Recommended Books about Science

Note: I do not necessarily agree with each author about all of their perspectives (I disagree with Richard Dawkins about religion, for instance), but the books below are written by experts and represent the modern scientific consensus.

Physics

  • Brian Greene, "The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory"

  • Paul Halpern, "Collider: The Search for the World's Smallest Particle"

  • Roger Penrose, "The Road to Reality: A Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe"

  • Kip Thorne, "The Science of Interstellar"

  • David Weintraub, "How Old is the Universe?"

  • Stephen Hawking, "A Brief History of Time"

 

Climate Change

  • Robert Henson, “The Thinking Person’s Guide to Climate Change”

  • David Archer, "Global Warming: Understanding the Forecast"

  • John Englander, "High Tide on Main Street: Rising Sea Level and the Coming Coastal Crisis"

  • Oreskes and Conway, “Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming”

Life Science

  • Scientific American, "Evolution: A Scientific American Reader"

  • Carl Zimmer, "Evolution: The Triumph of an Idea"

  • Jerry Coyne, "Why Evolution is True"

  • Richard Dawkins, "The Selfish Gene"

  • Kenneth Miller, "Only a Theory: Evolution and the Battle for America's Soul"

All-Purpose

  • Randall Munroe, "What If? Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions"

  • Robert Hazen and James Trefil, "Science Matters: Achieving Scientific Literacy"

  • Dave Levitan, "Not a Scientist: How Politicians Mistake, Misrepresent and Utterly Mangle Science"

  • Ashlee Vance, "Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future"

History of Science

  • David Lindberg, "The Beginnings of Western Science: The European Scientific Tradition in Philosophical, Religious, and Institutional Context, Prehistory to A.D. 1450"

  • Ron Numbers, “Galileo Goes To Jail, and other Myths about Science and Religion”

Bonus: Scientifically-informed creative writing

  • Alan Lightman (Physics professor at Harvard and MIT), "Einstein's Dreams"

  • David Eagleman (Neuroscience professor at Stanford), "Sum: Forty Visions of the Afterlives"