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, anthology of various basic concepts important for understanding the larger scientific world, is Angier’s latest effort to win the public over.

Angier fondly recalls childhood days when science was not geeky or tedious, but fun and merely an exercise of curiosity about the world around us, and throughout her book, she attempts, quite successfully, to recreate that mentality, that science is fun.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist covers five scientific areas in her book — biology, chemistry, physics, geology and astronomy – and has interviewed a number of specialists in each field to provide her audiences with as well-rounded and insightful explanations of each topic as she can…without reading like a textbook.

Even though she provides a great deal of information in her book, Angier is able to continually engage her readers with her wit and sarcasm and without intimidating jargon. As a result, The Canon should prove enjoyable and readable to people of a wide range of scientific background.

One negative aspect of Angier’s writing, though, is that she tends to lose herself in her own excitement. I found on a couple of occasions that I would forget what she was talking about and have to skim back over the page just to make sense of what she had written. Regardless, I enjoy and appreciate her enthusiasm and did not find myself putting her book down because of it.

Because a cover-to-cover read may be a little too much, I especially like that the chapters are written to work independently of one another. That is, one doesn’t necessarily lead into the other. If I wanted to learn about astronomy, I could flip to the astronomy chapters of the book, ignoring calibration and biology for the time being, and easily comprehend the material without reading the other 150 pages.

The Canon is not meant to leave a reader well versed in the intricacies and details of any subject, but rather to stimulate some deeper interest in these topics or at least provide a basis.

I would recommend this book to anyone…scientist or no scientist. Angier is fun and upbeat in her writing and has an obvious passion for the subject matter. I learned a little bit from each chapter and think that any reader has something to gain from The Canon.

– Maegen Ionoff

“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, so they can better understand the articles they read in the science section of their daily newspaper.

Unfortunately, Angier falls short of connecting the art and science. In fact, her first chapter alienates part of her audience, including me, by telling a story about the time she chastised her sister for getting her kids interested in theatre and museums. Sure, science should be a very important aspect in every person’s life – but really—really? Considering her insatiable thirst for knowledge, you would think she would be happy for people who want to have a well-rounded knowledge base!
I expected more from Angier, a Pulitzer Prize winner, and science writer for the New York Times.

Angier has written what seems to me to be the romance novel of nonfiction science books. Even though there is some real substance in her book, it is overshadowed by her incessant use of – fluff. Perhaps she added the fluff to soften the blow of hard science, but she went too far. She insisted on adding overly complex analogies and anecdotes to make her point – a point that would have been much clearer if she just explained the concepts clearly and concisely.

The general concept of the book sounded great to me. It’s been a long time since I’ve been around hard sciences, and I thought it would be great to get a refresher course. She did an adequate job of explaining fundamental science concepts from a wide range of science fields such as probability, biological structures of organisms, and astronomy. But the distracting side stories made this sole strength, the only true objective of the book, lost on me. I was so annoyed and fed up with hearing personal anecdotes that I lost interest in what I was actually interested in – the science. And that’s what it’s all about, right?

To be fair to Angier, I never felt like this book was directed to me. I feel like this book was meant for an older audience that has long since lost its grade school science roots. It’s almost as if she is defending science against the nonbelievers – the people who see science articles in a periodical and brush it to the side since it’s ever changing.

I hate to end on a sour note, so maybe if you’re looking for a gift for a scientifically curious mind that also likes romance novels, this is perfect.

But if you are like me and would like to brush up on some old science concepts, do yourself a favor: Skip The Canon and pick up a good old science textbook.

–Jeff Maitland

In journalism we are taught to write with the reader in mind, Angier doesn’t forget that. Often I felt as though Angier was writing specifically to and about me.

I admit to being the type of person who avoids math and science at all cost. When hearing that someone is majoring in chemistry, physics or statistics, I always think, “Oh my, how smart that person must be to take such a hard subject." I now understand that with some patience anyone can love science and math. In fact, Angier’s book taught me that everyone should love science and math because it a part of everything we do.

Angier breaks down the components of each science so it is easy to understand, even for a science-phobe like myself. She makes sure to specify the point that science and math are everywhere in our everyday lives. To go through life with out science would be impossible. No one can afford not to understand science, it’s what makes up our lives, quite literally too!

After reading Angier’s book I know so much more about science. Angier breaks down every science from chemistry to geology. She explains antimatter and the structure of DNA, concepts that are daunting until, in Angier’s hands, it becomes obvious there is nothing to fear.

Because I read The Canon, I feel like I’m a better science writer. Not only did I learn a lot about the basics of science, but Angier’s writing style taught me a lot as well. I can elaborate more on the details of science and am more knowledgeable.

My only dislike about her writing was that the colorful style sometimes made it hard to understand basic concepts. There were a few times her wordiness got to be so much, I had to go back and reread the sentence just to get the main point.

I would recommend this book to anyone. People who have a background in science will appreciate Angier’s passion for the subject. Those not knowledgeable about science will understand much more after reading The Canon.

-Stephanie Pascarella

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 the case, it makes sense that when the sun and moon are in this position, one rises as the other sets. But how many of us have taken the time to think through that logic?

This example, given on the sixth page of the first chapter, is just one of thousands of scientific concepts explored in Natalie Angier’s The Canon: A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science. From the science we never thought about to the science we thought we kne, Angier capably marches through the nuts and bolts of the physical world in which we reside.

A Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for The New York Times, Angier fluently captures the many disciplines of science through the eyes of some of the best scientists in the world and eloquently relates them to the ears of their slightly-less-scientifically-inclined neighbors. The effect is an introductory-level college course in less than 300 pages that spans the spectrum in terms of breadth, and the globe in terms of expertise. What better way to learn science than from the top experts in each field while relaxing in the comfort of your own home?

Making science fun again is an arduous task, and Angier tackles it in two ways. First, by drawing on examples of interest to everyone, from hard-working parents to the rebellious teenagers they’re trying to raise, she readily captures her audience while still shoving some science in the backdoor. From explanations of how testing positive to a “95 percent accurate” HIV test can mean there’s really a 95% chance you’re virus free to discussions of the paradoxical demands of global warming to both decrease energy consumption and increase the use of your home’s air conditioning unit, Angier successfully brings the science to the reader, avoiding the potentially disastrous results of forcing the reverse approach.

Angier also adds her own flair to the book, letting her linguistic style flow freely in her second attempt to electrify science. In this endeavor, however, she is less triumphant. While her writing has the ability to titillate the mind, it can often be overly vivacious and detract from the science she is attempting to explain. She effectively clarifies some of the toughest concepts in science only to muddle them up again with verbosity and banter. In a book that stimulates the left sides of our brains so intensely, it may be best to give the right sides a break.

But despite her occasional lapses of loquacity, her enthusiasm for the subject matter is obvious and highly contagious. From students to professionals, historians to scientists, The Canon reaches everyone with everything anyone will ever need to know—and perhaps a few things we won’t—about science. In addition to the knowledge this book exposes, Angier does an outstanding job of portraying the essence of science: an attitude of inquiry. She answers hundreds of questions about science while simultaneously encouraging the reader to generate infinitely more.

Why do the leaves turn colors in the fall? Why does steam rise out of the sewers on those eerie winter nights? What are your chances of winning the lottery this lifetime with that single ticket you buy on your way home from work every day? Why is the moon in the middle of the sky in the middle of the day?

Science is everywhere. It governs the world in which we live, the way we develop, the way we live and eventually die. Rather than run away from the unknown, why not embrace it? Learn about it, and it will be less scary. Read Natalie Angier’s The Canon, and learning about it will be a less daunting task.