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30 Favorite Books

Sunday, October 28, 2018 18:27

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Computer science professor Scott Aaronson listed his 30 favorite books on his blog, so I thought I would (incompletely) list my own.

These are volumes which inspired me even as a teenager and continue to stimulate and enrich my worldview. Reflecting my interests, they are mostly non-fiction (or as Richard Rhodes calls it, “verity”). List yours.

1. The Making of the Atomic Bomb – Richard Rhodes (probably the best work of non-fiction I have read, and in my opinion one of the best books ever written: easily parallels Shakespeare or the Greek tragedies as an epic work of horror and glory)

2. Blood Meridian – Cormac McCarthy (probably the best work of fiction I have read; the imagery, violence and profound depth are simply stunning and without parallel)

3. Paradigms Lost – John Casti (probably the best work of general science I have read. Six great problems of modern science – the origin of life, nature vs nurture, language acquisition, artificial intelligence, quantum reality and extraterrestrial intelligence – are tackled in the form of a courtroom case with wit and brilliance)

4. Disturbing the Universe – Freeman Dyson (probably the best autobiography I have read)

5. Chaos – James Gleick (I know of no other book which speaks so vividly of a science on the cusp of explosive progress)

6. The Beginning of Infinity – David Deutsch (mind-expanding)

7. Gödel, Escher, Bach – Douglas Hofstadter (mind-blowing)

8. The Emperor’s New Mind – Roger Penrose (mind-bending)

9. Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman! – Richard Feynman

10. Naturalist – E. O. Wilson (ranks with Dyson’s book as the most sincere set of self-reflections I have ever seen penned by a scientist)

11. Waking Up – Sam Harris (probably the best and clearest argument in favor of secular meditation I have read)

12. Complete works of T.S. Eliot – T.S. Eliot

13. The Dragons of Eden – Carl Sagan (a lot of people rightly recommend Sagan’s other books, but I found this one to be his boldest and most imaginative volume – and it won a Pulitzer)

14. The Time Machine – H. G. Wells

15. The Story of Civilization – Will and Ariel Durant (A ten volume magnum opus; probably all you need to read for a grand dive into Westerrn Civilization)

16. Why I am Not A Christian – Bertrand Russell (brimming with trenchant wit and provocative juices).

17. The Man Who Loved Only Numbers – Paul Hoffman (a compulsively readable biography of one of the strangest and most brilliant minds of the 20th century)

18. A Beautiful Mind – Sylvia Nasar (an amazing exploration of both mathematical brilliance and mental illness)

19. My Family and other Animals – Gerald Durrell

20. King Solomon’s Ring – Konrad Lorenz (both Lorenz and Durrell provide delightful accounts of communing with nature and animals that would make any ten year old fall in love with the natural world)

21. Stories – Anton Chekhov (no one can turn words so simply as Chekhov)

22. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich – William Shirer (an unsurpassed epic full of horror and triumph)

23. The Longest Day – Cornelius Ryan (the book that got me hooked on to WW2 history).

24. Begone Godmen! – Abraham Kovoor (a rare volume: Kovoor was an Indian rationalist who bravely took on spiritual and religious frauds and exposed their ‘miracles’ long before it was fashionable to do so)

25. In Search of Schrödinger’s Cat – John Gribbin (a book which would inspire anyone to study physics)

26. Manhunt – James Swanson (edge of your seat account of the 12 day hunt for John Wilkes Booth)

27. The Second Creation – Robert Crease (possibly the best history of particle physics)

28. The Eighth Day of Creation – Horace Freeland Judson (possibly the best history of molecular biology)

29. The Double Helix – James Watson (science with all its warts)

30. My World Line – George Gamow (Gamow was brilliant, wide-ranging, a prankster, and all these qualities shine through in this memoir)

And a few more:

31. Natural Obsessions – Natalie Angier (one of the best fly-on-the-wall accounts of academic science)

32. The Billion-Dollar Molecule – Barry Werth (a similar account of industrial science)

33. The JASONS – Ann Finkbeiner (vivid and entertaining profile of some of the most brilliant minds of American science)

34. Consciousness Explained – Daniel Dennett (I find Dennett to be one of the deepest and most original thinkers of our time)

35. Wittgenstein’s Poker – Edmonds and Eidinow (Wittgenstein! Popper! The Vienna Circle! Russell!)

36. Paradox – Rebecca Goldstein (a brilliant account of a singular and tortured mind)

Source: http://wavefunction.fieldofscience.com/2018/03/30-favorite-books.html

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