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On December 1, Booklist published a feature by Donna Seaman naming the Top 10 Sci-Tech Books: 2009.

Here is a selection of this year's most significant and intriguing Sci-Tech books available in Harford County Public Library:

Grace Hopper and the Invention of the Information Age by Kurt W. Beyer (Find this book in our catalog) " Hopper made herself "one of the boys" in Howard Aiken's wartime Computation Laboratory at Harvard, then moved on to the Eckert and Mauchly Computer Corporation. Both rebellious and collaborative, she was influential in male-dominated military and business organizations at a time when women were encouraged to devote themselves to housework and childbearing. Hopper's greatest technical achievement was to create the tools that would allow humans to communicate with computers in terms other than ones and zeroes. This advance influenced all future programming and software design and laid the foundation for the development of today's user-friendly personal computers." (catalog summary)

On Thin Ice: the changing world of the polar bear by Richard Ellis (Find this book in our catalog) "As global warming threatens the ice caps' integrity, the polar bear has come to symbolize the peril that faces all life on Earth. Here, the acclaimed science writer Ellis offers an impassioned and moving statement on behalf of polar bears--and all they stand for." (catalog summary)

The Sound of Wings: the life of Amelia Earhart by Mary S. Lovell (Find this book in our catalog) " This definitive biography of aviation legend Amelia Earhart delivers a brilliantly researched report on Earhart's life--from her tomboy childhood and early fascination with flying, her peculiar business/matrimonial realtionship with publisher G.P. Putnam to her consuming quest for avaiation fame." (catalog summary)

The Strangest Man: the hidden life of Paul Dirac, mystic of the atom by Graham Farmelo (Find this book in our catalog) "Paul Dirac was among the great scientific geniuses of the modern age. One of the discoverers of quantum mechanics, the most revolutionary theory of the past century, his contributions had a unique insight, eloquence, clarity, and mathematical power. His prediction of antimatter was one of the greatest triumphs in the history of physics. One of Einsteinrsquo;s most admired colleagues, Dirac was in 1933 the youngest theoretician ever to win the Nobel Prize in physics.Diracrsquo;s personality is legendary. He was an extraordinarily reserved loner, relentlessly literal-minded and appeared to have no empathy with most people. Yet he was a family man and was intensely loyal to his friends. His tastes in the arts ranged from Beethoven to Cher, from Rembrandt to Mickey Mouse.Based on previously undiscovered archives, The Strangest Man reveals the many facets of Dirac's brilliantly original mind. A compelling human story, The Strangest Man also depicts a spectacularly exciting era in scientific history." (catalog summary)

The Wolf in the Parlor: the eternal connection between humans and dogs by Jon Franklin (Find this book in our catalog) "A man and puppy exhumed from a 12,000-year-old grave sends a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning science writer on a journey to understand the human/canine relationship." (catalog summary)