The Canon: A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science, by Natalie Angier

On the one hand, this is a great book; it really goes through all the things I learned (and forgot) in high school science. Molecules stick together because they share electrons! I totally forgot about that! She covers a lot of different hard sciences in a very accessible and understandable way.

ON THE OTHER HAND. The prose made me want to spork out my eyes. She's not funny, but she's trying really hard, and every paragraph has... Well. Here's an example.

...Finally, the sea floor proved to be remarkably tidy and light on sediment, considering how long it had been subject to a steady drizzle of debris from the land above -- posthumous plant and animal parts, sand, pebbles, mud, bones, shells, Naugahyde barstools, and 3,000 copies of Grand Funk Railroad's We're an American Band, still in their unopened jewel cases.

Did that make you roll your eyes? Imagine if every paragraph ended with something equally obnoxious. Or started with it:

I hate winter, the whole surgical tool kit of it: the scalpel cold, the retractor wind, the trocar dankness. I hate the snow, whether it's fluffy or virginal or doggy urinal...

Just. Knock it off. Science is plenty interesting without trying to cute it up all the time. 

It's a much better bet to go pick up Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything, if you want an overview, or some Simon Singh if you want physics, or some Dawkins if you want evolutionary biology. 

Grade: C

Originally posted 2008