From the Pulitzer prize winner and best-selling author of WOMAN, a playful, passionate guide to the science all around us. With the singular intelligence and exuberance that made WOMAN an  international sensation, Natalie Angier takes us on a "guided twirligig  through the scientific canon." She draws on conversations with hundreds  of the world's top scientists, and her own work as a Pulitzer  Prize-winning reporter for The New York Times, to create a thoroughly  entertaining guide to scientific literacy. People magazine says "Angier  has that rare dual talent: a true passion for science combined with a  poet's linguistic flair." Those gifts are on full display in THE CANON,  an ebullient celebration of science that stands to become a classic. THE CANON is vital reading for anyone who wants to understand the great  issues of our timefrom stem cells and bird flu to evolution and global  warming. And it's for every parent who has ever panicked when a child  asked how the earth was formed or how electricity works. Angier's  sparkling prose and memorable metaphors bring the science to life,  reigniting our own childhood delight in discovering how the world works.  "Of course you should know about science," writes Angier, "for the same  reason Dr. Seuss counsels his readers to sing with a Ying or play Ring  the Gack: These things are fun and fun is good." THE CANON is a joyride through the major scientific disciplines:  physics, chemistry, biology, geology, and astronomy. Along the way, we  learn what's actually happening when our ice cream melts or our coffee  gets cold, what our liver cells do when we eat a caramel, why the horse  reveals evolution at work, and how we're all made of stardust. It's  Lewis Carroll meets Lewis Thomasa book that will enrapture, inspire, and  enlighten. Editorial Reviews From Publishers Weekly Science is underappreciated and undervalued in a world that thrives on  it. Pulitzer Prizewinning science reporter Angier sets out to bring the  basics of hard science (biology, chemistry, physics, etc.) into  listeners' everyday lives. Rather than returning to the doldrums of a  high school science class, she shows listeners where and how science is  happening in everything we do. Through her discussions with scientists  and her use of analogies, she makes the complex accessible. Doukas  delivers her performance in an energetic, soft and welcoming voice. She  emphasizes and paces so as not to overload her listeners as well as to  bring home Angier's points. Doukas's tone hints of excitement but also  sympathy for those listeners who may appreciate science but who have a  bit of angst for learning about it. With over 13 hours of listening,  though, this audiobook is best processed in small chunks. Angier covers a  lot in each chapter, but trying to grasp it all may take repeated  listening. Copyright Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From Bookmarks Magazine Pulitzer Prize-winner Natalie Angier (Woman: An Intimate Geography), a  science journalist at the New York Times, was writing an article on  whale genetics when her editor suggested that she define the term mammal  for her readers and confirm that mammals are animals. That was the last  straw for Angier, who nevertheless writes with respect for The Canon's  intended audience. She incorporates imaginative metaphors, concise  analogies, and jokes into her writing, which result in clear and  accessible explanations of complex ideas. A few critics were annoyed by  the scientific "sugarcoating" and the dizzying pace of the book, but  most were impressed by Angier's lucid prose and clever word play.