked about your Challenge here.
I already possess a lot of science books. So it would be pick and choose. I will go for the TBR ones!
on Tuesday, 15 January 2008 at 04.28
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[…] nges, read lists — gautami tripathy @ 2:51 pm Tags: Science-Book Challenge 2008 Science-Book Challenge 2008 Read three nonfiction books this year related to the theme "Living a Ration […]
on Tuesday, 15 January 2008 at 07.32
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I posted my list here:
http://readingandmorereading.blogspot.com/2008/01/my-read-lists-for-various-challenges-i.html
on Saturday, 19 January 2008 at 21.23
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We need more challenges for non-fiction. Good idea. I'm in but my list isn't made yet. here is my list.
on Tuesday, 22 January 2008 at 19.15
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i am signing up. i don't know that i will post a list but i know i'll probably read some Michael Shermer, Richard Dawkins and maybe something by Carl Sagan.
http://tigermel.blogspot.com/2008/01/more-challenges-sigh.html
on Saturday, 2 February 2008 at 21.50
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I think I will do this, but not completely sure yet what I plan to read. I'll make a post when I read my first book. There is a Quirks and Quarks Book of Space coming out I hope to read, for starters. I also hope to read a book about String Theory.
I teach high school physics, so surely I can find another interesting and relevant book to read.
on Thursday, 17 April 2008 at 17.29
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I would like to join! Hope I'm not too late! :)
on Thursday, 17 April 2008 at 22.54
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Maggie, I can't really see how it can be too late until, maybe, late on New Year's Eve, but then we can always include those late readings in the 2009 challenge!
We're glad to have you aboard and to have your book notes, too. Everybody, go read Maggie's newest book notes. The links will appear on the 2008 Science Book Challenge page.