I’ve always been fascinated by great ideas, even wrong ones. As a child, I read a ‘science’ book that proposed that atoms are like solar systems inhabited by electron-sized people and animals. It was bonkers but it got me thinking about astronomy, biology, and particle physics and I retain that fascination today (though I no longer believe in tiny people living inside atoms). But ideas, even wrong ones, can be endlessly fruitful. Einstein came up with the idea of quantum entanglement ‘spooky action at a distance’ as he called it, supposedly as an example of where quantum mechanics goes wrong. A few decades later, experiments proved quantum entanglement was real.
I wrote...
Life Is Simple: How Occam's Razor Set Science Free and Shapes the Universe
Life is Simple is about Occam’s razor, the simplest and most powerful idea that anyone has ever had. It is simply(!) that if you have lots of explanations for say a light in the night sky, then you should choose the simplest – it’s an airplane – so long as it works. The razor is named after William of Occam, a cool medieval friar who disproved the standard ‘proofs’ of God and accused the Pope of heresy. My book follows his razor’s tracks as it cuts through medieval baloney to establish modern science and its subsequent wielding in the hands of Copernicus, Newton to Einstein or Higgs. It remains a cornerstone of modernity and the most powerful weapon against pseudoscience, conspiracy theories, and fake news.
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind is, first of all, a great read and page-turner.
Harari takes us on a journey from the emergence of Homo sapiens in East Africa to the present day, covering key milestones such as the Agricultural Revolution, the rise of civilization, empires, and technology. Through insightful analysis, he delves into topics like the development of language, the impact of myths and religions, and the role of technology in shaping our species and our lives.
This thought-provoking book challenges readers to question the fundamental nature and future trajectory of humanity. Was agriculture a ‘good thing’? What about technology? Or money? Harari may not have all the answers but he has some great questions.
100,000 years ago, at least six human species inhabited the earth. Today there is just one. Us. Homo sapiens. How did our species succeed in the battle for dominance? Why did our foraging ancestors come together to create cities and kingdoms? How did we come to believe in gods, nations and human rights; to trust money, books and laws; and to be enslaved by bureaucracy, timetables and consumerism? And what will our world be like in the millennia to come?
In Sapiens, Dr Yuval Noah Harari spans the whole of human history, from the very first humans to walk the…
Tired of Western-orientated histories of the world? Then take a trip along the Silk Road with Peter Frankopan.
His book is a captivating exploration of the history of the world but with its frame of reference centered in the great cities of the East, such as Baghdad or Peking, and, of course the Great Silk Road that linked much of the world in a single trade route that connected civilizations from East to West, facilitating the exchange of goods, ideas, and cultures.
He highlights the pivotal role the Silk Road played in shaping global history, from the rise and fall of empires to the spread of religions and the transmission of knowledge. Fascinating stories and insights, such as the West to East slave trade operated by medieval Rus tribes.
The No. 1 Sunday Times and international bestseller - a major reassessment of world history in light of the economic and political renaissance in the re-emerging east
For centuries, fame and fortune was to be found in the west - in the New World of the Americas. Today, it is the east which calls out to those in search of adventure and riches. The region stretching from eastern Europe and sweeping right across Central Asia deep into China and India, is taking centre stage in international politics, commerce and culture - and is shaping the modern world.
This region, the…
I love this book because it provides a great account of the theory natural selection, described as the greatest idea that anyone ever had, by its co-discover, Alfred Russell Wallace.
The Malay Archipelago describes what is now largely a lost world, the 19th-century Malayan Archipelago. Unlike Darwin, Wallace had to earn a living as a ‘fly-catcher’ to support his passion, travelling in native canoes rather than Royal Navy ships, and living with native people, rather than European aristocrats.
Wallace's book describes the geographical distribution of animals, the diversity of species, and his observations of the region's fauna and flora, illustrating how natural selection shapes organisms and ecosystems. But he doesn’t stop with the animals, he also gives us sympathetic portrayals of native people and their lifestyles.
The Malay Archipelago is a book by the British naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace which chronicles his scientific exploration, during the eight-year period 1854 to 1862, of the southern portion of the Malay Archipelago including Malaysia, Singapore, the islands of Indonesia, and the island of New Guinea. The book describes each island that he visited in turn, giving a detailed account of its physical and human geography, its volcanoes, and the variety of animals and plants that he found and collected. At the same time, he describes his experiences, the difficulties of travel, and the help he received from the different…
This book brings alive, in startling details, the remarkable explosion of multicellular life in the Cambrian period.
600 million years ago, all life on Earth was unicellular microbes. A few tens of millions of years later and the world was teeming with a fantastic diversity of animals. Gould challenges the notion of a predictable and linear evolutionary path and argues instead that chance events and contingency played a crucial role in shaping the course of evolution.
But what I really love is Gould’s attention to detail. It’s said that “the devil is in the detail" and, in his book, Gould revels in the anatomical details of fantastically well-preserved and very strange animals, such as the bizarre Anomalocaris, from the Burgess Shale, their discovery, significance, and just how wonderful life can be.
High in the Canadian Rockies is a small limestone quarry formed 530 million years ago called the Burgess Shale. It hold the remains of an ancient sea where dozens of strange creatures lived-a forgotten corner of evolution preserved in awesome detail. In this book Stephen Jay Gould explores what the Burgess Shale tells us about evolution and the nature of history.
Who would have thought fungi could be so fascinating and clever?
In this very easy to read but informative book, Sheldrake explores the intricate and symbiotic world of fungi and their invisible connections with plants and animals. From mycelium networks that connect plants underground to the potential of fungi in medicine, psychedelics, biotechnology, the book uncovers the hidden and remarkable abilities of fungi.
Sheldrake challenges our perception of fungi as mere decomposers or organic matter and reveals their immense impact on our planet. For my taste, Entangled Life does occasionally stray into wishy-washy mystical magic mushroom ramblings but Sheldrake’s engaging storytelling and scientific insights, Entangled Life offers a captivating journey into the interconnectedness of life through the lens of fungi.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A “brilliant [and] entrancing” (The Guardian) journey into the hidden lives of fungi—the great connectors of the living world—and their astonishing and intimate roles in human life, with the power to heal our bodies, expand our minds, and help us address our most urgent environmental problems.
“Grand and dizzying in how thoroughly it recalibrates our understanding of the natural world.”—Ed Yong, author of I Contain Multitudes
ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR—Time, BBC Science Focus, The Daily Mail, Geographical, The Times, The Telegraph, New Statesman, London Evening Standard, Science Friday
I am adopted. For most of my life, I didn’t identify as adopted. I shoved that away because of the shame I felt about being adopted and not truly fitting into my family. But then two things happened: I had my own biological children, the only two people I know to date to whom I am biologically related, and then shortly after my second daughter was born, my older sister, also an adoptee, died of a drug overdose. These sequential births and death put my life on a new trajectory, and I started writing, out of grief, the history of adoption and motherhood in America.
I grew up thinking that being adopted didn’t matter. I was wrong. This book is my journey uncovering the significance and true history of adoption practices in America. Now, in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade, the renewed debate over women’s reproductive rights places an even greater emphasis on adoption. As a mother, historian, and adoptee, I am uniquely qualified to uncover the policies and practices of adoption.
The history of adoption, reframed through the voices of adoptees like me, and mothers who have been forced to relinquish their babies, blows apart old narratives about adoption, exposing the fallacy that adoption is always good.
In this story, I reckon with the pain and unanswered questions of my own experience and explore broader issues surrounding adoption in the United States, including changing legal policies, sterilization, and compulsory relinquishment programs, forced assimilation of babies of color and Indigenous babies adopted into white families, and other liabilities affecting women, mothers, and children. Now is the moment we must all hear these stories.
Who Is a Worthy Mother?: An Intimate History of Adoption
Nearly every person in the United States is affected by adoption. Adoption practices are woven into the fabric of American society and reflect how our nation values human beings, particularly mothers. In the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court's overturning of Roe v. Wade, the renewed debate over women's reproductive rights places an even greater emphasis on adoption. As a mother, historian, and adoptee, Rebecca C. Wellington is uniquely qualified to uncover the policies and practices of adoption. Wellington's timely-and deeply researched-account amplifies previously marginalized voices and exposes the social and racial biases embedded in the United States' adoption industry.…
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