I promised that if the health-care bill passed I would hold a contest for an autographed hardback edition of WEIT. So here it is—I’m hoping to glean your minds for some good reading over the next few months.
Please recommend one nonfiction book that you think everyone should read, and explain in no more than three sentences why we should read it. The book need not be about science, though those entries are welcome too. The only books excluded from this contest are mine and Darwin’s Origin, which has been done to death.
Entries will be judged on both the suggested book and the sales pitch. Take your time, since the deadline is one week from today (April 23) at 5 pm. Please put your entries as comments on this thread. Participation will, I think, benefit all of us.
UPDATE: You can recommend a book that was already mentioned if you give your own justification for why it’s worth reading. It’s probably better, though, to choose a book different from those already chosen.
IMHO the best science book written is Sagan’s “The Demon Haunted World”, it attacks pseudoscience and asks why people would believe the most outlandish explanation when a simpler one always suffices.
“A History of Rome” – Theodor Mommsen
Rome is the greatest empire that ever was and ever shall be and it is with her, The City upon the Tiber, where our story, the story of modern civilisation, begins. Her’s is a glorious and turbulent tale, all the more fascinating for it tells of the origin of our world, how in blood, despair and triumph she changed the fate of humanity. Mommsen was one of the greatest scholars of the classical world and it shows, for his prose flows and rushes, precise and alive, utterly engaging and a true joy to read.
“The Guns of August” by Barbara Tuchman
One thing we learn from history, is that we don’t learn from history. I’ve probably read this book a 1/2 dozen times & am reading it again. Exceptionally insightful & well written
“How to Attract the Wombat” by Will Cuppy.
Because, whether you’re 6 or 60, it will make you laugh, learn, and love biology just little bit more.
And it is a great book to read aloud, just ask my son or my students.
The book The Men Who Stare At Goats by John Ronson is a must-read for anyone seeing how much human credulity can be pushed. The success of the narrative is that without being overtly critical, it tells the personal tale that is so often neglected when confronting such absurdity. It’ll make you laugh, it’ll make you cry, it will make you want to throw the book in disbelief, but most of all it will make you glad you read it.
Finite and Infinite Games by James Carse.
It’s a kind of concise philosophical poem.
“To be prepared against surprise is to be trained. To be prepared for surprise is to be educated.”
Ever wonder why our memory sometimes fails us, or why we often believe things that aren’t true yet disbelieve things that are? Curious as how we spend (and why we waste) our money, how we make choices, what makes us happy and why on earth can’t money buy happiness?
“Kluge” by Gary Marcus; learning about the haphazard evolution of the human mind has never been more fun!
I have to nominate:
Dr. Tatiana’s Sex Advice to All Creation:
The Definitive Guide to the Evolutionary Biology of Sex
by Olivia Judson
A wonderful, funny and deeply informative book about the wierd and wonderful creatures that inhabit the world and the facinating, odd and sometimes disturbing ways in which they procreate. I cannot recommend this book higly enough for its sparkeling prose, deep erudition, scientific accuracy and accessibility to the lay reader – plus it is genuinely funny.
I would also suggest that people look up her columns in the New York Times – a wide-ranging look at biology accessible to just about anyone but deep enough to satisfy.
I forgot to mention that there is a television program of this that is delightfully psychadelic. I saw it on French TV one New Years eve and have been desperately looking for it ever since. If anyone knows where I might be able to get hold of it I would be very grateful.
Coming Plague by Laurie Garrett.
This is simply the strongest book I’ve ever read that tries to point out the way humans have tampered with our environment to our own detriment, but without some of the preaching and moralizing that characterized a work like “Silent Spring.” Bringing real-life horrors home with gusto, Garrett cites everything from Ebola to Legionnaire’s Disease in subtly digging at humanity’s affinity for unconscious self-destruction with nature’s tools. This is a book that will shock you, scare you and entertain you, but moreover it will leave you with a sense of a world badly in need of correcting; perhaps you’ll join me in Infectious Disease research?
“Remembering Satan” by Lawrence Wright tells the true story of Paul Ingram, a Washington State deputy sheriff, Republican county leader and Pentecostal christian, who confessed to the satanic sexual abuse of his two daughters following accusations made by them after they attended a Christian girls’ camp. Both Ingram and his daughters appear to have been convinced that abuse could take place and be forgotten by both victim and perpetrator and although he later retracted his confession, he was convicted and jailed for twenty years.
The moral panic about satanic abuse led to claims of the sexual abuse and ritual murder involving many thousands of children in the complete absence of physical evidence, and the book raises disturbing questions about the nature of memory and our collective vulnerability to such witch hunts.
Evolution: What the fossils say and why it matters by Donald R. Prothero. This book opened up a whole new world of fossils for me. Prothero writes so distinctly and vividly that animals like Ambulocetus and Ichthyostega really come to life. This book provides basic knowledge of fossils and controversy between science and creationism so it’s a must read for everyone.
Prothero’s book is especially useful in arguing with a few YECs where others were watching. The section on the Grand Canyon on its own being pretty much enough to show to onlookers that the YEC is out to lunch. Of course, the odds of persuading a YEC who’s prepared to argue the position are slim, but the onlookers may be persuaded.
Carl Sagan’s “The Demon Haunted World–Science as a Candle in the Dark”
This book changed my life, transforming me from a passive participant in applied science to a passionate promoter of science for the public good. If we want to create a new generation that will understand the value of science in the broadest sense, i.e. knowledge based on reason and evidence, we should have every high school senior read this book.
In principal I, of course, agree. But you know what I think is even more important? Teaching children to recognize greatness when it stands before them and humble themselves when they encounter it.
~Rev. El
I’m going to recommend the Holy Bible since it has the ability to transform everyone’s lives like it did mine. God wants to prove his existence to you, he just needs you to give him the chance. If you find yourself repulsed by this idea, I would urge you to ask yourself why. Thanks for letting me comment!
This contest is limited to nonfiction, so we have to rule out the Bible.
Being untrue wouldn’t make a work fiction, the authors would have to believe it to be untrue and there’s no basis for that as a general thesis about the Bible.
And, if being untrue, though believed true by it’s author(s) at the time, turned a work into fiction, then every superseded work of science would become fiction after the fact.
Mmmm…I’m not sure. I don’t think a book about astrology should make the cut. I think the bible is in the same category.
It’s simply that the fiction/non-ficiton categorization isn’t the same as the true/not-true categorization.
@Mike from o: The Bible IS fiction. You write that “the authors would have to believe it to be untrue and there’s no basis for that as a general thesis about the Bible”, but most most serious scholars (even believers) think exactly the opposite.
“The Price of Altruism”* by Oren Harman.
A well-written biography about a man who is largely unheard of outside population genetics. An eccentric genius who made huge contributions to evolutionary genetics despite no formal training, and who’s life outside his scientific work was intriguing, inspiring and ultimately tragic.
*Note: I read an advance copy of he book (it hasn’t been released yet).
I guess I should probably include that the name of the man this book is about (at least for those who have never heard of him before): George Price. :p
The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings by Bart D. Ehrman
I recommend this book to believers (particularly fundamentalists) and non-believers alike. It is an excellent scholarly introduction to the most “human” of books. Christian beliefs and the denial of Evolution often go hand-in-hand and educating Christians about their own book and its history is important.
Misquoting Jesus by Bart D. Ehrman delivers a fascinating introduction to literary criticism and a deep understanding of why all Christians should question their beliefs. A devastating expose’ of New Testament origins, it makes the assertion and backs it up that there are more mistakes in the New Testament than there are words in the New Testament. Bart Ehrman’s mastery of Greek, Latin, and history show what a mash up of stories and fables the New Testament is.
Richard Preston: The Hot Zone
This is a story about one the most fearsome killers on earth, the Ebola virus. It traces its possible origin in a cave in central Africa to a real-life near-outbreak in Reston, Virginia, just a couple of miles outside Washington, DC. If you don’t believe that this could be the scariest real-science story you will likely come across, consider this blurb: “One of the most horrifying things I’ve ever read”—says Stephen King.
And of course Laurie Garrett’s The Coming Plague – I’ve been re-reading that off and on lately, by way of soothing bedtime reading.
Thanks for the suggestion, Ophelia. I immediately went and bought it. 🙂
I completely agree with Richard Preston: The Hot Zone.
I am not one that is easily frightened. I don’t think I’ve ever really been scared by a book or a movie. The one exception to this is The Hot Zone, which is terrifying at times, fascinating at others, but always enthralling.
Yes! The Hot Zone was a fantastic page-turner. It inspired me to read Preston’s The Wild Trees which was also excellent.
To be honest, I’m not sure either qualifies as a book that everyone should read, but they were both immensely enjoyable.
And by the way, thanks to Jerry for starting this thread and to everyone who contributed. This thread has been like a gold mine for me; I feel like I’ve won without really entering the contest.
And quite a gold mine for Amazon, if my compulsive behaviour viz-a-viz interesting books is any indication of a general trend here … ;>
I would recommend “The Philosphy Gym” by Stephen Law which deals with a wide range of common philosophical questions. It is easily read and if everyone did so, we would have more people seeing the benefits of thinking rationally. Although this book is not ground-breaking stuff, it would have a great impact on the widest audience.
I already said The Origins of Virtue, by Matt Ridley, but I can’t help adding, for anyone who hasn’t read it, The Beak of the Finch by Jonathan Weiner is an absolute must. A well written account of studying evolution in real time, with real data, on an organism which is neither bacteria nor fruit fly. I recently re-read it on a yacht named the Beagle while sailing, snorkeling, and hiking in the Galapagos Islands – one of the highlights of my life.
Beautiful pick…
On Liberty by John Stuart Mill. This book is to political philosophy what Sagan’s Demon Haunted World is to science. It gives a brief but compelling argument in defense of individual liberty that is as relevant today as it was a century and a half ago when it was published.
Here, here! This is definitely a “don’t dare die before reading this book” book.
Prof. Coyne:
I’ll offer you the best book that you’ve probably never heard of: Hazel Barnes’s “Humanistic Existentialism: The Literature of Possibility” (University of Nebraska Press 1959), which is, unfortunately, out of print, but still available used through Amazon. Barnes was the first translator of Sartre into English, and Yale Review said this of her book: “The book captures much of the forlorn grandeur of the existentialist vision of the human condition.” Barnes spent her academic career at the University of Colorado and I’ve long wished that a publisher would rediscover her—she writes beautifully and profoundly—and bring her back into print for agnostic and atheist readers in the 21st century.
Best,
Santi
“The Reformation: A History”
by Diarmaid MacCulloch
On first blush, Reformation histories (correctly) read like an open advertisement for the separation of church and state. As it turns out, there’s much more to the Reformation than this. It’s this historical period where important historical and ideological trends take shape that help catapult Europe along a trajectory culminating in the Enligtenment and eventually in large swaths of the present-day world rejecting religion all together (e.g. Marxist/Communist countries and western Europe).
‘Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds’, by Charles Mackay.
When I found and read this book last year, it was as if the author had decided to write it in response to the Global Financial Crisis. In fact, it was written more than 150 years prior. It contains example after excellent example of how populations can, with no good evidence, become so credulous (with respect to money, politics, religion… etc.) just because everyone else seems to be acting the same.
This is definitely a classic, and justifiably so, but … I found it tediously overlong as a read. A good summary would do.
Just an unsolicited opinion, of course …
That’s fair enough… But I still think everyone should read it. 😉
I’d also recommend Michael Specter’s “Denialism How Irrational Thinking Hinders Scientific Progress, Harms the Planet and Threatens Our Lives” (just the title saves me from having to think up a reason). The good thing about this book is that it’s actually optimistic, instead of the usual pessimism.
Could someone put out a list of the recommenations so I can buy a copy of each when the competition is over?
Wayne:
If you like critical thinking texts, you might also like “How to Think about Weird Things” (by Schick and Vaughn). It’s a popular college text, in its sixth edition, and is exceptional.
—Santi
Well, Wayne, you could do it.
If people don’t mind my using their words, I can make a list on my blog –there’s a recommended science books page anyway. Or I can do it without the recommendations.
Or Prof. Coyne could do it and keep the traffic for his blog. That sounds like a good idea.
Rites of Spring: The Great War and the Birth of the Modern Age by Modris Eksteins explains the cultural shifts produced by WWI in flowing, insightful prose.
Blowback by Christopher Simpson traces the links between the cold war & German spies “adopted” by intelligence agencies of both East & West: amazing how influential a few lies in the right place can be. (Not to be confused with Chalmers Johnson’s Blowback, a highly recommended look at US imperialism.)
How the Irish Became White by Noel Ignatiev does wonders for putting US racial politics in perspective.
Sand County Almanac, by Aldo Leopold, for its assertion that we should extend our ethical system to include respect for the worth and ‘rights’ of what Leopold called ‘the land’, and what I suppose most of us would call ecosystems — the result of the work of evolution.
I say it’s impossible to overrate the latter essays and reflections of Mark Twain collected in Letters from the Earth. They’re written with such charm, wit, and power that you could miss how much they’re affecting your thinking, and on the weightiest of topics. Read this book.
This book made me realize that Twain was the PZ Myers of his day (or, actually, vice versa). Publication was delayed until 1969, partly because of Twain’s iconoclasm.
You can find some substantial exerpts on my science blog: Letters from the Earth. Just scroll down past the lists.
I nominate “The Mating Mind” by Geoffrey Miller.
Given that much of the behavior of any animal has to do with mating this is the book to read if you want to understand human behavior. Dr. Miller gives an excellent explanation of sexual selection theories and you will never see a work of art, a great book, a political campaign, or the Olympics in the same light. His description of the bower bird as an artist is brilliant and hilarious – even my teenagers loved it (and they don’t like much!).
(OK, I’m kind of pushing the 3 sentence limit, but oh well.)
Gang Leader for a Day
Sudhir Venkatesh
Readers may be familiar with Venkatesh, now a professor of Sociology at Columbia University, from his collaboration with economist Steven Levitt on the microfinances of a crack-dealing in a Chicago gang, the popularized account of which was given in Freakonomics. Gang Leader for a Day greatly expands upon the story, providing a vivid, non-academic account of Venkatesh’s intimate experiences conducting his graduate research on, as well as becoming a de facto of, a gang in one of America’s most dangerous neighborhoods. The book has the qualities of a great novel: the complicated character of the college-educated gang leader; the violence of inter-gang warfare over turf; the humorous juxtaposition of suburban-raised Venkatesh in the projects of Southside Chicago; the prurient details of going prices for drugs and prostitutes; the sober reflection of heart-wrenching deprivation in the land of plenty – all rendered more compelling because its story is true.
THE EERIE SILENCE: Renewing Our Search for Alien Intelligence by Paul Davies. One of the biggest discoveries yet to be made.
And thank you for reading and reviewing “What Darwin Got Wrong” so that we don’t have to.
I recommend “Last Chance to See” by Douglas Adams. To my knowledge, this is the only non-fiction book written by Adams, who is better knows for the “Hitchhikers’ Guide to the Galaxy” series. Due to his hilarious wit, it is very readable, but the book still manages to get across its very serious message of human-caused extinction and diversity loss as it details Adams’ journey to the far reaches of the globe in search of rare species.
I’m having a hard time choosing between two books I recently read, so I guess that means breaking the rules. But the point is recommending them, anyway.
1) Lords of Finance, The Bankers Who Broke the World by Liaquat Ahamed.
Pitch: This book tells the story of the Great Depression and how it came about. What might sound like dry material, especially if like me you’re not versed in economics, becomes a great story in the hands of Ahamed. By focusing on and staying close to 4 bankers, and by putting in just the right amount of anecdotes and sketches of the times, it’s very lively, not to mention that the book was very timely, too.
2) The Age of Wonder, How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science, by Richard Holmes.
Pitch: This is a book about a fascinating period in science, between Newton and Darwin so to say, about which, I have to admit, I knew next to nothing. Holmes describes the lives of Joseph Banks, William Herschel and Humphry Davy, but does not limit himself to them, with excursions to Mungo Park and balloon flights! But what’s truly great about the book is how it captures these scientists’ sense of wonder, and it shows that there does not need to be a gap between “the two cultures”.
Ludwig Feuerbach’s “The Essence of Christianity” is basically the first publication to posit an anthropological idea of god: god did not create man, man created god. This is a slightly long and somewhat dense philosophical text, but it’s available online for free, and it’s a good exercise in not just reading an old, dense book, but also in reminding us the historical circumstances of our current thoughts, reminding us how revolutionary and ground-breaking it was to note that there is no observable evidence for god and that looking at us as a species it is most clear that we ourselves have created the idea of god. I wanted to suggest a work that employes and exemplifies the Enlightenment ideals of evidence, logic, reason, and rationalism, and Feuerbach’s “Essence of Christianity” provides one of the best examples of such things.
The Big Short by Michael Lewis isn’t as comprehensive as Andrew Ross Sorkin’s Too Big to Fail, but this is what I consider the quintessential book on the economic crisis. Written by a former Wall Street insider and the author of Moneyball, a book about the real value of a dollar in the guise of a sports story, Lewis employs his penchant for storytelling prowess to chart the foibles of the investors and managers whose financial vagrancy distorted the perception and worth of the American dream, namely owning a home, for the short-sighted temerity of immediate profit. It is told in lucid and perspicuous detail from the perspective of those investors just on the fringe of the storm who saw the crisis coming and attempted to short the market, which is to say that they bet against the avarice of those who caused the crisis.
George Johgnson,s “Fire in the Mind”, a 1996 exploration of the nature of science, faith, and consciousness, ranging from the strange nature of the religious rites in the pueblos of New Mexico to the equally strange scientific community of Los Alamos to information theory and the nature of mind. I couldn’t put it down 14 years ago and have re-read it twice.
Out of curiosity, does he mention anything about the strange nature of the christian rites in the United States?
There are very strange flagellistic Christian rites as well mixed, yes.
I recommend ‘Atom’ by Lawrence M. Krauss
It takes you from the Big Bang to stellar explosions, formation of the first atoms and of earth and its atmosphere. A beautiful journey.
I suspect prof. Coyne has already read this one, but here goes. I would like to nominate “The Blank Slate” by Steven Pinker. Probably the one book that influenced my thinking the most since The Selfish Gene.
There is one book that swept me of my feet: The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins. It offered me the enlightening shock people must have experienced in 1859.
I would suggest Brian Boyd’s “On the Origin of Stories.” Expanding on the relatively new field of evocriticism (or Literary Darwinism), Boyd’s book makes us rethink the purpose of artistic creation in a similar way to what Darwin did with evolution. What is the engine of artistic selection, and why do some stories resonate across all human cultures? There is grandeur in this view of literature, with its several powers, overcoming the separations of culture and geography to show similarities among humanity once again.
I’m recommending Alan Cutler’s “The Seashell on the Mountaintop”, an excellent history of science volume which tells of the life of mid-1600s scientist Nicolaus Steno, who studied in Da Vinci’s school and was a father of modern geology. He also abandoned science and oddly became a Catholic ascetic. Well-researched and written with humor, it’s a great read. For example, from the book…
“It is so rare,” said the duchess of Orleans after meeting Leibniz, for an intellectual “to be smartly dressed, and not to smell, and to understand jokes.”
I second this recommendation, which I was about to make below. This was a very interesting book! I was not aware of the theories and attitudes about landscape in the 1600s. It was also interesting to read of the interplay of personalities and the adventures of Steno’s idea through the succeeding sixty years as it gained evidence and adherents. But the idea that the earth has a history and is formed by natural forces; or indeed that fossil seashells were formed by living creatures, certainly did not have a smooth ride. This is worth reading for anyone interested in the history of science or of ideas or in the current debate about evolution vs. creationism. In fact, a lot of the arguments that were used and discarded 300 years ago are still being trotted out now by some writers.
The Book of Genesis, by Moses or some other guy(s)
It’s fun, story-like, has man at the center of all, and doesn’t require much intellectual sophistication to understand. All of which make it better than the other origin theories out there.
“Much Depends on Dinner” by Margaret Visser, reveals in excellent prose the history of foods that might be served at a typical North American meal: chicken, corn, butter, rice, salt, lemon juice, oil, and so on. She is an anthropologist of the “ordinary” and its fascinating details. I enjoyed it.
She followed it up with “The Rituals of Dinner: The Origins, Evolution, Eccentricities, and Meaning of Table Manners,” which is on my to-read list or Mount TBR, as I call it.
Richard Dawkins’ Extended Phenotype is good for ironing out some of the misconceptions that people have about his attitudes towards genetics and evolution. He sets his discussions in the history of the research, citing papers and dates and referring to controversies, which is nice for a non-biologist. In progress.
“Evolution for Everyone” was written by David Sloan Wilson in a friendly, accessible style. To overcome aversion to the word itself, he shows how evolutionary thinking permeates our culture. Then he demonstrates how applying an evolutionary perspective across disciplines can lead to better solutions to civilization’s problems.
To describe people in the history of science who changed the world, I’d recommend Arthur Koestler’s The Sleepwalkers: A History of Man’s Changing Vision of the Universe. He gives the biographies and significance of Tycho Brahe, Nikolas Copernicus, and Johannes Kepler and sets them in a context that runs from the astronomers of Babylon to Isaac Newton.
The Ice Finders: How a Poet, a Professor, and a Politician Discovered the Ice Age by Edmond Blair Bolles, explains how we slowly learned that the Earth had experienced eons of time and change in which evolution could occur. Professor Louis Agassiz recognized that species had gone extinct and found European evidence of former glaciation, and Elisha Kent Kane was an adventurer who saw in the Greenland ice cap the remnants of the Ice Age. Charles Lyell, a famous geologist, “politicked” among his peers to resist and then to promote the theory of ice ages.
I picked up a copy of Simon Winchester’s Krakatoa this weekend — recommend it.
a. Topical because of Iceland volcano
b. Sections digress with some discussion of Wallace, Darwin, and evolution.
c. well-written — I had originally had an audio copy which I enjoyed very much.
Is anyone going to make this into a printable list, or even better, an Amazon list for all to access and work through?