Book Recommendations

I have put together this list of my favorite books, sorted by category, for other avid consumers of non-fiction. The only thing better than a good non-fiction recommendation is a few hundred more!

Biology

The Blind Watchmaker

Richard Dawkins

Empire of Ants

Susanne Foitzik & Olaf Fritsche

Tales from the Ant World

Edward O. Wilson

The Secret of Our Success

Joseph Henrich

The Song of the Dodo

David Quammen

The Sixth Extinction

Elizabeth Kolbert

Beasts Before Us

Elsa Panciroli

Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?

Frans de Waal

The Sounds of Life

Karen Bakker

The Earth: A Biography of Life

Dr. Elsa Panciroli

On the Origin of Species

Charles Darwin

Almost Human

Lee Berger & John Hawks

The Bonobo and the Atheist

Frans de Waal

Other Minds

Peter Godfrey-Smith

Why Fish Don't Exist

Lulu Miller

Hymenoptera

Stephen A. Marshall

How the World Really Works

Vaclav Smil

Under a White Sky

Elizabeth Kolbert

Islands of Abandonment

Cal Flyn

Technology

The Alignment Problem

Brian Christian

Weapons of Math Destruction

Cathy O'Neil

The Coming Wave

Mustafa Suleyman & Michael Bhaskar

Algorithms to Live By

Brian Christian & Tom Griffiths

The Innovators

Walter Isaacson

Fancy Bear Goes Phishing

Scott J. Shapiro

Algorithms of Oppression

Safiya Umoja Noble

The Universe in a Box

Andrew Pontzen

The Victorian Internet

Tom Standage

The Importance of Being Educable

Leslie Valiant

Philosophy

The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe

Steven Novella & Bob Novella

The Skeptics' Guide to the Future

Steven Novella

Letters from a Stoic

Seneca & Robin Campbell

Meditations

Marcus Aurelius & George Long

Aristotle

Thomas C. Brickhouse

Aristotle in 90 Minutes

Paul Strathern

Hume in 90 Minutes

Paul Strathern

The Great Ideas of Philosophy

Daniel N. Robinson

How to Be Authentic

Skye C. Cleary

What Do You Care What Other People Think?

Richard P. Feynman & Ralph Leighton

The Wealth of Nations

Adam Smith

The Rigor of Angels

William Egginton

How Luck Changes the Way We View the World

Daniel Breyer

Conspiracies & Conspiracy Theories

Michael Shermer

Physics

A Brief History of Time

Stephen Hawking

Until the End of Time

Brian Greene

The Elegant Universe

Brian Greene

Light Falls

Brian Greene

Death by Black Hole

Neil deGrasse Tyson

Fundamentals: Ten Keys to Reality

Frank Wilczek

Origins

Donald Goldsmith & Neil deGrasse Tyson

Things That Go Bump in the Universe

C. Renee James

Waves in an Impossible Ocean

Matt Strassler

Neuroscience

The Big Questions of Neuroscience

Suzana Herculano-Houzel

The Battle for Your Brain

Nita A. Farahany

The Tailored Brain

Emily Willingham

Thinking with Your Hands

Susan Goldin-Meadow

Decoding Dogs: Inside the Canine Mind

Ellen Furlong

Overloaded: How Every Aspect of Your Life Is Influenced by Your Brain Chemicals

Ginny Smith

Thinking, Fast and Slow

Daniel Kahneman

The Illusionist Brain

Jordi Camí & Luis M. Martinez

I Am a Strange Loop

Douglas Hofstadter

Then I Am Myself the World

Christof Koch

History

The Jakarta Method

Vincent Bevins

1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus

Charles C. Mann

1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created

Charles C. Mann

Mortal Republic

Edward J. Watts

The Invention of Tomorrow

Thomas Suddendorf & Jonathan Redshaw

The Emperor of All Maladies

Siddhartha Mukherjee

Against the Grain

James C. Scott

Valiant Women

Lena S. Andrews

The Anthropocene Reviewed

John Green

Social Science

The Skeptic's Guide to Alternative Medicine

Steven Novella

How to Hide an Empire

Daniel Immerwahr

How to Stand Up to a Dictator

Maria Ressa

Understanding Socialism

Richard D. Wolff

Democracy at Work

Richard D. Wolff

Fiction