One clean breath ...

Oxygen may not strike you as a lively protagonist for a book. Think again. In Gasp! The Swift & Terrible Beauty of Air (Shoemaker & Hoard, $26) a masterfully inventive biography of air, Joe Sherman weaves between geology and history, myth and science, to retrace our understanding of life's most precious gas. From the Ionian philosophers of ancient Greece to the eccentric chemists and scientists who tested daringly with air through the Renaissance, Enlightenment and Industrial eras, Sherman invokes a lively, little-known chapter in Western history. He also explores myths in Hindu, Maori and Viking culture, showing the ways societies tried to make sense of the invisible gas that surrounded and sustained them.

In GASP!, Sherman--whose nonfiction book on General Motors, In the Rings of Saturn, was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize--blames the auto industry, weak government policies and America's obsession with cars as key factors tilting the scales of climate change towards disaster. But "myth came before science and will outlast it," he writes in a vaguely hopeful, meditative tone. After narrating a 20th century atmosphere filled with germ warfare, radioactive pollution, smog and global warming, hope is about all we have left. Read this timely homage to air--and make sure you take a few deep breaths.