The history of particle theory is very concise, but sort of difficult to follow if you don't have at least a vague idea of what the Standard Model is going in. The problem with the book is that it's not terribly clear who it's written for. They take up roughly equal amounts of text, but the first part requires more effort to read, and the second part will sell more books. The second part is the polemical stuff that you read on the blog. There are basically two parts to this book: the first is a fairly breezy history of particle physics from the early days of quantum theory up to the present. I don't have a great deal to say about the book that other people haven't said already.
Peter has collected a bunch of links in various posts. Of course, I'm coming to the game kind of late, as lots of other high-profile physics bloggers have already posted their reviews, and various magazine reviews have been out for months. I got review copies of both, but Not Even Wrong arrived first (thanks, Peter), and gets to be the first one reviewed. The two most talked-about books in physics this year are probably a pair of anti-sting-theory books, Lee Smolin's The Trouble With Physics, and Peter Woit's Not Even Wrong, which shares a name with Jacques Distler's favorite weblog.
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