via David Pescovitz at Boing Boing
New Scientist has a feature package where seventeen big name scientists recommend books that they considered "life-changing." Here is the list of the scientists and the books they suggest, with each title linking to Amazon. Follow the link at the bottom of the post to the New Scientist article where you can read the scientists’ thoughts on their picks. From New Scientist:
- Farthest North – Steve Jones, geneticist
- The Art of the Soluble – V. S. Ramachandran, neuroscientist
- Animal Liberation – Jane Goodall, primatologist
- The Foundation trilogy – Michio Kaku, theoretical physicist
- Alice in Wonderland – Alison Gopnik, developmental psychologist
- One, Two, Three… Infinity – Sean Carroll, theoretical physicist
- The Idea of a Social Science – Harry Collins, sociologist of science
- Handbook of Mathematical Functions – Peter Atkins, chemist
- The Mind of a Mnemonist – Oliver Sacks, neurologist
- A Mathematician’s Apology – Marcus du Sautoy, mathematician
- The Leopard – Susan Greenfield, neurophysiologist
- Darwin and the Emergence of Evolutionary Theories of Mind and Behavior – Frans de Waal, psychologist and ethologist
- Catch-22 / The First Three Minutes – Lawrence Krauss, physicist
- William James, Writings 1878-1910 – Daniel Everett, linguist
- Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep – Chris Frith, neuroscientist
- The Naked Ape – Elaine Morgan, author of The Aquatic Ape Hypothesis
- King Solomon’s Ring – Marion Stamp Dawkins, Zoologist
A few familiar titles, and I always like to recommend the writings of William James. I look forward to checking into the others!