The Canon: A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science,   ISBN:9780547053462

Customer Rating: 

This is a cutesy book, redolent with cocktail-party conversation and literary stylishness. It doesn't offer much to the curious reader. The author is constantly interrupting the writing with her sparkling metaphors. Stop it!

I did like the bit where she explores why the universe is rational. In fact, the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics is one of the ultimate puzzles. After all, why SHOULD the universe be understandable? Creation is non-random; it is mathematical. I believe in The Creator; that exploration saves the book from going in the trash can - I'll at least donate it to the Library Friends book sale.

I wish I had saved myself the trouble and time spent reading this book. James Trefil's 101 Things You don't Know About Science (And No One Else Does Either) is far superior.

Customer Rating: 

What a great idea behind this book, and what an opportunity squandered by the author, who would rather show off her knowledge and sad attempts at wit than present scientific ideas in a clear, simple, and engaging manner! If anything, this book is the very opposite of clear, simple, and engaging. It is totally awful and I am very disappointed since I think our science-phobic mass culture needs the kind of book which this one claimed, and utterly failed, to be. The cutesy-girly style also made me squirm -- eeeww!

Customer Rating: 

I read Natalie Angier in the NY Times whenever I can, and this book is the best of the best. It makes science fun! Get it

Customer Rating: 

This book provides an introductory overview of contemporary scientific understanding, apparently aimed at people who have a limited background in science.

As such, Angier's treatment is neither rigorous nor systematic, and many key topics in the "the canon" recieve little or no mention. In other words, the level is well below university science courses, and perhaps closer to middle-school level. Despite these limitations, Angier still manages to convey quite a lot of information, and she does it reliably. I even learned some things, despite having a strong science background. Moreover, I thought the earlier chapters dealing with scientific methodology, statistics, etc. were a nice touch.

That's the positive. The biggest negative is that Angier's writing style is excessively cutesy and flowery due to her incessant use of analogies, metaphors, and jokes. I found the analogies and metaphors to be more distracting than helpful, and I found the jokes to be more corny than funny. She was overzealous and should have realized that adult readers of a book like this will already be interested in science, so she needed to just cut to the chase.

Considering all of this, perhaps I can still recommend this book to readers with a limited science background, particularly readers who don't mind the writing style (I suggest reading some samples of the text to judge that). But for everyone else, this might be a book to skip. Some alternatives to consider are as follows (in roughly increasing order of sophistication):

- Science Explained: The World of Science in Everyday Life (Henry Holt Reference Book)
- Natural Science: Bridging the Gap, 5e
- The Age of Science: What Scientists Learned in the Twentieth Century
- Magic Universe: A Grand Tour of Modern Science
- Scientific American: Science Desk Reference
- The Scientific Companion: Exploring the Physical World with Facts, Figures, and Formulas (Wiley Popular Science)
- The Ascent of Science

Customer Rating: 

I should have known that this book was going to be horrible with the word "whirligig". I agree with all the other reviewers that this book is horrible. If you want to dazzle people with the wonders of science read Survival of the Sickest: A Medical Maverick Discovers Why We Need Disease