Here's a place to just say hello, if you'd like, before diving into the conversation.

Hi - I'm Susanna. Science isn't the majority of my reads (I think that's history), but I like to read it periodically.

Hi, I'm Jennifer and I love science, but until relatively recently I'd limited myself to periodicals - Discover from the time I was a 14 until they sold out to Disney (I was finding it hard to take the science seriously once Mickey owned the magazine - shallow, I know.) and NewScientist mostly. So I'm really looking forward to seeing what everyone is reading.

My father gives me Discover every year, and has for about 20 years. It's a nice ritual. It is OK right now, but used to be better.

Yes, I really loved getting it in the late 80's/early 90's. They had excellent writers that were very approachable for someone whose interest was Science, but not their profession.

NewScientist is currently my favourite, but since I moved to AU I can't justify paying $400 a year for what used to cost me $52 when I lived in the states. And I'm no good at keeping up with digital issues. Oh well, just have to find good books! :)

I remember getting Kids Discover when I was a kid, but sometimes I'll pick up a copy of Discover at my local used book store.

My dad gets me a subscription to National Geographic; he's done it since I was about fifteen. It's cool to know he's not the only one who does it.

My dad gets copies of American Archaeologist and Archaeology and gives them to me to read. As you can imagine, he was thrilled to pieces when I decided to study anthropology for my undergraduate degree and intend on specializing in archaeology when I get to grad school.

My family has always been very good about subscriptions. My grandparents got me National Geographic, my father Discover, and my mother Natural History (she saw Steven Jay Gould was writing for them every month - this was in the 70s - and was sold that this was a good publication for me). At this point I get Discover and Smithsonian (sometimes has sciencey things, sometimes not; good magazine).

I agree that Smithsonian is great; it's got a decent balance of science and history. It sounds like your family is very academically inclined. It surprises me because with half of my family, so much as holding a book is grounds for ridicule.

Hi, I'm Moe Shinola. I grew up reading about science and especially loved OMNI magazine. Had a lot of old Nat'l Geographics too. I try to be as informed as I can and maintain a skeptical attitude about things I see and hear from friends, on the internet, etc., while still being open-minded. I found out recently that it's possible to DL most back issues of OMNI for free(I'd give the URL, but I don't want to get this website in trouble).

Reply to post #8 (show post):
Boy howdy are we "academically oriented"! My parents are retired English professors, my stepfather's a retired professor of architecture/city & regional planning, my stepmother taught high school English, and my training is as a historian. We all have a magnetic attraction to books, though not always the same ones.

Reply to post #10 (show post):
That's unusual to me, because on one side of my family, we have an elementary school teacher (who was also one of the first women in my state to go to the university), a high school teacher, and an accountant who went on to become a high school economics teacher, while on the other side we have a few mechanics and welders, but that's about as far as it goes. My dad, who is an amateur historian and genealogist, was the one who taught me to read at three; unfortunately, he's also appalled at my desire to study archaeology through a more scientific lens than field archaeology.

My mother was the first to go to college on her side of the family; but her mother was smart as a whip, despite only finishing 8th grade (education was for boys).

Hi,

I am a retired academic who reads science along with lots of other stuff. I own a fair amount of popularized physics, but my favorite authors tend to be elsewhere: Steven Jay Gould, John McPhee (geology), Douglas Hofstadter (math/computer science). I also read a lot of philosophy of science in graduate school, and though I do not keep up with it anymore, it certainly influenced me a lot over the years.

Sorry to add another academic to the list, but I'm Joshua, an English professor teaching at a small university in Oklahoma. Though my doctorate was in the literature of the long eighteenth century (basically 1660-1820), hence the "long," I love books on science (geared toward the layman, perhaps) and read science fiction avidly (since that genre truly started in the eighteenth century!). I try to incorporate science of some sort into many of my classes, particularly first-year seminars, where I like to mix in astronomy, archaeology, and medical ethics. My wife has a degree in medical technology and works in a lab, so I get a smattering of 'real' science from her, but I do the best I can reading journals, books, and of course fiction that takes science to far-flung futures. I look forward to learning from this group and sharing my own discoveries.

Good evening,
I'm Alfredo, I'm new to BL, and I'm omnivorous. Science has always been my main interest. About half of what I read is science (I'll include history here).

About myself: I have a background in bio and geosciences, with a degree in historical geology and palaeontology from 30 years ago. Nowadays, and for the last 20 years, I've been working mainly as a museum technician and exhibition producer in contemporary visual arts. And yes, it can get a bit weird, sometimes...

Sciencewise, I still try to keep informed on what's developing. I'm a bit all over the place, but I suppose I have a major jones for all the historical sciences, from contemporary history all the way back through archaeology and into the precambrian. With a big side order of evolution theory and biomedical sciences. And then there's all the other sciences, including social ones. And fiction. And books about ...