Best of Five Books, and a contest

March 14, 2012 • 2:07 pm

My editor at Browser, the awesome Sophie Roell, has informed me that they have collected a selection of interviews with various scholars and luminaries from the “Five Books” site and published them as an e-book:  Best of Five Books: 2011.  It includes Sophie’s interview with me about my choice of good evolution books, but also interviews by really famous people like Woody Allen, Ian McEwan, Paul Krugman, Erica Jong, Steven Pinker, Alison Gopnik, Colin Thubron, and Fran Lebowitz, all of whom name and discuss five good books in their area of expertise (there are 52 interviews in toto).

I was offered a free Kindle copy of this book, but I can’t use it because I don’t have a Kindle.  So I’m going to have a contest for the e-book, which goes for eight bucks.  The winner, chosen by moi, will send me his or her email address, and I’ll pass it along to ensure that a copy will be forthcoming. (Note: I’m not sure if people living outside the U.S. can access Kindle books through Amazon, so take that into account until I find out.)

I will pick the winner from those who answer the following simple question, carefully crafted to expand my reading list by exploiting readers.

What work of nonfiction would you recommend that I read and that I haven’t yet read?  In one or two sentences (no more), justify your choice.

Now I can’t list everything I’ve ever read, so you’ll have to take a chance here. I have posted about some of the nonfiction I’ve read.

Contest closes on Friday, 5 p.m. Chicago time.

185 thoughts on “Best of Five Books, and a contest”

  1. I recommend “The Cave Painters” by Gregory Curtis, so in a coming peregrination to France you tour around the caves described in the book and have an unforgettable trip.

  2. I recommend “The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures”
    by Anne Fadiman because it challenged my bias against the supernatural in a way that not much has. I am not anymore convinced that spirits or souls exist now than I was before I read this book, but I am less certain that appealing to my Western sense of rationality can distance someone from beliefs that make their life meaningful (yet harmful) to them and others.

  3. I would recommend Bryan Magee’s “Confessions of a Philosopher: A Personal Journey through Western Philosophy from Plato to Popper”, the finest introduction to the field that I’ve ever read and the best short explanation of Kant and Schopenhauer in both the phenomenal and the noumenal world.

  4. I was offered a free Kindle copy of this book, but I can’t use it because I don’t have a Kindle.

    Not true. You could read it using the Kindle Cloud Reader or a Kindle app for Android or the iPad.

        1. Dunno if people have heard of ‘Project Gutenberg’. Books out of copyright downloadable for free. Have read a couple of Austens, Richardson, Fielding and some Brontes on the computer. Bostin’, as they say in Birmingham, UK.

  5. Two items:

    Kindle:

    You can get a free (!) Kindle reader program for your PC or Mac. Mine works just fine on my Mac.

    Contest Entry:

    Either (or both) of Lisa Randall’s recent or semi-recent books on particle physics. No math, and as a result some of the qualitative descriptions (“branes”, “warped space” and the like) are a tad incomprehensible (take them on FAITH, of course(!)) but they will tell you what the Hadron Collider results will mean when they show up.

  6. Harnessed: How Language and Music Mimicked Nature and Transformed Ape to Man
    by Mark Changizi

  7. “Debt The First 5000 Years” by David Graeber; it only just came out, so it should meet your criteria of you not having read it yet. And this is your two sentences, so it should satisfy your second criteria too. 🙂

    1. I have read this too, it is excellent. Gives you a new perspective on money which is very confusing and complex topic.

  8. “This Kind of War” by T.R. Fehrenbach. Why? Because it is, I believe, well outside of what you would normally read. The book is considered one of the better books on the Korean War. More importantly, understanding how a war progresses gives insight into the political decisions that are made. Those being the defining decisions for war, or war like actions, that the US participates in. Not to make this political. And maybe this is an area that holds zero interest, and if so then fair enough. Fehrenbach does a very good job of capturing the connective tissues between war and the decisions that drive actions in a war.

  9. Do read “The philosophers’ Quarrel” by Zaretsky and Scott, the unputdownable story of the collision between Hume and Rousseau. It’s hard not to parrot the blurb, but this book is both a gripping human story and, at the same time, and a light on the tensions at a key point in our intellectual history, relevant to almost every theme of concern to readers here.

  10. John Keegan’s astonishing “Face of Battle”. Far far too much history has been written in terms of “win” or “lose”, the movement of armies and the description of battles in terms of units (“The Royal Blankshires advanced into the enemy fire”), but Keegan moves the emphasis from units to the men themselves. Why did soldiers stand and fight when to lose is frequently so unpleasant, indeed final? What were the mechanisms of winning battles? Why and how was the battle decided? He takes 3 battles – all from UK history – Agincourt, Waterloo and the first day on the Somme and analyses them from the point of the participants themselves. Stunningly original book that, as one reviewer said, tells us “as much about the nature of man as war”.

  11. “Strangers to Ourselves (Discovering the Adaptive Unconscious) by Timothy D Wilson.

    The book explores how much of our self knowledge is hidden from our conscious minds. It includes the sub heading “Happiness is like blood pressure.”

  13. “The beginning of infinity: Explanations that transform the world” by David Deutsch because (a) Sam Harris was recommending it a few months back (isn’t that enough for you?) and (b) the first part of the book that addresses “what makes a good explanation” I think provides more brain fodder for a question I have seen brought up by you a few times, in various guises, here. Awesome, thought-provoking, and a little crazygenius!

    1. Had I read that yet, I’m sure I would’ve recommended it. Pinker’s Angels snuck ahead in my to-read pile.

      How about Man in search of his ancestors : the romance of palæontology by André Senet, translated by Malcolm Barnes? Published in 1955, and obviously dated, but Senet sets out a sweeping review of Man’s history in the context of the evolution of life on Earth. The title of chapter viii alone makes the book worthwhile: “The Indisputible Evolution of the Living World”!

      Full text here

      /@

  15. Annals of the Former World by John McPhee. A geological tour of the United States through the eyes of the scientists who study it. Beautiful prose wrapped around amazing science.

  16. The Age of Reason, by Thomas Paine (deist)

    It is incomprehensible to me that anyone should not have read this volume, especially in America. I don’t know whether you have, but if not, you’re past due for a little common sense of the anti-religious(though not anti-god) variety!

    2. For those not enamoured of e-books, I draw attention to the existence of a beautifully produced hard cover anthology of Paine’s major writings, including “Age of Reason”. Search for ISBN 9781883011031 at the used book site of your choice.

      Interestingly, while Paine has to be viewed as one of the Founding Fathers, thanks to his firebrand propaganda in favor of the American Revolution, today he’d seriously upset the bible thumpers with his trenchant criticisms of the Bible and general anti-religious fervor.

  17. Richard Dawkins, The Oxford book of modern science writing will reacquaint you with old friends and possibly introduce you to new authors who you will want to seek out. Like Jerry, I am constantly on the lookout for non-fiction books to put in my reading queue, and this book is a good feed source for ideas: both while reading the thought provoking excepts, and in making a list of which other books to read.

  18. “The Innocent Anthropologist” by Nigel Barley. It is part travel book, part account of real anthropology field work. It is well-written, very funny and full of memorable incidents.

    1. Yes, loved it. I found fascinating the irony that his subjects took a tape recorder for granted, but were amazed by his magic ability to make squiggles on paper and tell them a week later exactly what they’d said.

  19. The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind by Julian Jaynes, 1976.

    The main idea here is that our “inner voice” of consciousness had its origins in external-seeming hallucinations in ancient times. These hallucinations were often of gods; Jaynes brings in classical literature, history of religions, psychology (his field), and other areas in support of his thesis.

  21. Oh, and now I realize I’m supposed to suggest a book. “The Swerve: How the World Became Modern,” by Stephen Greenblatt. A rapture about a 2500 year old man nobody knows anything about, his lost radical poem and how an intrepid and clever Italian book seeker found it in the mid-1400s.
    But I wouldn’t read it in any form except the one I’m using: a real hardcover book.

    1. I read THE SWERVE (which is a must, I completely agree) on my Kindle, and I thought the delivery device, given the book’s subject, made for a delicious contrast.

        1. Great! It’s a National Book Award winner–and a captivating read, especially for a WEIT follower.

  22. What work of nonfiction would you recommend that I read and that I haven’t yet read? In one or two sentences (no more), justify your choice.

    Arthur M. Schlesinger: A Life in the 20th Century: Innocent Beginnings, 1917-1959

    Most readable, it grabbed me and explained much about the first half of the 20th century. Then suggested how the problems were still there and repeating themselves in the second half (sadly).

  23. Stolen Continents: 500 Years of
    Conquest and Resistance in the Americas by Ronald
    Wright.

    Every non-native American and Canadian needs to know the
    history of the conquest through the eyes of the people who
    were here before us. The book has an interesting
    structure: it describes what life would have been like for
    various tribes/cultures before Europeans arrives, and then
    revisits those same people after the devastation set in.
    Interesting, gripping, shocking, depressing…….

  24. “Deciphering the Cosmic Number — The Strange Friendship of Wolfgang Pauli and Carl Jung.” Arthur I Miller. (2009)
    Pauli first consulted Jung because despite incredible academic success his personal life was disintegrating. He clearly showed signs of imminent nervous breakdown. However, superficial psychiatric help gave rise over time to a lasting friendship and a lengthy correspondence which trod the frontier between proven science and the as yet uncharted depths of the subconscious. Pauli, like his friend Feynman comes out of the book as one of the great seekers of truth wherever it may be found.

  25. I’m not entering the competition, but you should still read ‘In defense of humane ideals’ by Prof Jim Flynn. It outlines a rationale and method by which you can show humane ideals to be the best, even when you reject the idea of an objective morality. Also, for a philosophy book it is very readable.
    I took one of Prof Flynn’s papers a few years ago, and found it to be one of the most rewarding learning experiences I have had.
    Seriously: everyone should read this book.

  27. To be serious, I recommend The Making of the English Working (Penguin History) by E. P. Thompson (1963).

    He wrote that he was “seeking to rescue the poor stockinger, the Luddite cropper, the ‘obsolete’ hand-loom weaver, the ‘Utopian’ artisan, and even the deluded follower of Joanna Southcott, from the enormous condescension of posterity.” The work is a monumental piece of imaginative historical writing about the human cost of, and everyman’s reaction to, the transition to the industrial age, engaging, revelatory and a page-turner up there with the best of Dickens.

    ‘http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=The+Making+of+the+English+Working+Class’

    But, is nobody going to use this post to plug their own minor literary outpourings? Well, here goes.

    I recommend ‘Got, Not Got: The A-Z of Lost Football Culture, Treasures and Pleasures’ (2011) by Derek Hammond (my mate) and Gary Silke with an introductory poem by yours truly. Not really about football, it’s about the industrialisation and globalisation of what once was ours and now is Murdoch’s and Blatter’s, and which garners 5 stars on Amazon – and some of the reviewers aren’t even friends of the authors.

    ‘http://www.amazon.co.uk/Got-Not-Football-Treasures-Pleasures/dp/1908051140/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1331768097&sr=1-1’

    2. I’m sure it would be perfect for a USer who has never expressed any interest in football whatsoever!

      McIntyre, Treadmore and Davitt…….

  28. Don’t Sleep, There Are Snakes. It has it all: linguistics, ethnography, adventure, excitement — and a Christian missionary who discovers that his faith can’t stand the harsh, unforgiving reality of nature and the plain fact that his assumptions about the world and God simply don’t hold beyond the confines of his own community.

    http://www.amazon.com/Dont-Sleep-There-Are-Snakes/dp/0375425020

    1. Crap. That was the one I was going to recommend. If you win, please tell me the best parts of the eBook

      1. Et moi (well, it would have been my second choice had we been asked to nominate more than one book)
        +1

    2. The Pirahã have no concept of a supreme spirit or god, and they lost interest in Jesus when they discovered that Everett had never seen him.

      Priceless!

  29. A C Grayling’s Among the Dead Cities. He makes a strong, carefully reasoned and well-written case that Allied bombing in World War II was wildly excessive and in fact was a war crime.

  30. The Rational Optimist by Matt Ridley. Great book about how well humanity is doing, and the part economic liberalism has played in getting us here. An especially important read for people who think they don’t like the market mechanism much.

    1. This may have its merits, but it’s hard to take him seriously on this subject when he failed to foresee that the funding policies of Northern Rock left it in a precariously exposed position; and when he has spent much of his time since retiring from the Northern Rock board contributing to the wellbeing of humanity by trying to convince us that the evidence for anthropogenic climate change is pseudoscience.

    2. I have to say: This was the one Matt Ridley book I could not finish (and in fact I loved all his other works.) He just prates on and on (and on and on) about libertarianism (without naming it).

  31. Three recommendations:

    “The Discovery of France: A Historical Geography” by Graham Robb. Reveals just how isolated, fragmented, tribal, ancient and strange most rural regions of France remained right up to the end of the 19th Century. Unique and brilliant.

    “This House of Sky: Landscapes of a Western Mind” by Ivan Doig. Chronicle of the writer growing up in Montana during the 40’s and 50’s, corded tightly to his ranch foreman father following his mother’s death when he was six. The most vivid, intense childhood memoir you will ever read. Heartbreakingly beautiful.

    “The Great War and Modern Memory” by Paul Fussell. WW I through the writings of the soldiers, known and unknown, caught up in it. More evocative of the reality of the Great War as it was experienced at the time by the participants than any other study, ever.

    2. I have read “The Discovery of France” and it is indeed fascinating. It changed my view of history.

  32. Arctic Adventure by Peter Freuchen.

    The man lived among the Eskimos, as he called them, in the early 1900s – exploring, staying alive, and learning the culture of those fascinating people. And he can write!

    1. Also on this subject: My Life With the Eskimos by Vilhjalmur Stefansson. Most excellent.

  33. _The Powers That Be_ by David Halberstam (1979) changed my perception of the media. I stopped reading newspapers a while after reading Halberstam’s book and continue to view all media with a more critical eye.

  34. Neil MacGregor– “A History of the World in 100 Objects”, published by Viking in 2011. MacGregor is the Director of the British Museum and this is a marvelous romp through 2 million+ years of human history using artifacts, art, coins, jewelry, furniture, etc., etc. from across the world to describe the advance of humanity. Also one of the most beautifully illustrated books I have read. A must for any personal library (IMO).

    1. Good one; maybe 2010 (i’m in the UK – maybe a year later for the US)? This was my Yuletide present to my nearest and dearest; there’s a fascinating, engaging Radio 4 series presented by the man himself – a true polymath, charming in that upper class Dawkinsish manner.

      1. It occurs to me that, in this context, contributors could consider reading ‘A History of Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years’ by Diarmaid MacCulloch. It is wittily dry, urbane, comprehensive and compulsive, often praised by Hitchens, and, in the spirit of knowing thine enemy, an essential reference for the nuances which divide one sect from another within one of the oldest of human institutions, the Christian Church.

  35. Roger Williams and the Creation of the American Soul: Church, State, and the Birth of Liberty

    That we have separation of church and state is in no doubt; this book is about the why and the how…

  37. I love the book selection posts, there’s always great suggestions for things I haven’t read. I downloaded and got the spider book last time, that was interesting.

  38. I have no Kindle either, so am not competing for the prize, but I recommend The Lifespan of a Fact (by D’Agata & Fingal), published about a month ago. It is about an ongoing battle between a fact-checker and a “non-fiction” author. Why this book? It’s a non-fiction book about what “non-fiction” actually means in practice! (plus it’s not too long, so a quick read)

  39. I also recommend Hermione Lee’s 1997 biography of Virginia Woolf, entitled, appropriately, Virginia Woolf. It’s about Virgina Woolf; no other justification is necessary.

    1. In a few sentences, please, why should I care about Virginia Woolf? (I’m quite serious.)

  40. Religion and the Rise of Capitalism: A Historical Study by R. H. Tawney. Historical study of the religion of the Reformation and its bearing on social and economic thought.
    You may have read this?

    If so, The Autobiography of Mark Twain. You may have read this, as well?

    1. Speaking of Mark Twain, a must read is . . . Was the World Made for Man? It is his rebuttal to the anthropocentric views of Alfred Russel Wallace. Go here to read.

  41. Marston Bates “The Forest and the Sea”: luminous prose about things biological. Also, he was pals with my mentor Thomas Poulson.

  42. Thinking, Fast and Slow – Daniel Kahneman
    Just when you finally accept the utter demise of “free will”, Kahneman comes along and destroys our self confidence by showing us how stupid and unreliable our unconscious decisions and intuitions really are.
    Read it anyway, I don’t have kindle either.

    1. I’m totally cheating, because I already posted my own reply, but your suggestion reminds me of my favorite book explaining why a lot of what we know isn’t so; in fact, it’s titled “How We Know What Isn’t So” by Thomas Gilovich, and is a brilliant takedown of what be called “cognitive fallacies.”

    2. “Thinking Fast and Slow” was a revelation to me. If you’ve ever wondered why humanity makes so many screwy decisions, even in matters of life and death, it will help you understand.

      1. It really is humbling. Kahneman gives you tips on how to improve or to be more alert but, as he himself says, activating your “System 2” is very demanding on your brain, and trying all the time to be aware of your inconsistencies, irrationalities, poor judgement, etc. is practically impossible.
        But still I’m trying…
        Too good a book, it easily made my top two along with Sagan’s “Demon Haunted World” in changing, or at least affecting, my everyday attitude towards life.

  43. The Unfolding of Language by Guy Deutscher

    An incredible explanation of the evolution of our most interesting characteristic.

  44. Ernest Becker’s “The Denial of Death”.

    One of the most insightful books ever on the nature of the human condition and our desires. It explains why we strive to build and maintain religions and other social projects, and why now traditional hero projects such as religion are falling by the wayside.

    Besides spawning terror management theory, an empirically verified theory of motivation that explains why religious people and the rest of us act the way we do (which was well explained in the recent award winning film “the flight from death”, available for free on Hulu), it has larger implications and is one of the few truly great interdisciplinary works I have read.

    Bill Clinton put it in his list of his top 20 favorite books.

  45. I vote for The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy by William Irvine. Once you’ve convinced everyone in the world that Atheism is True, they’ll need some alternative philosophies to get them through life. This is one possibility.

    1. I enjoyed this book too; it’s incredibly practice, especially for philosophy (although that’s not saying much). I wish more people were aware of Stoic philosophy, there are many misconceptions about it. The Meditations by Marcus Aurelius is great too; I try to read it every year.

  46. ‘The Miracle of Theism’ by JL Mackie.

    So whenever a ‘sophisticated theologian’ asks why you, or your fellow ‘New Athiests’, don’t tackle their sophisticated arguments, you can tell them it’s because Mackie already delivered the fatal blow, 30 years ago.

    1. I’m reading that at this moment! A wonderful book, and much more lucid that most “semipopular” philosophy books. Only two chapters to go. . .

      1. Ha, well looks like I miss out on the prize, but all the same, I’m glad you’re enjoying it!

  47. ‘1861’ (Adam Goodheart). On the first year of the Civil War – au was one of my daughter’s professors and this was a solstice present from her; I didn’t open it for a couple months as reading about the CW has never riveted me particularly, but Goodheart feels the same way, writing that most books on the CW are like descriptions of football games. A perfect description, which cannot be said about this one; a teaser factoid therein – James A Garfield was one of the first in Ohio to buy a copy of Origin of Species.

    But, I don’t have a Kindle either, so this is really to see if any of the other passengers on this boat have read it.

    1. No but I would also strongly recommend “Battle Cry of Freedom” (James McPherson) which gave me (a Brit) an extraordinary insight into the period of US history from before the Civil War through to Appomattox.

  48. I recommend “The Normans in Sicily” London: Penguin, 1992, by John Julius Norwich. A history of the conquest of Sicily and southern Italy by Normans returning from the Crusades (having been invited in by the locals). Militarily superior to the locals, they also showed remarkable willingness to have Greek, Italian and Muslims working collaboratively and peacefully after their conquest. The cathedral at Monreale is IMHO the finest amalgam of the three cultures in Europe.

    1. Slight correction, the norman conquest of sicily occurred before the crusades. Sicilian normans under Bohemond then played a key role in the success of the first crusade.

  49. “Chance and Necessity” by Jaques Monod. It came out when I was still in grad school in 1971 (biology), and it was decisive for me in concluding that science and religion were incompatible (though I didn’t much care for his existentialist angst over humanity being alone in the universe). I hope you do read it, because I’d like to know what a modern biologist thinks of this 40-year old book.

  52. The Autobiography of An Execution by David Dow. Because it will drive home the need to demolish the illusion of free will and work towards a more humane and evidence based criminal justice system. I read it because my brother has been on death row for 30 years, but I believe it is important for any US citizen to understand how justice is (or isn’t) carried out by our current criminal justice system.

    2. I’m fundamentally opposed to capital punishment because it’s permanent (and there ain’t no afterlife sweetheart!) and humans are basically f-ups. We are wrong waaaaay too often to be using capital punishment.

  53. “Anti-Intellectualism in American Life” by Richard Hofstadter, because it explains better than any other book I’ve read how we got into the intellectual mess we’re in. It’s longer and more in-depth that Neil Postman’s “Amusing Ourselves to Death,” but they cover the same ground.

    PS: If I win, please give the e-book to someone who wants it; as one poster already commented, I only read the dead tree version of books.

    PPS: Thanks for setting up a great thread! I’ve already added “Annals of the Former World” and, possibly, “Don’t Sleep, There Are Snakes” (as I am also an ex-christian and ex-missionary) to my reading list.

    1. Annals is great. John McPhee is one of the best on-fiction writers in the US (ever.) I also strongly recommend his Oranges, you’ll be amazed how interesting he makes this one fruit.

  54. The Edge of Physics
    “science writer Anil Ananthaswamy sets out in search of the telescopes and detectors that promise to answer the biggest questions in modern cosmology.” Not only does Anil cover the physics, but his glimpses into the lives of the researchers who work in these remote and isolated regions are vivid and memorable. His descriptions of the research and life at Lake Baikal in Russia is worth the price.

  55. “Alegria, Alegria”-letters, poetry and essays by Caetano Veloso (one of the founders of Brazil’s Tropicalia movement of the 60’s) written early in his music career, much of it during his forced exile in England during the post-Vargas military dictatorship. It is an out-of-print literary tour-de-force that virtually no one has ever read, but can be checked out from the University of Texas Benson Latin American Collection as long as you don’t remove it from the library.

    I don’t have a Kindle. Damn. Never mind.

  57. The Nature of Paleolithic Art by R. Dale Guthrie (U of Chicago Press). I’ll lose this contest if you’ve already read it, but you’ll lose out on a good read if you don’t read it.

  58. The Righteous Mind: why good people are divided by politics and religion by Jonathan Haidt. It covers the origins of morality and takes a few swipes at New Atheism. It was just published so I’m on the waiting list at the library.

  59. ‘The Big Bang’ by Simon Singh. It’s a fantastically told stories of the science and scientists throughout history, slowly and marvelously piecing together our current picture of Big Bang cosmology. It catalogues ever (seemingly) small, tangential step in humankind’s understanding of our place in the universe in attempts to answer one of the biggest philosophical questions ‘WHere did it all come from?’ Gripping, well written, and full of information.

  61. In the Heart of the Sea:
    The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex
    Nathaniel Philbrick

    “I turned around and saw him about one hundred rods directly ahead of us, coming down with twice his ordinary speed, and it appeared with tenfold fury and vengeance in his aspect. The surf flew in all directions about him with the continual violent thrashing of his tail. His head about half out of the water, and in that way he came upon us, and again struck the ship.”

  64. Violence: Our Deadly Epidemic and Its Causes by James Gilligan (1996). This was one of the first books that got me thinking deeply about free will. In it, the author, a psychiatrist who worked with extremely violent criminals, describes what he calls a “germ theory” of violence, with the germ in this case being severe, sustained humiliation early in life. It is a fascinating and compassionate book that illustrates how much people are at the mercy of the conditions they encounter in life.

  65. I am afraid you must already have read it, but I would like to recommend Phantoms in the Brain : Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind, by Ramachandran (coauthored with Blakeslee). It is a nicely written account of cutting edge research in neuroscience (or at least what was cutting edge a couple of decades ago) from the point of view of one of the authors who was himself at the forefront of some of the work described. As a student, one thing I especially liked about the book is that the authors demonstrate time and again through their own work that a simple but well though out experimental design can be as effective, if not more effective, than a sophisticated expensive one, even in a field like neuroscience.

  66. Although he is probably too sympathetic to religion for your taste, you should nonetheless still read Jacques Barzun’s From Dawn to Decadence, the great cultural historian’s interpretation of the last 500 years of Western Civilization. One of the great professors at Columbia during its Golden Age, Barzun was uniquely qualified to bring his insight to a wide range of topics – from the Reformation to the corruption of much of contemporary life – in a gifted prose style that perhaps no one else could equal.

  67. Defending Science – within reason. By Susan Haack. Her take on the philosophy of science is unique and practical. Chapter 10, Point of Honor: On Science and Religion, is one of the best I’ve read outlining the differences between scientific black boxes and both the faith and theology of religion, as well as the failure of reconciliation with either.

  68. Wildwood by Roger Deakin. Beautiful meditation on woodland, trees and people. A great Friday night with a glass of Malbec book. Similar vibe to ‘The Peregrine’ for me.

  69. The Age of Wonder: How the romantic generation discovered the beauty and terror of science by Richard Holmes.

    A beautifully written biography of science during the Enlightenment. that brilliantly captures the adventure, discovery and heartbreak of the great minds of the time. Read this and you’ll see how romantic poetry and astronomy were once so entwined.

  70. Ohh, ohh, another one that I hope you will read some time is The Invisible Gorilla by Chris Chabris and Daniel Simons. It is an excellent book which describes how the human brain has imperfect memory, perception and processing, and how that imperfection manifests itself in us mis-remembering things or even remembering things that have not happened or happened to other people.

    In violation of the two sentence rule: The take away I got from the book, but is not acutally written in it, is that is a very plausible explanation of most people’s “spiritual” experiences being just memories that the brain had made up.

  71. How on earth are you going to make your selection from this load of excellent suggestions beats me! Eclectic bunch your readers …..

  72. The New Science of Strong Materials, by J. E. Gordon. The subject sounds like watching paint dry, but he has a fascinating writing style and shows just why things like bows, and sailing ships, and cathedrals, and tree trunks were/are built the way they are.

    1. Yes! And I even more highly recommend his: Structures, or Why Things Don’t Fall Down. This is a truly interesting book (believe it or not! Have faith my friends!) and you will learn a lot from it.

      And some of you scientists might even feel a bit more respect for us engineers! (Not holding my breath!) ;^)

      I also strongly recommend Engineering in the Ancient World by Landels. The Romans conquered through good: management (military logistics), engineering, and generalship: In that order.

  73. Lawrence Krauss’ book “The Universe from Nothing” (2012) because it is the final nail in the coffin for religion.

    There is also a video (2009) which has been viewed by over 1 million people, but it does not cover anywhere near the detail and does not cover the last third of the book which hammer in the last few nails.

  74. Behold the Spirit, by Alan Watts. This is an amazing book that argues for the necessity of mystical religion, and claims that modern Christianity basically worships the symbolism itself instead of gaining enlightenment through understanding the symbolism is getting at. This is a book every atheist should read, for Alan Watts has a way of explaining the nature of reality that is unparallelled.

  75. War in Human Civilization by Azar Gat. The ideal accompaniment to Pinker’s recent book, it looks at the origins of war and the huge role it played in state formation. The last third on the gunpowder era is less convincing, but the first two thirds on pre-state and classical warfare are excellent.

    Also Keegan’s The Face of Battle as noted above.

    I guess we’re all assuming that Jerry has already read Guns, Germs and Steel?

  76. A Book of Dreams, by Peter Reich. Reich describes, in gorgeous, lyrical prose, what it has been like to grow up as the son of the brilliant and more or less insane psychiatrist Wilhelm Reich. An unforgettable and unique view into the nature of childhood, of love, and of madness.

  77. Duncan J. Watts, “Everything is Obvious (Once You Know The Answer): How Common Sense Fails”.

    Watts talks about the storytelling we are plagued of that we then use as supposed facts that lead our decisions in society, politics, economics and all the rest. He then goes on to advocate a more scientific approach to sociology and breaths a new air of skepticism into discussions that we all think are “not rocket science” (He points out that we are actually extremely good at rocket science, compared to the stuff we label “common sense”).

    1. On the same subject: Hitler’s Willing Executioners by Goldhagen. Dispenses with any illusions anyone may have about whether das deutsche Volk knew about The Holocaust.

      Also Primo Levi’s If This Is a Man and The Truce: Excellent first-hand memoirs of the horrors of Nazi Germany.

  79. “Fermat’s Enigma” by Simon Singh

    This leisurely tour of the 250 years of mathematics that went into proving Fermat’s Last Theorem, and its portraits of the mathematicians who contributed to this achievement, is highly accessible without sacrificing mathematical accuracy.

    1. Another good suggestion. Singh strikes a very good balance between emphasis on personalities and emphasis on technical details. An interesting glimpse into modern mathematical research, a field very few of us have any real knowledge of.

  80. I would recommend Michio Kaku’s “Physics of the Impossible”, which I really enjoyed; I suspect you could argue that it is borderline fiction. However, my 10 year old daughter recently saw it on the table next to my bed and asked me about it. The next night it was missing and I found it on HER bedside table, and she had read over 50 pages.

  81. Sleep Thieves by Stanley Coren.

    (excerpts here http://www.stanleycoren.com/e_thieves.htm)

    It sets out in detail, with insightful, entertaining and dramatic examples, the destructive effect that a lack of sleep has – both at the individual level (i.e. you), and on society.

    I’ve recommended it to every single one of my sleep-deprived friends as they complained how tired they were and that they were making mistakes, pointing out the connection between these two states; NONE have dared to read it.

    It changed my life, it will change yours, ignore at your peril.

    1. I don’t know that your review will persuade Jerry to read the book, but you sure as hell persuaded me.

  82. “The authoritarians” by Bob Altemeyer

    Fascinating character study of Right Wing Authoritarians (the Tea Party types, say). The discussion of a world-politics-in-the-future game would be hilarious if it matters weren’t so serious (the RWAs bring the world to an atomic war in a mere decade or so of simulated time).

  83. For something different read; The Battle for Spain (The Spanish civil war 1936-1939), by Antony Beevor.

    It is a completly un-bias account of the war and illuminates the main characters and the vicious infighting on both sides

  84. America’s greatest writer, Herman Melville, used imaginative narratives from Moby-Diok onward to dramatize that abstract (a priori) reasoning about religion and metaphysics can lead to disaster, and that commonsense, fact-based reasoning is the basis of true wisdom and should be used to determine our life path.

    My book, “Herman Melville’s Genius: The Author of Moby-Dick on How to Think About Religion and Other Ideologies” (295 pages, Cave Canem Press)is in production and should be available at Amazon.com by the first week in April.

  85. On the off-chance that you have not read it yet, one of Sagan’s lesser known books, “Murmurs of Earth: The Voyager Interstellar Record” which he co-authored along with several others. It describes the effort of enclosing as much of Humanity, its emotions, history, art, culture and biology on a single phonograph record that was sent into outer space with the Voyager probes. It is sort of a “Best of Mankind & Earth” and I can read parts of it whenever I need encouragment and inspiration.

    Note that I don’t have a Kindle and am entering the contest purely out of spite.

  86. Learn Me Good, by John Pearson. A funny account of his life as a teacher. Light hearted humor is always a must to brighten gloomy days.

  87. “The Lords of Human Kind: European attitudes to the outside world in the imperial age” by
    V.G. Kiernan. Not recent, but still one of the most entertaining and interesting books on the hypocrisy of European imperialism, by one of the great British historians of the 20th Century, full of enlightening and amusing quotes and anecdotes.

    What a great thread, please keep adding your suggestions, everybody. Any chance you could make this an occasional feature, perhaps asking for reading suggestions on specific topics or disciplines?

  88. Two for the price of one: “Freakonomics” and “Superfreakonomics”, both by Levitt and Dubner. It might look weird that I suggest a non-biological book, but I find this to have numerous parallels with your postings. To start with, the contrivances make the authors to separate sorrelation from causation (or more broadly, grain from chalff). Secondly, the “freak” part of economics: the analysis of the motivations of humans, their universal trend to cheat whenever necessary to meet these objectives – i.e. the numerous leaks t the economic assumption of rational choice (that’s why most incentives devised by policy-makers have often effects that oppose their stated goals). Last but not least, the controversy (included hate-mails) facing the authors when they disproved the myths of the religious conservatives: the chapter on abortion and crime rate is, in this regard, most illuminating (and you can follow its long aftermath, including “scientific” attacks to their data and analyses, in the authors’ blog).

  89. The book of Mormon is presumably listed under non-fiction. You’ll laugh and laugh and laugh.

  90. I think I may have posted on this before, but another I highly recommend, especially for anyone in the Caucasian sphere and living in N America, is a pair (which really should be a two-volume set) by Helge Ingstad, who discovered the site of the Nordic settlement at L’anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland and whose life itself surely must have been an epic. Originally a lawyer, he ditched that to live as a trapper among the Indians in the Northwest Territories in the 1920’s, then becoming governor of part of Greenland and subsequently Svalbard (which includes Spitsbergen). He studied the Apaches and Eskimoes before embarking on study of the Norse ruins of Greenland, which led to the successful discovery of Eric the Red’s settlment, above, in 1960. He died at age 101 in 2001.

    The books are: Land under the Pole Star; a voyage to the Norse settlements of Greenland and the saga of the people that vanished. and Westward to Vinland: The Discovery of Pre-Columbian Norse House-Sites in North America (1966 & 69 – visit Alibris for copies).

    They cover radiation of a species (us) westward from Norway to Iceland and then to Greenland (where a virtually forgotten civilization existed for nearly 500yrs), and from there sporadically to Vinland. Entwined in the story is the Catholic church which was happy to have Greenland under its dominion as long as the colony provided the Vatican with commodities that could be redeemed for silver. How the meaning of Vinland transitioned from a land of open fields to a land of grape vines (confounding discovery of the site) is patiently explained – the blame lies with Adam of Bremen, a German Catholic storyteller.

  91. Leo Deuel’s “Testaments of Time”. A gripping account of the recovery of lost literatures, starting with Poggio and the recovery of classical Latin literature, and segueing from there into many other branches of the subject.

    Published around 1960, so lacking information on developments since then, but I know of no more modern book that goes into the subject so well. It’s good enough that when the covers of my Penguin edition fell off from repeated readings, I bought a copy of the hard cover edition.

    Why is this subject of any importance? Because the initial rediscoveries of classical literature gave a great deal of impetus to the Renaissance — and where would we be today without that sea change in western learning?

  92. What an incredibly interesting thread, and what a great salon it would be, to sip a martini amidst palms and ceiling fans with you all while you discuss books.

    1. I’m in! Even better if we could do it on a boat somewhere. Tropical would be OK, but I’d vote for a Baltic ferry. Everyone gets 20min or so to enthuse about their favorite book.

  93. Another suggestion– “Deceit and Self Deception” by biologist and free-thinker Robert Trivers. Just released and a very readable treatment of and on the survival value of self-deception and lying, viewed on both a micro and macro level. Trivers usually comes up with novel views but Professor Coyne already knows that.

  94. I’d recommend “First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers,” as, despite being depressing as hell, it puts a human story to an historical event that is almost impossible to wrap a persons head around because of the utter brutality of it.

  95. Simon Winchester, “Atlantic” Reading it a 2nd time now, I can’t improve on this (truncated)blurb: makes the Atlantic come vividly alive…the ocean’s story from its geological origins to … World War II battles to today’s struggles with pollution and overfishing, his narrative is epic, intimate, and awe inspiring…by one of the most gifted writers in the English language.

  96. Salt: A World History, by Mark Kurlansky. It’s full of fascinating information about salt’s (“table salt”) influence on civilizations, the development of trade routes, wars, use as currency, origin of words, etc. You’ll dig it!

  97. Steven K. Green, The Second Disestablishment: Church and State in Nineteenth-Century America (Oxford 2010). Those of us who are concerned to protect our freedom from religion would do well to learn more about the history of church and state in the US, if only to be able to respond knowledgeably to the disinformation and half-truths that appear so frequently in public debates. The first step is to recognize that the story is very complex. The 1st Amendment did not create a golden age of religious liberty; instead, disestablishment came slowly, after a bitter struggle that played out mostly in state courts.

    Also: David Sehat, The Myth of American Religious Freedom (Oxford 2011), a sobering look at the de facto (and often de jure) establishment of Protestantism in the 19th century.

  98. The Political Mind by George Lakoff. This book discusses the reality of political persuasion: we are not rational actors persuaded by arguments; we are emotional beings who respond to emotional cues. Atheists, especially those in the public sphere, must take this lesson to heart.

  99. A Wicked Company: The Forgotten Radicalism of the European Enlightenment by Philipp Blom. No further recommendations needed, title says it all!

  100. It is essential that you and all your readers purchase “How to Steal Food From the Supermarket,” because I wrote it and I need the money. It’s easily the best book ever written.

    1. I would have thought that if you follow the advice and techniques in your book in a very aggressive way, and these techniques work, then you really don’t need the money.

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