The Great Indoors

        

The Great Indoors: The Surprising Science of How Buildings Shape Our Behavior, Health, and Happiness by Emily Anthes

Summary: A fascinating, thought-provoking journey into our built environment.

Modern humans are an indoor species. We spend 90 percent of our time inside, shuttling between homes and offices, schools and stores, restaurants and gyms. And yet, in many ways, the indoor world remains unexplored territory. For all the time we spend inside buildings, we rarely stop to consider: How do these spaces affect our mental and physical well-being? Our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors? Our productivity, performance, and relationships?

In this wide-ranging, character-driven book, science journalist Emily Anthes takes us on an adventure into the buildings in which we spend our days, exploring the profound, and sometimes unexpected, ways that they shape our lives. Drawing on cutting-edge research, she probes the pain-killing power of a well-placed window and examines how the right office layout can expand our social networks. She investigates how room temperature regulates our cognitive performance, how the microbes hiding in our homes influence our immune systems, and how cafeteria design affects what--and how much--we eat.

Along the way, Anthes takes readers into an operating room designed to minimize medical errors, a school designed to boost students' physical fitness, and a prison designed to support inmates' psychological needs. And she previews the homes of the future, from the high-tech houses that could monitor our health to the 3D-printed structures that might allow us to live on the Moon.

The Great Indoors provides a fresh perspective on our most familiar surroundings and a new understanding of the power of architecture and design. It's an argument for thoughtful interventions into the built environment and a story about how to build a better world--one room at a time. 

Angie’s comments: An overview of issues in indoor architecture and design. The ideas presented are interesting, and there are a wide range of topics addressed. This is more of an introduction, so this is not for people who want specific guidance for their indoor areas. 

Recommended for readers interested in the intersection of architecture/design and physical and mental health. 

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A Deadly Inside Scoop

       

A Deadly Inside Scoop by Abby Collette

Summary: In the charming town of Chagrin Falls, OH, Bronwyn Crewse dishes out sweet confections and solves mysteries from her ice cream shop.

Recent MBA grad Bronwyn Crewse has just taken over her family's ice cream shop in Chagrin Falls, Ohio, and she's going back to basics. Win is renovating Crewse Creamery to restore its former glory, and filling the menu with delicious, homemade ice cream flavors-many from her grandmother's original recipes. But unexpected construction delays mean she misses the summer season, and the shop has a literal cold opening- the day she opens her doors an early first snow descends on the village and keeps the customers away.

To make matters worse, that evening, Win finds a body in the snow, and it turns out the dead man was a grifter with an old feud with the Crewse family. Soon, Win's father is implicated in his death. It's not easy to juggle a new-to-her business while solving a crime, but Win is determined to do it. With the help of her quirky best friends and her tight-knit family, she'll catch the ice cold killer before she has a meltdown... 

Angie’s comments: The first in a new series, I was very entertained by the shenanigans of the Crewse family and their friends. Win as a character makes a lot of sense, focusing on her store and only investigating when her family might be involved. Humor is included. Ice cream recipes are at the end. For those looking for diversity in cozy mysteries, Win is African-American.

Recommended for readers who like cozy mysteries. 

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The Rules of Contagion

       

The Rules of Contagion: Why Things Spread - and Why They Stop by Adam Kucharski

Summary: From ideas and infections to financial crises and fake news, an "utterly timely" look at why the science of outbreaks is the science of modern life

These days, whenever anything spreads, whether it's a YouTube fad or a political rumor, we say it went viral. But how does virality actually work? In The Rules of Contagion, epidemiologist Adam Kucharski explores topics including gun violence, online manipulation, and, of course, outbreaks of disease to show how much we get wrong about contagion, and how astonishing the real science is.

Why did the president retweet a Mussolini quote as his own? Why do financial bubbles take off so quickly? Why are disinformation campaigns so effective? And what makes the emergence of new illnesses -- such as MERS, SARS, or the coronavirus disease COVID-19 -- so challenging? By uncovering the crucial factors driving outbreaks, we can see how things really spread -- and what we can do about it.

Whether you are an author seeking an audience, a defender of truth, or simply someone interested in human social behavior, The Rules of Contagion is an essential guide to modern life.

Angie’s comments: I found this fascinating, especially in light of COVID-19. There is a lot going on in this book, from diseases to social media to gun violence to the financial meltdown of 2008. However, the author explains the concepts using relatively plain language. 

Recommended for readers interested in just about everything. 

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The Remarkable Life of the Skin

       

The Remarkable Life of the Skin by Monty Lyman

Summary: A fascinating exploration of the skin in its multifaceted physical, psychological, and social aspects.

Providing a cover for our delicate and intricate bodies, the skin is our largest and fastest-growing organ. We see it, touch it, and live in it every day. It is a habitat for a mesmerizingly complex world of micro-organisms and physical functions that are vital to our health and our survival. It is also a waste removal plant, a warning system for underlying disease and a dynamic immune barrier to infection. One of the first things people see about us, skin is crucial to our sense of identity,providing us with social significance and psychological meaning. And yet our skin and the fascinating way it functions is largely unknown to us.

In prose as lucid as his research underlying it is rigorous, blending in memorable stories from the past and from his own medical experience, Monty Lyman has written a revelatory book exploring our outer surface that will surprise and enlighten in equal measure. Through the lenses of science, sociology, and history--on topics as diverse as the mechanics and magic of touch (how much goes on in the simple act of taking keys out of a pocket and unlocking a door is astounding), the close connection between the skin and the gut, what happens instantly when one gets a paper cut, and how a midnight snack can lead to sunburn--Lyman leads us on a journey across our most underrated and unexplored organ and reveals how our skin is far stranger, more wondrous, and more complex than we have ever imagined.

Angie’s comments: While full of facts, the book is engaging and fun to read. I learned so much about the skin and will be taking it less for granted!

Recommended for readers interested in biology.

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Death of a Wandering Wolf

      

Death of a Wandering Wolf by Julia Buckley

Summary: When Hana spots a rare porcelain wolf figurine at a local yard sale, she knows it's her lucky day. She also knows the wolf is valuable and tells the seller that he s charging too little for it. His reaction is peculiar he says he received the wolf from someone he doesn t trust and just wants it out of his life. When Hana inspects the figure, she finds a tracking device, and goes to confront the seller about it. But when she arrives at his house, she finds him dead. Hana must now hunt a calculating killer who has no intentions of crying wolf when it comes to murder...

Angie’s comments: You don't have to read the first in this series to enjoy this second book. The relationships between the family members and between Hana and her police boyfriend Erik are a highlight, and the mystery was even more interesting than the first book in the series. The sense of history and family is strong.

Recommended for readers who like cozy mysteries. 

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Ingredients

     

Ingredients: The Strange Chemistry of What We Put In Us and On Us by George Zaidan

Summary: George Zaidan explores the chemistry of almost everything that makes life comfortable, from freeze-dried potatoes and lipstick to baby wipes and Windex - what you should worry about and what you shouldn't. Sugar, preservatives, sunscreen, formaldehyde, cyanide (not to mention the substance that is 50 million times more deadly than cyanide), Oreos, the ingredients of life and death and nature itself, as well as the genius of aphids are all discussed in exquisite detail at breakneck speed, interspersed with footnotes and informative diagrams that will make you smile. You'll never think of chemistry the same way again!

Angie’s comments: This is not so much about ingredients themselves, or the food that we eat, but it is more an exploration about science. Zaidan looks at the type of studies that scientists use to look at nutrition and the different mistakes that can lead to erroneous conclusions. 

Recommended for readers interested in a look at how to do science. 

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Elemental

    

Elemental: How the Periodic Table Can Now Explain (Nearly) Everything by Tim James

Summary: If you want to understand how our world works, the periodic table holds the answers. When the seventh row of the periodic table of elements was completed in June 2016 with the addition of four final elements--nihonium, moscovium, tennessine, and oganesson--we at last could identify all the ingredients necessary to construct our world. 

In Elemental, chemist and science educator Tim James provides an informative, entertaining, and quirkily illustrated guide to the table that shows clearly how this abstract and seemingly jumbled graphic is relevant to our day-to-day lives. James tells the story of the periodic table from its ancient Greek roots, when you could count the number of elements humans were aware of on one hand, to the modern alchemists of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries who have used nuclear chemistry and physics to generate new elements and complete the periodic table. 

In addition to this, he answers questions such as: What is the chemical symbol for a human? What would happen if all of the elements were mixed together? Which liquid can teleport through walls? Why is the medieval dream of transmuting lead into gold now a reality?Whether you're studying the periodic table for the first time or are simply interested in the fundamental building blocks of the universe--from the core of the sun to the networks in your brain--Elemental is the perfect guide.

Angie’s comments: A humorous but insightful look into the periodic table and hwo the elements make up our lives. I love reading books about the elements, and I still managed to pick up a lot of information that I didn't know. 

Recommended for readers interested in chemistry.

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