Saturday, April 14, 2012

Six notable books about science and tech

Jon Gertner grew up in Berkeley Heights, New Jersey—just a few hundred yards away from Bell Labs. He has been a writer for the New York Times Magazine since 2004 and is currently an editor at Fast Company magazine.

His new book is The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation.

One of Gertner's six favorite books about science and technology, as told to The Week magazine:
The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes

Rhodes describes America’s Manhattan Project in deep, deep detail. But this nonfiction masterwork moves briskly anyway — from the origins of the idea for nuclear reactions (on a London street corner) to the apocalyptic explosions in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Read about another book on the list.

The Making of the Atomic Bomb is on William Rosen's five best list of books about inventions and Michael Evans's list of six top books on nuclear war.

Gertner's The Idea Factory is one of the Barnes & Noble Review's five top books on innovation.

--Marshal Zeringue