Critical Mass wins Aventis

Philip Ball won this year's Aventis Prize for science writing. As usual, it's a great shortlist--on the have/ want scale, it scores perfectly. (Have three of the books on it currently, want all. Sigh. So many books, so little room.)


Critical Mass: How One Thing Leads to Another, by Philip Ball (William Heinemann)

The Ancestor's Tale, by Richard Dawkins (Weidenfeld & Nicholson)

Why Life Speeds Up As You Get Older by Douwe Draaisma (Cambridge University Press)

Matters Of Substance: Drugs - And Why Everyone's A User by Griffith Edwards (Penguin, Allen Lane)

The Earth: An Intimate History by Richard Fortey (HarperCollins)

The Human Mind by Robert Winston (Bantam Press/ Transworld Publishers)