I am a Harvard- and MIT-trained physician-scientist, and I am drawn to research problems that bridge the basic and the practical – how a better understanding of cells and tissues can inform new therapies for cancer and other diseases. As children, we are all scientists – mini-hypothesis generators trying to make sense of the world. I suppose I never outgrew that curiosity. My list of best science books credits writers who bring to life the excitement that comes from looking at the natural world in a new way, a spirit that I try to emulate in my own writing. I hope you enjoy these books as much as I have!
I wrote
From One Cell: A Journey into Life's Origins and the Future of Medicine
I can’t think of a better tale of discovery written by a scientist than Shubin’s engaging account of the unearthing of Tiktaalik, the first fish to walk on land.
I remember reading about the find on the front page of The New York Times, and this book is the backstory. By weaving his own boots-on-the-ground experience as a paleontologist with a highly approachable background on the relevant biology, Shubin us a front row seat to one of the most important events in evolution.
The paleontologist and professor of anatomy who co-discovered Tiktaalik, the “fish with hands,” tells a “compelling scientific adventure story that will change forever how you understand what it means to be human” (Oliver Sacks).
By examining fossils and DNA, he shows us that our hands actually resemble fish fins, our heads are organized like long-extinct jawless fish, and major parts of our genomes look and function like those of worms and bacteria. Your Inner Fish makes us look at ourselves and our world in an illuminating new light. This is science writing at its finest—enlightening, accessible and told with irresistible…
Although lacking the name recognition of an Einstein, Watson, or Salk, French microbiologist Francois Jacob was one of the most important scientists of the 20th century.
Together with Jacques Monod, his close collaborator, Jacob figured out how genes are regulated, a discovery that underlies all molecular biology. Jacob came to science late in life, after his dreams of becoming a physician were crushed by injuries suffered during World War II.
In this autobiographical blend of scientific and personal discovery, he takes us through his journey as a damaged soldier, fraught human, and brilliant researcher.
In a new preface to this special edition of his critically acclaimed memoir, Francois Jacob recalls the events that brought him to Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in the early 1960's and taught him much about phage biology and the informal ways of American science. Throughout his book, Jacob demonstrates a scientist's eye for detail and a poet's instinct for the inner life, as he tells of a privileged Parisian boyhood, young love, heroism in war, and the fascination of life at the edge of scientific discovery.
In a series of short essays, Thomas, a physician, researcher, and National Book Award winner twice over, takes an unconventional look at the natural world. The territory he covers is vast – from protozoa inhabiting the digestive tracts of termites to the titular essay comparing the earth to a cell – and Thomas makes his way through his subjects with the most delightful prose.
Even when the science is outdated, his insights are spot-on, such as this observation: “Given any new technology for transmitting information, we seem bound to use it for great quantities of small talk.” Thomas shows us that the true beauty of the natural world is hiding in plain sight.
Elegant, suggestive, and clarifying, Lewis Thomas's profoundly humane vision explores the world around us and examines the complex interdependence of all things. Extending beyond the usual limitations of biological science and into a vast and wondrous world of hidden relationships, this provocative book explores in personal, poetic essays to topics such as computers, germs, language, music, death, insects, and medicine. Lewis Thomas writes, "Once you have become permanently startled, as I am, by the realization that we are a social species, you tend to keep an eye out for the pieces of evidence that this is, by and large, good…
A list of ‘science-by-scientists’ books would not be complete without ABHOT, the classic precursor to the innumerable popular physics books published in the thirty-five years since.
Following a recipe of personal reflection interspersed with hardcore science – a template that he pretty much invented – Hawking gives us a tour of the universe beyond our familiar earthly neighborhood. What makes this book so compelling is that he tells these stories from the vantage point of a practicing theoretical physicist, one who is still as enthralled by the subject as when he first started out.
Was there a beginning of time? Could time run backwards? Is the universe infinite or does it have boundaries? These are just some of the questions considered in an internationally acclaimed masterpiece by one of the world's greatest thinkers. It begins by reviewing the great theories of the cosmos from Newton to Einstein, before delving into the secrets which still lie at the heart of space and time, from the Big Bang to black holes, via spiral galaxies and strong theory. To this day A Brief History of Time remains a staple of the scientific canon, and its succinct and…
Gawande’s introspective analysis of complex tasks – including modern surgery – is as much a practical handbook as it is a pleasure to read.
The author starts us off in the operating room, making it familiar enough for us to understand how easily mistakes can occur in its controlled chaos. Then, he brings us into airplane cockpits and construction sites to hammer home a simple theme: checklists are a potent antidote to human fallibility.
Although not a ’scientist’ in the classical sense, Gawande puts the lessons he extracts to the test at his own institution, showing how the routine use of checklists can reduce the risk of error.
In his latest bestseller, Atul Gawande shows what the simple idea of the checklist reveals about the complexity of our lives and how we can deal with it.
The modern world has given us stupendous know-how. Yet avoidable failures continue to plague us in health care, government, the law, the financial industry—in almost every realm of organized activity. And the reason is simple: the volume and complexity of knowledge today has exceeded our ability as individuals to properly deliver it to people—consistently, correctly, safely. We train longer, specialize more, use ever-advancing technologies, and still we fail. Atul Gawande makes a…
Question: What would you have if you took minute quantities of protein, nucleic acid, fat, and carbohydrates, and threw them together in the right way within the confines of a single cell? Answer: The starting material for all animal life, including you.
Every creature that ever walked, crawled, swam, or flew on (or above) our planet took a similar journey, originating from that solitary point of origin – a single cell. This simple truth binds us together as a species and is cause for marveling at the unlikelihood of our very existence. From One Cell is the story of this miraculous process, told through the exploits of scientists who showed us how it works and how it will shape the future of medicine.
I come by my interest in history and the years before, during, and after the Second World War honestly. For one thing, both my father and my father-in-law served as pilots in the war, my father a P-38 pilot in North Africa and my father-in-law a B-17 bomber pilot in England. Their histories connect me with a period I think we can still almost reach with our fingertips and one that has had a momentous impact on our lives today. I have taken that interest and passion to discover and write true life stories of the war—focusing on the untold and unheard stories often of the “Average Joe.”
October 24, 1944, is not a day of national remembrance. Yet, more Americans serving in World War II perished on that day than on any other single day of the war.
The narrative of No Average Day proceeds hour by hour and incident by incident while focusing its attention on ordinary individuals—clerks, radio operators, cooks, sailors, machinist mates, riflemen, and pilots and their air crews. All were men who chose to serve their country and soon found themselves in a terrifying and otherworldly place.
No Average Day reveals the vastness of the war as it reaches past the beaches in…
October 24, 1944, is not a day of national remembrance. Yet, more Americans serving in World War II perished on that day than on December 7, 1941, when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, or on June 6, 1944, when the Allies stormed the beaches of Normandy, or on any other single day of the war. In its telling of the events of October 24, No Average Day proceeds hour by hour and incident by incident. The book begins with Army Private First-Class Paul Miller's pre-dawn demise in the Sendai #6B Japanese prisoner of war camp. It concludes with the death…
