Fiction

which had, to my mind, an astonishingly high signal to noise ratio and entertainment value to boot. Though I am a math geek, I'm glad when an author doesn't have to appeal to that in a science writing situation. I'd say Simon Singh does well there, too.

Bernard Cornwell is such a natural storyteller, one of those authors who completely removes himself from the story. By that I mean his pacing and language and just the right degree of description seem to make the tale go from his brain to mine without stopping on the page in between.