Bring These Scientific American–Recommended Books to the Beach This Summer
If you’re seeking a summer read, Scientific American has some fantastic fiction and notable nonfiction to recommend.
Rachel Feltman: For Scientific American’s Science Quickly, I’m Rachel Feltman.
You might not know this, but Scientific American is a great place to go for book recommendations—and not just for nonfiction science titles either. Our team is packed with voracious readers, and we publish lists of our favorites at the end of each year. You can also get book recommendations every Friday in our daily newsletter, Today in Science.
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Bri, thanks so much for coming on to chat with us. Would you start by just telling our listeners a little bit about what you do at SciAm and, of course, how it involves books?
Bri Kane: Well, my day job is helping our contractors, writers and illustrators with their contracts and their invoices, but as everyone in the office knows, I’m constantly bullying people into reading more books and shoving books in their hand.
Feltman: [Laughs] Yes, and we love it. We love that you do that [laughs].
Some of our listeners who read Scientific American might already know that you can get awesome book recommendations from there—and not just nonfiction science books: we also talk about science fiction and just our favorite books of the year—so we thought we would have Bri on to talk about some exciting summer reads as a way to give you some stuff to read this summer but also introduce you to the concept of getting book recommendations from Scientific American, because our editors and reporters read a lot [laughs]. Our expertise is: we’re nerds [laughs]!
Kane: Yeah, I mean, Scientific American has been reviewing books for over 100 years. I’ve been spending a lot of time in our archive this summer in anticipation of our 180th anniversary this August, and we’ve had some really spicy takes on books over the years, and I’m really excited to offer listeners my own spicy takes on books now.
Feltman: Amazing, so why don’t we start with the more obvious Scientific American book recommendations, the low-hanging fruit: those, like, nonfiction science books that we just have to read this summer. What do you have to recommend to us in that department?
Kane: So the first one is Clamor by Chris Berdik. It’s a really interesting deep dive into sound and hearing in a whole new way, beyond just the decibel count: how loud our human nature is and how loud we are making nature. It’s a really interesting way to think about your own hearing, and as someone who is spending a lot of time on the New York City subway and trying to go to shows with my friends on the weekend, I’ve never been more aware of my long-term hearing health.
Feltman: Yeah, that sounds great. And I think if listeners wanna get a little bit more information before they read it, I believe you recently reviewed this one, right? Where can folks find that?
Feltman: So what else do you have for us today?
Kane: The next one is Empire of AI by Karen Hao. It’s a really buzzy book this year, but it’s really good. It’s an investigative reporter’s deep dive into how AI and the companies that have built it have sprung up so fast and are making millions of dollars. I need to catch up on what’s going on with AI in Silicon Valley, but this is a great one.
Kane: I’ve never been to Silicon Valley, but I still wanna know what they’re up to.
Feltman: [Laughs] So what other recommendations do you have?
Kane: I also wanted to recommend Waste Wars by Alexander Clapp. He spent two years living out of a backpack, traveling to the smelliest places of the most beautiful countries in the world, with hidden dump sites in jungles and millions of dollars being exchanged in black market economies just to move our garbage all around the world.
Feltman: Wow, that sounds great. Do you have any fiction to recommend?
Kane: There’s a lot of really exciting fiction coming out this year, but one I wanted to talk to you [about], Rachel, is Lucky Day by Chuck Tingle. I know we’re both big fans.
Feltman: I love Chuck [laughs].
Kane: Lucky Day, coming out in August, is shockingly funny, and it’s really scary. It’s very existential: What is the meaning of life, and if there’s no meaning in life, what’s my meaning, and where am I going? It’s really funny and really heartfelt in a way that Chuck Tingle can really handle: making you laugh and asking those big, existential questions.
Feltman: Yeah, I haven’t read that one yet. I know there are, like, ARCs floating around, and I’m, like, saving it, but I, I can’t wait. I love all of his other books, so really excited.
Kane: Yeah, another really weird and exciting fiction book out this year is Harriet Tubman: Live in Concert by Bob the Drag Queen.
Feltman: Yeah, that one sounds really interesting.
Kane: This one no one saw coming, but it’s such a great take on historical fiction. I don’t really read a lot of historical fiction, but I love the idea of taking a historical figure and bringing them to our modern world and [letting] the plot go from there. There’s a lot of real history in this book, but Harriet Tubman has really been put on a pedestal for so long, and she’s treated as a real person, with an incredible history and a searing, intense personality. It was so fun. This one is a great, really fast read—perfect for a beach day.
Feltman: That sounds great.
Kane: Another more interesting take on classic sci-fi is Metallic Realms by Lincoln Michel. It’s a really funny and cringey story about someone who desperately loves their best friend and just wants to join their really cool science-fiction writing group—except he can’t ’cause he’s not really a writer and he’s really annoying and weird. It’s so funny to be stuck in this protagonist’s head who just doesn’t understand why they are being the cringey one, but they love science fiction, and it’s a really creative version of the story within the story.
Feltman: Yeah, that one sounds really interesting.
Kane: And then for my own summer reading this year, I’m working on Octavia Butler’s Lilith’s Brood series. My book club made me read the first one, Dawn, and I absolutely fell in love. It’s a really brilliant and disturbing first-contact story. I’ve never really seen one that handles not only who am I when I interact with an alien, but what is humanity, and where does the line between human and alien blur once we start—copulating, I’ll say?
Feltman: Yeah, that series has been on my list for a long time. Over the last couple of years I finally picked up Parable of the Sower, also by Octavia Butler, and I was like, wow, I always knew this was a good book; everybody says it—it’s a great book, and I believed them, but it’s also so prescient, you know? Her speculative-fiction writing was just brilliant and forward-looking, so I’m also looking forward to reading more of her this summer, and you have inspired me.
Kane: Yeah, I mean, Octavia Butler is awesome. The hype is real. Like, if you haven’t checked her out yet, I really recommend checking out the backlist, and if you’re more of a straight science-fiction reader, I highly recommend Dawn and the Lilith’s Brood series; it’s really unique science fiction.
Feltman: Amazing, well, Bri, thank you so much for coming on and giving us these amazing recommendations. Would you remind our listeners where else they can find info on SciAm’s book lovers and the amazing stuff we do [laughs]?
Feltman: And I am also participating in making that list, so—I’m constantly behind on my reading assignments for Bri, but I [laughs], but I’m working on it.
And if listeners do wanna sign up for Today in Science, which they absolutely should, we’ll have a link in our show notes today.
Bri, thank you so much for coming on today.
Kane: Thanks for having me, Rachel. I can’t wait to see what you end up reading this summer.
For Scientific American, this is Rachel Feltman. See you next time!
Rachel Feltman is former executive editor of Popular Science and forever host of the podcast The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week. She previously founded the blog Speaking of Science for the Washington Post.
Brianne Kane is the editorial workflow and rights manager at Scientific American.
Fonda Mwangi is a multimedia editor at Scientific American and producer of Science Quickly. She previously worked at Axios, The Recount and WTOP News. She holds a master’s degree in journalism and public affairs from American University in Washington, D.C.
Alex Sugiura is a Peabody and Pulitzer Prize–winning composer, editor and podcast producer based in Brooklyn, N.Y. He has worked on projects for Bloomberg, Axios, Crooked Media and Spotify, among others.
Source: www.scientificamerican.com