100 books like Natural Art Forms

This book has been criticized for not including enough different locations of fluorescent minerals (which, here, are centred mainly around North America and Greenland), but personally, I think it is enough to make a start - it all depends where we are on, in our journey! 

Myself, I’m most stunned by the amazing photographs, which occupy a large portion of the book - showing various minerals under UV light (which, incidentally, is not the “UV light” that we know from parties) in a completely different context. This world is all around us, and yet most of us make no attempt to even know it. Has anyone done tours of underground caves under these lighting conditions, yet? And, if not, why not?

This is a book I have in my library because of its sheer virtuosity, and because it is such a mine of information about its subject. From what I gather, it took the author around a decade to write, and is applicable to the beginning jeweller, as well as to the seasoned diamond-cutter, or goldsmith. 

I like to have this book around, and reasonably close to me at all times, because it reminds me of what I ought to be. I sit my laptop on it, because the thickness of it (hardback, at over 800 pages) offers a comfortable height for my typing experience. Maybe one day - when I have the time, and the space - I will read it, from cover to cover, and digest it in all of its breathtaking detail. If, like me, you are a curious mix of art/chemistry/geology nerd, then this book is for… show more.

I had the great pleasure of meeting Michael Hickey at one of the RHS shows in London, at which I was exhibiting some of my botanical art; a thoroughly nice man, who sadly died soon after. I also met the personable and talented Coral Guest, the creator of the most exquisite botanical paintings, at the same show!

This is an excellent introduction to plant families for the beginner in botanical painting, focusing on 25 core plant families. It leaves out some of the technical botanical detail which would probably be included on an undergraduate botany course, but which would be confusing for the botanical painter who simply wanted to illustrate. It is clearly laid out, written, and illustrated; a must for plant artists, would-be botanists, and even medical herbalists - everywhere!

Dover (one of my favourite publishers) has the knack of knowing good art when they see it. This is one of my favourite books, slimline though it happens to be - showing the genius imagination, and fashion illustration, of “RT (his real initials)” at its most luscious. 

We’re treated to: the alphabet; numbers; playing cards; gems; and The Seasons - albeit, not in the forms you might think - but in the glorious, arresting, Art-Nouveau style that was Erte’s trademark. A feast for the eyes, and above all - just the sort of fun we need, to motivate us, in this day and age!

To properly understand where women fit in to the history of science, we need to have a fair grasp of what science and the history of science is, and this book offers a perfect introduction. It is the antidote to many linear “progress” driven narratives that insist that the history of western science is simply a straight line from the Greeks with each generation building and improving on the one before. This book attempts to tell the whole story of science, science from across the world, the internationalism of it, the politics, the interrelation between ideas and culture. Although not strictly about historical women in science, I’ve included it here as a kind of foundation to understanding the rest.

The most controversial aspect of nearly a century of research in quantum mechanics is how the perspective of an observer, either sentient or mechanical, determines reality on the subatomic scale. What does this say—if anything—about life in our above-ground, macro world? With zero sensationalism and great rigor, not to mention witty and accessible writing, physicists Rosenblum and Kuttner sort out questions of particle mechanics, quantum theory, and consciousness in a manner that is understandable to the layperson yet faithful to the findings of this most confounding of the hard sciences. 

As the Western Roman Empire crumbled in the early 5th century, science and learning were extinguished for a thousand years…or, perhaps not. As Ehsan Masood shows in this highly enjoyable book to accompany a BBC series, Islamic scholars did much more than simply blow on the cinders of ancient Greek learning to keep them burning from the 8th to the 16th century. Names such as ibn-Sina, Jabir ibn-Hayyan, and Al-Khwarizmi may not be quite so well known to Western European ears as Copernicus, Galileo, and Descartes, but Masood shows that they were actively involved in medicine, chemistry and mathematics during this time. So go with Masood on a journey through the Umayyad and Abbasid dynasties, and beyond to be persuaded that the so-called ‘Dark Ages’ were perhaps not quite so dark as we’ve been led to believe.

Primarily a historical work, this book explores how curiosity went from a kind of strange and disreputable act to something that became celebrated and tamed as part of the scientific process. With a focus on the early days of modern science, it is filled with a huge number of delightful examples of what passed for curiosity in previous centuries.

I remember reading this book probably about twenty years ago, and it has a great deal of insight into how to understand the scientific process, both in how it is carried out as well as how scientists can get better at discovery. Written primarily in the form of a dialogue between a set of archetypical characters and informed by a huge amount of work into the history and sociology of science, it takes the reader through how to understand creativity in science.

It is almost impossible to choose just one of Bernd Heinrich’s many eye-opening books on the natural world. These beautifully written essays on “the inconnectedness of all of life” explore how species solve the problems of surviving and reproducing in a world packed with millions of other species. These stories, gleaned from his detailed observations and experiments in nature, relate how species depend on, defend, and manipulate each other. The battles and manipulations among species he describes are the raw material for relentless coevolution. Heinrich infuses his observations in the Maine woods with wonderfully original insights, grounded in a clear-thinking understanding of current ecological, evolutionary, and behavioral science.