“Perhaps it is because I was nearly born underwater.” The first sentence of Philip Hoare’s memorable study of whales points teasingly to an early affinity between author and subject. His mother began to feel labour pains while on a tour of a submarine in Portsmouth harbour. As a boy he lay awake at night listening to the “clanking dredgers” gouging a channel through Southampton Water for the liners and container ships.

But although the sea was a formative influence it was also a source of anxiety: “I have always been afraid of deep water.” School trips to Southampton’s municipal swimming pool did nothing to cure his fear. He only learnt to swim as an adult. But now he admits to feeling claustrophobic if he is far from the sea and, like Ishmael in Herman Melville’s epic novel Moby-Dick (1851), Hoare is “haunted” by the whale.

Read my review here and listen to Claire Armitstead's interview with the author at the Guardian.

This is the first paragraph:

"At 7.30 on the evening of April 24, 1913, President Woodrow Wilson pushed a button on his desk in Washington, DC, sending a telegraphic signal to New York where it set off an alarm bell in the engine room of a skyscraper and set in motion four mighty Corliss-type engines and dynamos. In an instant, some 80,000 incandescent bulbs flashed on, illuminating for the first time the world’s tallest skyscraper – the Woolworth Building. Thousands of spectators had gathered in City Hall Park and along lower Broadway to witness the dazzling electrical spectacle that marked the opening of this fifty-five-storey addition to New York’s skyline. On the New Jersey shore, people caught their breath as the tower appeared, shimmering against the night sky, a gleaming beacon of modernity visible from ships a hundred miles away. As the 792-foot tall skyscraper was bathed in electric light, the news was being transmitted from its pinnacle by Marconi wireless to a receiver on the Eiffel Tower. From there it was beamed around the world. This modern media event was, as one commentator said, 'the premier publicity stunt of this or any other day'. It was a fitting opening for what would become the most famous office building in the world."

Read the rest here.

A Nuclear Family Vacation: Travels in the World of Atomic Weaponry (Bloomsbury) is by Nathan Hodge and Sharon Weinberger, a husband-and-wife team of US defence reporters turned nuclear tourists. Rather than relaxing on the Florida beach for their holidays they travelled the world in search of nuclear sites. It's an entertaining and informative read with an important conclusion. The whole "nuclear weapons complex", costing billions of dollars a year, is an enterprise that has "lost its way". According to Hodge and Weinberger, it may be time for the US to think the unthinkable and "explore practical options for eliminating the nuclear arsenal". Read more in my review for the Guardian.

Also in the Guardian are a couple of paperback reviews.  Follow the Water: Exploring the Sea to Discover Climate (Basic Books) is an excellent introduction to oceanography by novelist and keen sailor Dallas Murphy. At nearly 900 pages, Cosmos: An Illustrated History of Astronomy and Cosmology by John North (Chicago) is a suitably monumental book about the biggest subject of all. First published in 1993 and now updated and reissued with many beautiful illustrations, this is a definitive history of our love affair with the stars.

Last but by no means least - because believe it or not this book is actually bigger than Cosmos - is the Chambers Dictionary of Science and Technology (Chambers). At over 1370 pages and a full 7 cm thick, this weighty tome is a must-have addition to the library of any science buff, fact checker, word lover, or wannabe contestant of University Challenge. Read my full review, intriguingly titled "Shish-kebab with a spud", in this week's Times Literary Supplement (August 15, 2008).

In his own day, Haeckel was a hugely controversial figure and a hate-figure for many Christians because of his relentless harrying of their beliefs. Historians have savaged Haeckel's reputation and Richards accepts that he was “a man of contradictions”, a driven character and a divisive figure.

But Richards succeeds brilliantly in re-establishing Haeckel as a significant scientist and a major player in the history of evolutionary thought. Richards is particularly good at tracing the origins of Haeckel’s “Romantic evolutionism”. As the author of an earlier and equally impressive study of how Romanticism shaped biological thought in the first half of nineteenth century, The Romantic Conception of Life (2002), Richards is ideally qualified for this task.

Before World War I, more people learned about evolutionary theory from Haeckel than any other source, including Darwin’s own writings. In The Descent of Man, Darwin himself praised one of Haeckel’s books, saying “if this work had appeared before my essay had been written, I should probably never have completed it.” Richards portrays Haeckel as an unjustly forgotten genius, a figure of “startling creativity, tireless industry, and deep artistic talent”. Richards argues that Haeckel was Darwin’s “authentic intellectual heir”.

You can read my review in this week's TLS (25 July), or read a longer version here.

I've just reviewed Timothy Boon's excellent Films of Fact: A History of Science in Documentary Films and Television for the Times Literary Supplement. You can read my version here.

The book accompanies an exhibition at the Science Museum. More about that here.

Both are well worth reading. Williams' book sent me back to Wells' novel When the Sleeper Wakes (1899). I'd forgotten what an extraordinary book it is.

The review is not yet online, but you can read my version of it here.

Unfortunately, the TLS haven't put it online yet, but if you're feeling in the mood for some blue sky thinking then you can read my version here.