Richard Dawkins, a British ethologist, evolutionary biologist and popular science author, has referred to Natalie Angier’s story book, The Canon, a Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science, as “an intoxicating cocktail of fine science writing.” Intoxicating, yes, but it’s less like a cocktail than it is a mug of hot cocoa.   Angier [...]

Photo credit Ever notice that a full moon rises just as the sun sets? Most of us are aware that the moonlight we see is actually sunlight reflecting off the moon so it makes sense that the moon is full when the sun is on the exact opposite side of the earth. And if that’s [...]

Natalie Angier’s The Canon is a great read. Every sentence is written with care and concern for the reader. Angier’s colorful and descriptive writing makes the book fun to read. She uses adjectives to bring science to life and is very successful in doing so. Her word choice and sentence structure compliment her personality well. [...]

“The great [people] of science are supreme artists.” – Martin H. Fischer Natalie Angier attempts to bring the art of writing and science together in her book The Canon: A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science. She’s written the book to get the general public up to speed on the fundamentals of science, [...]

  “Science is not a rigid body of facts. It is a dynamic process of discovery. It is as alive as life itself.” — Neil Shubin Where there is a science writing, Natalie Angier is at the forefront. In her book, The Canon: A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science, she not only [...]

Natalie Angier has made it her personal mission to educate the general public on scientific issues. It’s an unfortunate truth that science is one of those things that the majority of people just don’t know a lot about…and they don’t even try to learn. The Canon: A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science, [...]

It’s no small task appealing to the masses if you aren’t a television set—especially regarding the need-to-know issues of our time. No, these issues have little to do with celebrity memoirs or scoring a mate. What Natalie Angier wants everyone to know will make for better voters, smarter consumers, and less likely targets for sensationalism [...]

Natalie Angier loves science. Her passion for all things physical, chemical, biological, geological, and astronomical is clear on every page of The Canon. Unfortunately, her love for quirky phrases and personal commentary negate the universality of the book’s appeal. Simply, The Canon is an interesting read, but not a “one-stop science education” for everyone, as [...]

New York Times science writer Natalie Angier’s The Canon offers, in the words of the subtitle, a “whirligig tour of the beautiful basics of science.” She covers all of the beautiful basics in this book, from the atomic reasons why solids have so little give to the unexpected dynamism of our planet to why creationism [...]

Natalie Angier is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author. The Canon, A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science is a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice recipient as well as Amazon.com Best Science Book of the Year. Her other books include Natural Obsessions, The Beauty and the Beastly, and Woman: An Intimate [...]