This review was first published by Booklist on June 14, 2024.

People are perennially fascinated by extremes. What’s the most massive object we know of? The fastest computer? The loudest sound? The longest-lived being? The coldest temperature? The biggest explosion? Darling serves up a fun, informative, and quirky overview of some fascinating science facts. He surveys physics, space, materials, technology, and the natural world, offering myriad examples of the extremes we’ve discovered in the course of our exploration of our universe. There’s something for everyone in this quick and engaging read. There may not be much new information here for existing science aficionados, he repeats a few examples in different subject sections, and he doesn’t go into much depth on any of them, but his delight in exploring this material is invigorating. Even inveterate science geeks should enjoy this time spent with fascinating facts. Ka-Boom! is most valuable as an ideal introduction to the science of extremes for people just starting out on their journey into the vast realms of scientific knowledge.

This review was first published by Booklist on December 22, 2023.

How to Win Friends and Influence Fungi is a selection of various Nerd Nite presentations collected in written form. As one would expect from Nerd Nite, these presentations range across a remarkable array of subjects, and they vary in length (although none is more than a handful of pages). The 71 essays collected here are loosely arranged into 11 topics (animals, space, math, bodily fluids, etc.) and span the gamut from stories of animal procreation to how cups of tea led to better scientific, experimental protocols to the multiple definitions of infinity. The appeal of Nerd Nites—people presenting information on subjects they’re passionate about—translates well into book form. It’s quirky, fun, engrossing, and informative. It’s a delightful collection! Perfect for existing fans of Nerd Nite, it also serves as an ideal introduction for anyone who may not have heard of these gatherings before. It should appeal to nerds and information lovers of all ilk, despite some salty language and subject matter.

This review was first published by Booklist on September 1, 2023.

Grace in All Simplicity traces the development of our current, standard model of physics from the earliest days of atomic theory to the development of particle physics to challenges of dark matter and energy. Cahn and Quigg highlight the many people who contributed to this history, alongside the technology that made it possible and the experiments that revolutionized our understanding of the universe. This isn’t a chronological account. By bouncing around the time line, they highlight the connectedness of the underlying concepts and the ways experiment and theory interact over time. There’s equal attention paid to theory, experiment, and technology. All are necessary to build our best scientific understandings. Theory requires experiment, technology enables new experiments, and experiments deliver results which require new theory. It’s all connected. While there’s no math, the content is very dense, chock-full of concepts and names of people and particles. Because this isn’t a chronological account, the dates can get muddled, but the payoff is a wonderful and engaging dive into the last century of revolutionary physics.

This review was first published by Booklist in July 2023.

**STARRED REVIEW** The history of math is typically taught from an exclusively Greco-Eurocentric perspective as a parade of great men. This significantly distorts reality. Mathematics has been invented in one form or another by every culture on Earth, and the exclusion of women and people of color from traditional narratives is particularly glaring. Kitagawa and Revell do an excellent job of broadening our view to the far more vibrant, collaborative, diverse, and interesting history. Different cultures developed the same ideas at different times, and there is no one inventor of any given idea. The foundations of calculus were discovered by mathematicians in India centuries before Newton or Leibniz were even born, for example, and binary notation has roots in the traditional hexagrams of the Chinese Book of Changes. The mathematics of different cultures were driven by different needs and values, and some of our biggest mathematical revolutions were fueled when these different traditions encountered and altered each other. Math, like all human endeavors, has been subject to politics, religious and cultural influences, and struggles for power and wealth. Mathematics is the most powerful tool humans ever invented, and this book is a welcome corrective to our understanding of how it came to be.