I’m looking for recommendations for good science non fiction books to read.
I’m looking for recommendations for good science non fiction books to read. I noticed my future reads are all fiction so I need something different and educational perhaps . Thank you! 🙂
The Disappearing Spoon
By Sam Kean
Bad Science by Ben Goldacre (this is, hands down, one of the best non fiction science books I ever read. )
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
Bonk by Mary Roach
Hidden Figures
A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived by Adam Rutherford
I love Oliver Sacks and VS Ramachandran for neurology narratives. Mary Roach is also a favorite, Bonk as above, or Stiff
The Accidental Universe: The World You Thought You Knew by Alan Lightman
The Drunken Botanist by Amy Stewart
The Earth Moved: On the Remarkable Achievements of Earthworms by Amy Stewart
Earthworms?! I definitely need to read that.
Bad Pharma: How Drug Companies Mislead Doctors and Harm Patients by Ben Goldacre
Bad Science: Quacks, Hacks, and Big Pharma Flacks by Ben Goldacre
I mentioned Bad Science up above. LOVE that book
@Mary so you did 😀
He does a great job of explaining blind studies, double blind studies, placebo effects, etc.
A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson
I’ve got loads more…
Brian Greene has some very good books, The Elegant Universe, The Fabric of the Cosmos etc
My fave non fiction authors –
Huval Yurari
Oliver Sacks
Malcolm Gladwell
Mary Roach
Bill Bryson
The Self Illusion: Why There Is No “You” Inside Your Head by Bruce Hood
Faster: The Acceleration of Just About Everything by James Gleick
Do you have a specific subject you have in mind? Physics? Biology? Maths?
I love biology. Physics and chemistry are intriguing as well!
Okies. For biology, I would recommend books by Richard Dawkins. The Greatest Show on Earth is amazing. The Genius of Birds by Jennifer Ackerman or Feathers by Thor Hanson. Also, The Reason for Flowers by Stephen Buchmann. The Emperor of All Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee. Indica by Pranay Lal (lovely illustrations).
For physics: The Fabric of the Cosmos by Brian Greene. Quantum: A Guide for the Perplexed by Jim Al-Khalili. A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking. Cycles of Time by Roger Penrose. In Search of Schrodinger’s Cat by John Gribbin. The Trouble with Physics by Lee Smolin.
Oh, The Gene by Siddhartha Mukherjee is amazing as well. A personal history of the gene. So intriguing. And p53: The Gene that Cracked the Cancer Code by Sue Armstrong. Or The Cancer Chronicles by Samuel Johnson.
Thank you so much, @Syed! 🙂 I will be adding these to my list.
Anything by Richard Dawkins, his books about evolution etc are all amazing
A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather Than Nothing by Lawrence Krauss
These are all fantastic suggestions! The last non fiction I read was Stiff but that was a year ago. I loved that book. The science behind decomposition was fascinating.
Michio Kaku has some very good physics related books
https://www.learnoutloud.com/Resources/Publishers-and-Retailers/Modern-Scholar/80
If you in to something a bit more academic, I have some of these and they are excellent
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales by Oliver Sacks
Great book!
Cannibalism by Bill Schutt
Stiff by Mary Roach
Bill Bryson- a short history of nearly everything
The Greatest Show on Earth by Richard Dawkins. It is on my TBR for about 2 years, your question remind me about it.
The Invisible Gorilla by Christopher Chabris.
For a fun sort of introduction, check out this video! I heard about the book in my psych class in college and this is the video my professor showed us to intro the subject. (It’s not spam but if you don’t want to click the link, search for test your awareness on YouTube!)
https://youtu.be/UfA3ivLK_tE
Immortal Story of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot.
Science? “The Relativity of Wrong” by Isaac Asimov; “Demon-Haunted World” by Carl Sagan. just off the top of my head….
Fire on earth , brief history of nearly everything, anything by Stephen j. Would, anything by “your personnel astrophysics – Neil deGrasse Tyson
The Gene
Stiff by Mary Roach
The Ascent Of Man. Cosmos. Science: A History. James Clerk Maxwell: The Man Who Changed Everything. The Lunar Men.
There’s a great book on how the Romantics discovered science, but I can’t remember its name! I think it’s by the same guy that wrote a biography on Percy Shelley (not that that’s much help!).
Quantum was superb.
Paul Dirac: The Strangest Man
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot. Amazing book.
The making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes or Countdown to Zero Day by Kim Zetter
A Natural History or the Senses by Diane Ackerman
Emperor of All Maladies:!A Biography of Cancer and The Gene by Siddhartha Mukherjee are both wonderful…
Sorry … late to the party ?. But had to suggest The Sixth Extinction by Elizabeth Kolbert. Soooo good.