Author: Jonathan Balcombe
Rating: 4 Stars
Review By: Shana

A wonderful book, shaking the reader out of any thoughts of fish as lesser beings and imbuing them with emotion and complexity. Balcombe's writing is energetic, and his synthesis of rigorous science and personal anecdotes makes this book a pleasure to read. While there has been an ever widening sphere of animals that humans recognize as having feelings and being worthy of concern and even respect, fish have stubbornly stayed outside that embracing regard. But Balcombe will jolt the reader out of the centuries old idea that fish are mostly senseless, with poor memories and not much of interest to humans. Just because they cannot emote in the ways most likely to grab our attention (namely, by whines and cries, due to their underwater habitat), this book opens up their world to us and is well worth any curious reader's time.

Author: Annie Jacobsen
Rating: 4 Stars
Review By: Shana

Another thorough job of historical reporting from Jacobsen. She has obviously closely studied de-classified documents and other sources to paint as complete a picture as possible of the United States' program to recruit Nazi scientists from Europe to work in the United States.  

Author: Rachel Herz
Rating: 3 Stars
Review By: Shana

Herz has written an interesting and immensely entertaining (though not for the faint of stomach) exploration of disgust. The book is fast moving, very readable, and is pretty close to un-put-downable. That said, this book falls solidly into the pop science camp and, unlike the best pop science, Herz does not fully back up her conclusions. 

Author: Svante Pääbo
Rating: 3 Stars
Review By: Shana

Reader beware, this was not the book I expected when I picked it up.  On the one hand, if you are in search of a fairly approachable, detailed explanation of the long and winding path (and the scientific and technical intricacies involved) that led to the sequencing of the Neanderthal genome, this is the book for you.   However, if (like I was) you are in search of a discussion of Neanderthals, their characteristics, and what their genome can tell us about both them and ourselves (homo sapiens), then this book will likely not deliver.