1. Farthest North - Steve Jones, geneticist
2. The Art of the Soluble - V. S. Ramachandran, neuroscientist
3. Animal Liberation - Jane Goodall, primatologist
4. The Foundation trilogy - Michio Kaku, theoretical physicist
5. Alice in Wonderland - Alison Gopnik, developmental psychologist
6. One, Two, Three... Infinity - Sean Carroll, theoretical physicist
7. The Idea of a Social Science - Harry Collins, sociologist of science
8. Handbook of Mathematical Functions - Peter Atkins, chemist
9. The Mind of a Mnemonist - Oliver Sacks, neurologist
10. A Mathematician’s Apology - Marcus du Sautoy, mathematician
11. The Leopard - Susan Greenfield, neurophysiologist
12. Darwin and the Emergence of Evolutionary Theories of Mind and Behavior - Frans de Waal, psychologist and ethologist
13. Catch-22 / The First Three Minutes - Lawrence Krauss, physicist
14. William James, Writings 1878-1910 - Daniel Everett, linguist
15. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep - Chris Frith, neuroscientist
16. The Naked Ape - Elaine Morgan, author of The Aquatic Ape Hypothesis
17. King Solomon's Ring - Marion Stamp Dawkins, Zoologist
Now an interesting question would be what selection(s) shaped my life and my worldview. There is no doubt that the one book that I have read and thought about the most would be the Bible and most specifically the writings of Paul. After that would come the Tolkien Grand Tour from "The Hobbit" to the "Book of Unfinished Tales" (which I read about every two years) but that was more for entertainment rather than thinking or changing my life.
When I was a teenager the non-biblical books would have to be both the science fiction and non-fiction selections from Isaac Asimov. What I learned from that experience was that science was one of the few areas where one could stand on solid ground and imagine at the same time.
As I got older I can still remember the electric joy I felt reading Boorstin's "The Discoverers". More recently, "The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind" is a book that has become dated but still engages my mind.
What am I reading now? I am currently reading another one of the genre of science history books that are popular now. It is Bill Bryson's "A Short History of Nearly Everything" and it is a great read but it falls into the trap of giving the illusion of narrative history while in fact mostlydescribing the personal eccentricities of notable scientists. In my opinion Singh's "Big Bang" is much better at combining science, history and personality.
In chemistry there is only one book that stands out in my mind and that is "The Chemistry of the Elements" by Greenwoood and Earnshaw. It is well written and comprehensive if dated. It was shamelessly plagiarized in Housecroft's "Inorganic Chemistry" which at least updated the information.
2 comments:
I think I could handle Alice in Wonderland. And that would be about it.
Oh my, "Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There" is one of the great philosophy texts of all time. Just think about this conversation ...
`When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, `it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less.'
`The question is,' said Alice, `whether you can make words mean so many different things.'
`The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, `which is to be master -- that's all.'
Man, you could get lost in that thought all day and the book is full of conversations like that. I do not know if Dodgson should be considered dangerous as much for taking pictures of little girls or for the ideas he put in his childrens books.
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