Our staff’s favorite books of the year reflected on the role of science in some of society’s most pressing problems, from artificial intelligence to childhood trauma to river restoration. Did we miss your favorite? Let us know at feedback@sciencenews.org.
rehabilitation
Walter Shoshana
Simon and Schuster | $29.99
In a journalist’s exposé of America’s drug treatment centers, stories from people who participated in rehab programs reveal how barriers to access and sometimes unethical practices can impede recovery from addiction.
Read our review | Buy rehabilitation from library.org
shadows in light
Teresa Betancourt
Harvard University. | $35
A long-term study followed the lives of children forced to fight in Sierra Leone’s civil war from 1991 to 2002. The research revealed the effects of trauma on their psychosocial development and the factors that have helped some former child soldiers recover.
Read our review | Buy shadows in light from library.org
Black religion in the asylum
Judith Weisenfeld
New York University Press | $35
After the abolition of slavery and the American Civil War, white psychiatrists pathologized black religious practices as mental illnesses. A historian of religion examines how these racist views shaped the burgeoning field of psychiatry.
Buy Black religion in the asylum from library.org
Salmon Canyon and the Levitating Frog
Carly Anne York
Basic Books | $30
An animal physiologist argues for the value of basic science: Curiosity-driven research that seeks to understand how the world works may not always have predictable applications, but could lead to unexpected benefits.
Read our review | Buy Salmon Canyon and the Levitating Frog from library.org
It’s all tuberculosis
Juan Green
Intensive course books | $28
Tuberculosis is one of the deadliest infectious diseases in the world despite available treatments and cures. In an examination of the medical and social history of the disease, a famous author exposes how modern social injustice sustains it.
Read our review | Buy It’s all tuberculosis from library.org
The water remembers
Amy Bowers Cordalis
Small, brown and company. | $30
An attorney and member of the Yurok tribe recounts her family’s role in the fight to remove dams from the Klamath River in the northwest United States. The Indigenous-led effort to restore the river’s ecosystems culminated in the world’s largest dam removal project to date.
Read our review | Buy The water remembers from library.org
A year with the seals
Alix Morris
Algonquian books | $30
Seal populations in North America have recovered from the brink of extinction over the last century. A science journalist investigates how the growing number of seals has caused tension in coastal communities.
Read our review | Buy A year with the seals from library.org
The Martians
David Baron
right of life | $29.99
Reports of “canals” on Mars in the late 19th and early 20th centuries sparked a frenzy about the possibility of intelligent life there. A journalist recounts how the canal theory infiltrated the public consciousness and shaped astronomy.
Read our review | Buy The Martians from library.org
More everything forever
Adam Becker
Basic Books | $32
Tech billionaires imagine a future where humanity, served by super-intelligent AI, lives in an ever-growing society in outer space. This science fiction future, although seductive, is implausible and ethically complicated, maintains a science journalist.
Read our review | Buy More everything forever from library.org
Tales of militant chemistry
Alicia Lovejoy
California Press Univ. | $27.95
A media and cultural historian reveals how film giant Kodak used its chemical engineering expertise to support American weapons manufacturing (including the creation of the first atomic bombs) during both world wars.
Read our review | Buy Tales of militant chemistry from library.org
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