Here are 68 books that Diatoms to Dinosaurs fans have personally recommended if you like
Diatoms to Dinosaurs.
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I am a scientist and biologist. Learning about evolution changed my life and put me on a path to studying it as a career. As a child, I was a voracious reader, and as an undergraduate, I read every popular science book on biology I could get my hands on. In retrospect, those books were almost as important to my education as anything I learned in a lab or lecture theatre. When writing for a general audience, I try to convey the same sense of wonder and enthusiasm for science that drives me to this day.
This is one of my favourite books. It is a palimpsest—a serious document about humanity’s effects on the natural world overlaid with Adams’s hilariously absurdist worldview. This book is different from most other popular science books in that it sort of isn’t one; it’s more of a travel book, with Adams acting as the uninformed everyman repeatedly confronted with the realities of an unfolding ecological tragedy and interpreting them as only he could.
Extinction is not an inherently amusing subject, and this book is a sobering account of how much biological diversity we have already lost, yet at the same time, it is painfully funny. For me, Adams’s recounting of his conversation with an Australian snake venom expert is worth the price of admission on its own.
'Descriptive writing of a high order... this is an extremely intelligent book' The Times
Join Douglas Adams, bestselling and beloved author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and zoologist Mark Carwardine on an adventure in search of the world's most endangered and exotic creatures.
In this book, Adams' self-proclaimed favourite of his own works, the pair encounter animals in imminent peril: the giant Komodo dragon of Indonesia, the lovable kakapo of New Zealand, the blind river dolphins of China, the white rhinos of Zaire, the rare birds of Mauritius island in the Indian Ocean and the alien-like aye-aye of…
I am a scientist and biologist. Learning about evolution changed my life and put me on a path to studying it as a career. As a child, I was a voracious reader, and as an undergraduate, I read every popular science book on biology I could get my hands on. In retrospect, those books were almost as important to my education as anything I learned in a lab or lecture theatre. When writing for a general audience, I try to convey the same sense of wonder and enthusiasm for science that drives me to this day.
A tour-de-force of science writing and arguably the best book about ecology and evolution ever written. Quammen’s book covers similar ground to Last Chance to See conceptually, and sometimes literally as several of the same locales are visited. But the similarities end there. As an undergraduate, it opened my eyes to the importance of ecological research and gave me a new appreciation for the contributions to science of the much-maligned Alfred Russell Wallace.
This book is unique in that, despite my enthusiasm for it, I have seldom found the need to re-read it because so much of the content—tenrec reproduction, the circumstances of the discovery that chuckwalla meat is more disagreeable than starvation, how invasive snakes overran Guam—has lived rent-free in my head for almost 30 years.
“Compulsively readable—a masterpiece, maybe the masterpiece of science journalism.” —Bill McKibben, Audubon
A brilliant, stirring work, breathtaking in its scope and far-reaching in its message, The Song of the Dodo is a crucial book in precarious times. Through personal observation, scientific theory, and history, David Quammen examines the mysteries of evolution and extinction and radically alters our understanding of the natural world and our place within it.
In this landmark of science writing, we learn how the isolation of islands makes them natural laboratories of evolutionary extravagance, as seen in the dragons of Komodo, the elephant birds of Madagascar, the…
I am a scientist and biologist. Learning about evolution changed my life and put me on a path to studying it as a career. As a child, I was a voracious reader, and as an undergraduate, I read every popular science book on biology I could get my hands on. In retrospect, those books were almost as important to my education as anything I learned in a lab or lecture theatre. When writing for a general audience, I try to convey the same sense of wonder and enthusiasm for science that drives me to this day.
Less about biology specifically and more about the general value of the scientific method and rationalism; I think that this book should be read by everyone. Never smug or condescending, Sagan and Druyan show how easily one can be misled by mystical thinking and illustrate the many dangers of credulity.
From cargo cults to baloney detectors, this book is a primer for life in the modern world and how to recognize and protect against disinformation and one’s own biases. I have more than once bought copies of this book for people who are overly enthused about crystals.
A prescient warning of a future we now inhabit, where fake news stories and Internet conspiracy theories play to a disaffected American populace
“A glorious book . . . A spirited defense of science . . . From the first page to the last, this book is a manifesto for clear thought.”—Los Angeles Times
How can we make intelligent decisions about our increasingly technology-driven lives if we don’t understand the difference between the myths of pseudoscience and the testable hypotheses of science? Pulitzer Prize-winning author and distinguished astronomer Carl Sagan argues that scientific thinking is critical not only to the…
Nature writer Sharman Apt Russell tells stories of her experiences tracking wildlife—mostly mammals, from mountain lions to pocket mice—near her home in New Mexico, with lessons that hold true across North America. She guides readers through the basics of identifying tracks and signs, revealing a landscape filled with the marks…
I am a scientist and biologist. Learning about evolution changed my life and put me on a path to studying it as a career. As a child, I was a voracious reader, and as an undergraduate, I read every popular science book on biology I could get my hands on. In retrospect, those books were almost as important to my education as anything I learned in a lab or lecture theatre. When writing for a general audience, I try to convey the same sense of wonder and enthusiasm for science that drives me to this day.
After 25 years as a professional biologist(!), it’s seldom that I come across a book about biology that blows my mind, but this book absolutely did. Both scientists and laymen are mostly interested in the flashy parts of male-male competition and female choice that we can readily observe, but the parts of it that go on “behind the scenes”—that is to say, inside the female reproductive tract—are even more fascinating.
I read this book only relatively recently since I thought I was already pretty well informed about the ins and outs of sperm competition. I was wrong. Sperm competition is even crazier than I had imagined, and Birkhead writes about it brilliantly.
Males are promiscuous and ferociously competitive. Females--both human and of other species--are naturally monogamous. That at least is what the study of sexual behavior after Darwin assumed, perhaps because it was written by men. Only in recent years has this version of events been challenged. Females, it has become clear, are remarkably promiscuous and have evolved an astonishing array of strategies, employed both before and after copulation, to determine exactly who will father their offspring.
Tim Birkhead reveals a wonderful world in which males and females vie with each other as they strive to maximize their reproductive success. Both sexes…
I’ve been fascinated with financial literacy for a long time. I have an MBA and have worked in banking and the mortgage industry for more than 15 years. I am passionate about helping people understand concepts and terms that, at times, are obfuscated. Now that I have a son of my own, I am constantly looking for books that expose him to a variety of topics, not just financial. I am always checking out library books for him that will educate him about the world around him. My list of books is curated to some of my favorite educational books that he and I both love!
This book is a little different than a typical children’s board book or picture book. It’s a hardcover book that plays 11 different snippets of classical music that coordinate with the story as it progresses.
This book was the first time my son was exposed to classical music, and it’s how we found out how much he loves it. He has had this book for about two years, and it’s still an absolute favorite!
Classical music comes to life like never before in this magical journey through 11 timeless compositions. Meet Allegro, an ordinary boy who can't stand practicing the piano. Those black dots on the page drive him crazy―until the music itself whisks him away on a breathtaking journey. Each beautifully illustrated scene on Allegro's journey is accompanied by a famous classical theme that can be played with the press of a button. Hear Grieg's "Morning Mood" while meandering through a misty meadow, Dvorak's "New World Symphony" while exploring uncharted lands, Debussy's "Claire de Lune" while pondering a shimmering night sky, and 7…
I am the author and illustrator of the baby book listed below. As a mom of a 1-year-old, I am no stranger to kids’ books. After 1 year of going through my baby’s bookshelf and finding my own personal favorites, I realized that the common theme amongst all of my favorites is that all my selects happen to rhyme. Therefore, when I set out to write my own book, it was a given that this would be a rhyming story. Since then, I have been reading and researching all of the rhyming books to create my own. After all this research, these top five books are my top picks.
I love the rhyming nature of this book and the fact that it is also available as a song! The emphasis on learning the ABCs is also a bonus for you and your baby. I grew up on this book, so there is a familiarity—it is amazing how quickly the words came back to me after all of these years.
Everybody knows that all animals—bats, bears, sharks, ponies, and people—start out as a single cell: the fertilized egg. But how does something no bigger than the period at the end of this sentence give rise to the remarkable complexity of each of these creatures?
I've loved writing since childhood when I lived in an 18th-century farmhouse in England that I was convinced was haunted. I'm now passionate about the history of British Columbia where I live today, and have written over twenty non-fiction historical books, true crime books, historical columns, and numerous articles for magazines and newspapers. My own forthcoming fictional trilogy, The McBride Chronicles, tells the story of a fictional family from the beginnings of British Columbia until present day so I can truly say I love all fiction set in our beautiful province by BC writers. I'm delighted that we have so many talented fiction writers in the province including the ones I recommend.
This book connected with me on many levels as she struggles to understand the meaning of why younger people sometimes have to die before their parents. She also gives a clear and accurate description of the stress of caregiving for a family member and then the aftermath of grief. The strongest message I personally took away from this book was the power of love within a family who, despite living far from one another, came together to help each other through pain. This is a very powerful read with a strong message of hope.
Rita Moir’s mother and sister underwent heart surgery in the same week; a year later her sister was dead and her elderly mother lived many more years. Not of Reason: A Recipe for Outrunning Sadness is a family memoir centred on the deaths of the author’s sister and mother and the final restoration of what is considered “the natural order.” Encouraged by her mother to “opt for joy,” Moir remained grounded within her rural BC community in the Slocan Valley, becoming deeply involved in everything from her local community hall to seniors housing and her local burial society, while continuing…
I’ve been a fan of horror stories since I was a child. It was never about the shock or the gore, but the sense of dread and unease such stories could build, and how they challenged society’s norms in a variety of ways. The driving force in a lot of horror is often the threat—or even the result—of some sort of loss, and that’s what I tend to explore in my own work. Whether it’s the loss of life, of love or loved ones, the loss of sanity, of reality, horror allows us to discover and/or face our fears while providing a means by which to manage them.
This is one of the best collections I’ve ever read, and I’ve read it a few times now. These are emotionally intimate stories, bleak but beautiful. Dines really knows how to write convincing, troubled characters, people you will care about and suffer with as they struggle with the losses life forces upon them, and while each of the stories stands alone, there are connections between many of them which serves to build on your relationship with these characters. This is a debut collection, but every story has clearly been written by someone who has mastered their craft. Dines knows exactly what he’s doing, and what he’s doing is making you care, making you feel, and making you realise you are not alone. I love this book.
The past is never far behind. If we do not leave it, if we insist on carrying it with us to the end...that end is a monster.
This stunning debut collection of dark, literary fiction drowns the reader in its themes of grief, regret, love, and hope.
A family is torn apart by tragedy and misadventure, their future creaking under the weight of judgment. Old men play at being ghosts while a young boy sees real ones wherever he turns. A wandering immortal desperately seeks an end to his pain.
Intimate, unflinching, and poignant, these eleven tales of the broken…
I am passionately keen on poetry of many types because, whether rhyming or not, most poetry employs rhythm which is something that has a subconscious appeal to human senses. For children, rhyme provides an easy introduction to poetry and I enjoy using it because children themselves love it. Mums tell me that they are asked to read the same book time and time again – and not to try to skip any spreads! At the age of three, before she could read, my son’s goddaughter knew the whole of You Can’t Take an Elephant on the Bus by heart. The rhymes children hear when very young remain with them, sometimes forever.
This is another quite different type of book which has taught me a lot about rhythm, how impelling it can be, and how a refrain can be used to advantage. Proceeding at a jaunty tempo here the boy frames his questions to his mother throughout the book with 3 possible answers, ‘Yes, or no or maybe.’
"Momma will you feed the hen?
Yes or no or maybe?
Scatter corn a round the pen.
You and me and baby?
To which the mum replies, in this case in the affirmative
Yes, we’ll feed the speckled hen
Scratching in the dew
Then she’ll lay two speckled eggs.
One for each of you."
This book has a memorable rhythm, good rhyme and it takes you into the world of the child and the mother. It finishes at the end of the day with the boy going to sleep which gives it the bonus…
Citizen Scientist begins with this extraordinary statement by the Keeper of Entomology at the London Museum of Natural History, “Study any obscure insect for a week and you will then know more than anyone else on the planet.”
As the author chases the obscure Western red-bellied tiger beetle across New…
I’m a psychologist, an award-winning author, and a yoga and meditation devotee. Growing up in the Bronx, New York I saw firsthand the devastating impact addiction can have on individuals and families. That is why I have dedicated my professional life to understanding and supporting people recovering from addiction, mental illness, and life's challenges. I’m also the co-author of The Gift of Recovery: 52 Mindful Ways to Live Joyfully Beyond Addiction, which offers lots of strategies to manage daily stressors. I wholeheartedly believe there is a path back to wellness. It takes a foundation of self-compassion and daily focus on your healing. You deserve to be healthy and happy.
It isn’t often that a book comes along that feels surprisingly like sitting in meditation. Soulful Simplicity is that book. I loved the tempo and the energy of it. This book is such a beautiful combination of the art and practice of giving up what does not belong in a life of purpose. I have a copy on my desk to remind me to keep things simple and heartfelt. Courtney Carver has a lovely podcast with her daughter called Soul and Wit which offers us yet another reminder to be kind to ourselves no matter where we are on the journey of self-discovery and joy.
Courtney Carver shows us the power of simplicity to improve our health, build more meaningful relationships, and relieve stress in our professional and personal lives.
We are often on a quest for more—we give in to pressure every day to work more, own more, and do more. For Carver, this constant striving had to come to a stop when she was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis (MS). Stress was like gasoline on the fire of symptoms, and it became clear that she needed to root out the physical and psychological clutter that were the source of her debt and discontent. In…
