This page lists selected new nonfiction books -- pertaining directly to science fiction, fantasy, and horror, as well as books of associational interest -- seen published this month, mostly via bookstores sightings (or received for review).
Key: * = first edition, + = first US edition. Date with publisher info is official publication month; date in parentheses at paragraph end is date seen or received.
18 - 31 August
+ Calvino, Italo Why Read the Classics? (Pantheon 0-679-41524-6, $26.00, 10+277pp, hc, September 1999) First US edition (UK: Jonathan Cape 1999); published in Italian in 1991. Collection of literary essays, translated by Martin McLaughlin. The opening title essay offers fourteen successive definitions of what it means for a book to be a classic; following pieces consider examples from Homer and Ovid to Borges, Queneau, and Pavese. (Tue 24 Aug 1999)
* Horgan, John The Undiscovered Mind (Free Press 0-684-85075-3, $25.00, 325pp, hc, September 1999) The author of The End of Science offers another deliberately provocative, irreverent book, subtitled ''How the human brain defies replication, medication, and explanation''; challenging the numerous theories of mind by everyone from Roger Penrose to Steven Pinker, Horgan foresees that the science of mind is a puzzle destined to remain unsolved. (Tue 24 Aug 1999)
10 - 17 August
* Borges, Jorge Luis (edited by Eliot Weinberger) Selected Non-Fictions (Viking 0-670-84947-2, $40.00, 16+559pp, hc, September 1999) Collection of essays, lectures, and incidental pieces, many never before translated into English. Amazon page has Kirkus review. (Tue 17 Aug 1999)
* Gleick, James Faster: The Acceleration of Just About Everything (Pantheon 0-679-40837-1, $24.00, 324pp, hc, September 1999) The hurried pace of modern life, considered in 37 short chapters of about 8 pages each. With notes and index. (Mon 16 Aug 1999)
* Kluger, Jeffrey Journey Beyond Selene (Simon & Schuster 0-684-84765-5, $26.00, 314pp, hc, July 1999) ''Remarkable Expeditions Past Our Moon and to the Ends of the Solar System.'' A tour of what we know about the solar system's moons, with pictures and a handy appendix listing all their names and physical characteristics. (Wed 11 Aug 1999)
* Kosko, Bart The Fuzzy Future: From Society and Science to Heaven in a Chip (Harmony Books 0-609-60446-5, $25.00, 14+353pp, hc, September 1999) The author of Fuzzy Thinking and SF novel Nanotime considers the impact of fuzzy logic on technology and society. Eighty pages of notes (with many advanced mathematical formulae), index. (Mon 16 Aug 1999)
1 - 9 August
* Clarke, Arthur C. Greetings, Carbon-Based Bipeds!: Collected Essays 1934-1998 (St. Martin's 0-312-19893-0, $35.00, 558pp, hc, August 1999) Selection of nonfiction pieces from Clarke's career, over 100 essays, some very short. Reviewed in the August 1999 Locus by Gary K. Wolfe, who finds faults with the bibliographic references, and the book's misleading subtitle, but generally finds the book interesting; ''There's plenty of vintage Clarke here, but there are also plenty of scrapings and sweepings''. The first essay is about Lord Dunsany, whom Clarke greatly admired, and it quotes the just-reprinted The Charwoman's Shadow (see SF/F/H listings). (Mon 9 Aug 1999)
* White, Michael Weird Science (Avon 0-380-80505-7, $14.00, 12+419pp, tpb, July 1999) ''An expert explains ghosts, voodoo, the UFO conspiracy, and other paranormal phenomena.'' White, author of Asimov: The Unauthorized Life and other books, considers two dozen topics of pseudoscience and paranormal beliefs, examining the scientific basis (or lack thereof) for each. (Tue 3 Aug 1999)
