The Best Book I Read This Year and VML reading recommendations

Looking for some recreational reading over the Winter Holiday? Check out the NCSU Libraries' The Best Book I Read This Year blog for suggestions with brief reviews from NCSU Libraries' faculty, staff, students and others. If you are looking for something you can pick up at the VML, how about these two recommendations:

The World of Caffeine , by Bennett Alan Weinberg and Bonnie K. Bealer. This wide-ranging "natural, cultural, and artistic history of our favourite mood enhancer" covers the history and science of the drug from Tea to No-Doz and everything in between. A perfect book to grab when you are looking to curl up with a hot mug of the caffeine delivery system of your choice.

Bird Brain: An Exploration of Avian Intelligence is an accessible yet rigorous new look at the avian mind by primatologist-turned-ornithologist Dr. Nathan Emery. Full of beautiful and informative illustrations, Bird Brain covers the earliest experiments in avian intelligence right up to the latest research into birds' cognitive capacity and offers insightful and surprising conclusions about how our feathered friends think, and what that means for our more general assumptions about animal (and human!) intelligence.