A science book is a work of nonfiction, usually
written by a scientist, researcher, or professor
like Stephen Hawking (A Brief History of Time),
or sometimes by a non-scientist such as Bill
Bryson (A Short History of Nearly Everything).
Usually these books are written for a wide
audience presumed to have a general education
rather than a specifically scientific training,
as opposed to the very narrow audience that
a scientific paper would have, and are therefore
referred to as popular science.
As such, they require considerable talent
on the part of the author to sufficiently
explain difficult topics to
people who are totally new to the subject,
and a good blend of storytelling and technical
writing.
In the UK, the Royal Society Prizes for Science
Books are considered to be the most prestigious
awards for science writing.
In the US, the National Book Awards briefly
had a category for science writing in the
1960s, but now they just have the broad categories
of fiction and nonfiction.
There are many disciplines that are well explained
to lay people through science books.
A few examples include Carl Sagan on astronomy,
Jared Diamond on geography, Stephen Jay Gould
and Richard Dawkins on evolutionary biology,
David Eagleman on neuroscience, Donald Norman
on usability and cognitive psychology, Steven
Pinker, Noam Chomsky, and Robert Ornstein
on linguistics and cognitive science, Donald
Johanson and Robert Ardrey on paleoanthropology,
and Desmond Morris on zoology and anthropology,
and Fulvio Melia on black holes.
== Notable examples ==
The Best American Science and Nature Writing
– book series
The Best American Science Writing – book
series
The Best Science Writing Online 2012 – Scientific
American showcasing more than fifty online
essays
Popular Science (UK) – website on books
and authors
== 
See also ==
List of science magazines
