Best Reads 2022 at BCIT Library: Best New Books

"The Marriage Portrait is set during the Italian Renaissance. After Lucrezia de’ Medici marries Alfonso II, duke of Ferrara and real-life inspiration for Robert Browning’s poem “My Last Duchess,” she begins to think her life is in danger. Is it? The author’s historical note tells us yes, definitely." From NPR

"Young Mungo centers on a forbidden romance between two young men – one Catholic, one Protestant – and is full of pain and beauty." From NPR

"In Sea of Tranquility, Mandel summons up not one, but three fully realized worlds in three time periods. A ghostly violin playing in a vast forest, a hard-boiled detective who lives in a moon colony called the Night City and a virus that wipes out most of Earth’s population are some of the elements that give this novel its eerie luster." From NPR

In Chokepoint Capitalism, scholar Rebecca Giblin and writer and activist Cory Doctorow argue we’re in a new era of “chokepoint capitalism,” with exploitative businesses creating insurmountable barriers to competition that enable them to capture value that should rightfully go to others. All workers are weakened by this, but the problem is especially well-illustrated by the plight of creative workers.

An essential analysis of the modern science and technology that makes our twenty-first century lives possible--a scientist's investigation into what science really does, and does not, accomplish. We have never had so much information at our fingertips and yet most of us don't know how the world really works. This book explains seven of the most fundamental realities governing our survival and prosperity. From energy and food production, through our material world and its globalization, to risks, our environment and its future, How the World Really Works offers a much-needed reality check--because before we can tackle problems effectively, we must understand the facts.

Call #: RA 776.75 K46 2022
"Effortlessly distilling scientific theory into practical advice that we can apply to our everyday lives, Professor Kenny examines the impact that food, genetics, friendships, purpose, sex, exercise and laughter have on how our cells age." from The Royal Society

QH 366.2 G44 2023
"Life teems through Henry Gee’s lyrical prose – colossal supercontinents drift, collide, and coalesce, fashioning the face of the planet as we know it today. Creatures are engagingly personified, from ‘gregarious’ bacteria populating the seas to duelling dinosaurs in the Triassic period to magnificent mammals with the future in their (newly evolved) grasp. Those long extinct, almost alien early life forms are resurrected in evocative detail." From The Royal Society

"Considering how sex differences evolved, maternal and paternal behaviour, sexual orientation, and gender identity and the limitations of the gender binary, among other things, de Waal analyses our shared evolutionary history. He also explores differences between chimpanzees (male dominated and violent) and bonobos (ruled by females and peaceful) – and through this contrast opens up a thrilling new ideas about humans, as we consider what is similar and what sets us apart. Though there are observable parallels between us, in the uses of male and female networking groups, as well as sexual signals, the existence of gender non-conforming individuals and maternal bonds, humans stand apart in the development of nuclear families, the prevalence of sexual violence and joint parental care." From The Royal Society

QC 903 S76 2022
"Here, for the first time, climate scientist Peter Stott reveals the bitter fight to get international recognition for what, among scientists, has been known for decades: human activity causes climate change. Across continents and against the efforts of sceptical governments, prominent climate change deniers and shadowy lobbyists, Hot Air is the urgent story of how the science was developed, how it has been repeatedly sabotaged and why humanity hasn't a second to spare in the fight to halt climate change." From The Royal Society

"As head of the Wellcome Trust, Jeremy Farrar was one of the first people in the world to hear about a mysterious new disease in China – and to learn it could readily spread between people. A member of the SAGE emergency committee, Farrar was a key figure in both the UK and the World Health Organization at the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic amid great uncertainty, fast-moving situations and missed opportunities. Spike is his widely acclaimed inside story. His account casts light on the UK government’s claims to be ‘following the science’ and is informed not just by Farrar’s views but by interviews with other top scientists and political figures." From The Royal Society

Coming soon.
"Adam Sedgwick was a priest and scholar. Roderick Murchison was a retired soldier. Charles Lapworth was a schoolteacher. It was their personal and intellectual rivalry, pursued on treks through Wales, Scotland, Cornwall, Devon and parts of western Russia, that revealed the narrative structure of the Paleozoic Era, the 300-million-year period during which life on Earth became recognisably itself.
Nick Davidson follows in their footsteps and draws on maps, diaries, letters, field notes and contemporary accounts to bring the ideas and characters alive." From The Royal Society