56 books like The Music of Life

By Denis Noble,

Here are 56 books that The Music of Life fans have personally recommended if you like The Music of Life. Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language

Andy Grayson Author Of Introducing Psychological Research

From my list on introductions to psychology for non-psychologists.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have taught psychology in UK universities for over 35 years. I love finding a 'way in' to the subject for my students. I challenge them to find a passion, and I love seeing that passion 'take off' in someone. In my experience, these are five books that have helped psychology students (me included) to find their passion.

Andy's book list on introductions to psychology for non-psychologists

Andy Grayson Why did Andy love this book?

I was captivated by the first chapter of this book, which summarises the case for considering language to be a human instinct. I love the way that it deploys rational thought and evidence in pursuit of intriguing 'grand theorizing'. It's a compelling read and expertly constructed introduction to the psychology (and sociology) of language. It is also a case study in how to build arguments.

The diminishing role of rational thought and evidence-based argument in the wider political sphere is one of the greatest threats to our world. So, when we read books like this, we are not simply making a personal decision. We are also making a political statement about the kind of world we want to live in.

By Steven Pinker,

Why should I read it?

6 authors picked The Language Instinct as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

'Dazzling... Pinker's big idea is that language is an instinct...as innate to us as flying is to geese... Words can hardly do justice to the superlative range and liveliness of Pinker's investigations'
- Independent

'A marvellously readable book... illuminates every facet of human language: its biological origin, its uniqueness to humanity, it acquisition by children, its grammatical structure, the production and perception of speech, the pathology of language disorders and the unstoppable evolution of languages and dialects' - Nature


Book cover of The Runaway Brain: The Evolution of Human Uniqueness

Michael Edgeworth McIntyre Author Of Science, Music, and Mathematics: The Deepest Connections

From my list on to get you past selfish-gene theory.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a scientist at the University of Cambridge who’s worked on environmental research topics such as jet streams and the Antarctic ozone hole. I’ve also worked on solar physics and musical acoustics. And other branches of science have always interested me. Toward the end of my career, I became fascinated by cutting-edge issues in biological evolution and natural selection. Evolution is far richer and more complex than you’d think from its popular description in terms of ‘selfish genes’. The complexities are central to understanding deep connections between the sciences, the arts, and human nature in general, and the profound differences between human intelligence and artificial intelligence.

Michael's book list on to get you past selfish-gene theory

Michael Edgeworth McIntyre Why did Michael love this book?

I was blown away by the vistas it opened across classic work on genetics and palaeoanthropology, and the implications for understanding how our ancestors evolved.

It also showed how the politics of so-called ‘sociobiology’ impeded that understanding, through acrimonious disputes that later turned out to be pointless. Those disputes were very much examples of what I call ‘dichotomization’, the unconscious assumption that an issue is binary, an either-or question, when in reality it is far more complex with many different aspects.

By Christopher Wills,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Runaway Brain as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

You might not suspect it, but we are currently living through a revolution in scientific knowledge. What we know about the human brain's workings and about the earliest history of our distant humanoid ancestors changes almost weekly. A new view of humanity is being forged - new theories appear all the time, splinter, are revised and adandoned. Scientists from different fields of research are finally co-operating and sharing their insights in order to map out a new view of the human brain. Paleaoanthropologists digging in Kenya, neuropyschologists building organic robots in their labs and geneticists unearthing the secret in all…


Book cover of The Collapse of Chaos: Discovering Simplicity in a Complex World

Michael Edgeworth McIntyre Author Of Science, Music, and Mathematics: The Deepest Connections

From my list on to get you past selfish-gene theory.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a scientist at the University of Cambridge who’s worked on environmental research topics such as jet streams and the Antarctic ozone hole. I’ve also worked on solar physics and musical acoustics. And other branches of science have always interested me. Toward the end of my career, I became fascinated by cutting-edge issues in biological evolution and natural selection. Evolution is far richer and more complex than you’d think from its popular description in terms of ‘selfish genes’. The complexities are central to understanding deep connections between the sciences, the arts, and human nature in general, and the profound differences between human intelligence and artificial intelligence.

Michael's book list on to get you past selfish-gene theory

Michael Edgeworth McIntyre Why did Michael love this book?

It achieves an important and unusual cross-fertilization between two very different kinds of expertise. Both authors are highly innovative, and creative, thinkers, Cohen in biology and Stewart in mathematics.

Cohen is a biologist fascinated by the complexity observed in the living world, and Stewart is an expert on the mathematics of chaos and complexity. The result is a profound and multifaceted view of many natural phenomena, and of evolution in particular. It becomes very clear how selfish-gene theory fails to take account of important evolutionary mechanisms.

By Jack Cohen, Ian Stewart,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Collapse of Chaos as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Moving on from his books on chaos ("Does God Play Dice?") and symmetry ("Fearful Symmetry"), the author of this book deals with the wider field of complexity theory. The book tackles the question of how complexity arises in nature, of how life overcomes chaos and entropy to create developing order. Co-written with biologist Jack Cohen, the book will range across the central areas of modern science, from quantum mechanics and cosmology to evolution and intelligence, looking at the central questions of order, chaos, reductionism and complexity.


Book cover of The Arrival of the Fittest: Solving Evolution's Greatest Puzzle

Michael Edgeworth McIntyre Author Of Science, Music, and Mathematics: The Deepest Connections

From my list on to get you past selfish-gene theory.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a scientist at the University of Cambridge who’s worked on environmental research topics such as jet streams and the Antarctic ozone hole. I’ve also worked on solar physics and musical acoustics. And other branches of science have always interested me. Toward the end of my career, I became fascinated by cutting-edge issues in biological evolution and natural selection. Evolution is far richer and more complex than you’d think from its popular description in terms of ‘selfish genes’. The complexities are central to understanding deep connections between the sciences, the arts, and human nature in general, and the profound differences between human intelligence and artificial intelligence.

Michael's book list on to get you past selfish-gene theory

Michael Edgeworth McIntyre Why did Michael love this book?

It’s a powerful update on Noble’s book, zooming in on the workings of the biomolecular circuits surrounding the DNA.

Some of the circuits are studied in great detail, looking closely at how they work, and at how they evolve in response to mutations in the DNA. A disadvantageous mutation is eliminated by natural selection. But as well as advantageous mutations it turns out that ‘neutral’ mutations, conferring no immediate advantage, are important and indeed crucial. That resolved one of the dichotomized disputes noted in Wills’ book.

By Andreas Wagner,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Arrival of the Fittest as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The power of Darwin's theory of natural selection is beyond doubt, it explains how useful adaptations are preserved over generations. But evolution's biggest mystery eluded Darwin: how those adaptations arise in the first place. Can random mutations over a 3.8 billion years be solely responsible for wings, eyeballs, knees, photosynthesis, and the rest of nature's creative marvels? And by calling these mutations 'random', are we not just admitting our own ignorance? What if we could now uncover the wellspring of all biological innovation?

Renowned evolutionary biologist Andreas Wagner presents the missing piece in Darwin's theory. Using cutting-edge experimental and computational…


Book cover of An Introduction to Systems Biology: Design Principles of Biological Circuits

Charlie Hodgman Author Of BIOS Instant Notes in Bioinformatics

From my list on the intersection of Bioinformatics and Systems Biology.

Why am I passionate about this?

Mathematics and chemistry were my strongest subjects at school, and I started programming computers when I was 16, but life seemed most important. Hence I studied biochemistry in university but moved into molecular biology with programming to assist the data analysis. My track record in successfully predicting new biology through computing led to a pharmaceutical company recruiting me to do bioinformatics for them. However, not content with studying genes and proteins, I pushed for bioinformatics to move up into metabolism, anatomy, and physiology. That’s when I discovered systems biology. My international reputation lies at this interface and includes discoveries in microbial physiology, botany, agriculture, animal biology, and antenatal diseases.

Charlie's book list on the intersection of Bioinformatics and Systems Biology

Charlie Hodgman Why did Charlie love this book?

Of the various books available on this subject, I very much prefer this one because it makes it far easier to do systems biology.

First, it shows you how to view biological regulatory processes as a set of interacting components and their effect on each other. This alone can give clues to the behaviour of the system under different circumstances. However, it then goes on to show how these processes can be defined mathematically, which then enables us to get a quantitative view of what is going on.

When the predicted and observed numbers don’t match, we know that there is a gap in our knowledge and, hence, the place to discover new biology. Using this approach, I have.

By Uri Alon,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked An Introduction to Systems Biology as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Praise for the first edition:

... superb, beautifully written and organized work that takes an engineering approach to systems biology. Alon provides nicely written appendices to explain the basic mathematical and biological concepts clearly and succinctly without interfering with the main text. He starts with a mathematical description of transcriptional activation and then describes some basic transcription-network motifs (patterns) that can be combined to form larger networks. - Nature

[This text deserves] serious attention from any quantitative scientist who hopes to learn about modern biology ... It assumes no prior knowledge of or even interest in biology ... One final…


Book cover of Understanding the Control of Metabolism

Charlie Hodgman Author Of BIOS Instant Notes in Bioinformatics

From my list on the intersection of Bioinformatics and Systems Biology.

Why am I passionate about this?

Mathematics and chemistry were my strongest subjects at school, and I started programming computers when I was 16, but life seemed most important. Hence I studied biochemistry in university but moved into molecular biology with programming to assist the data analysis. My track record in successfully predicting new biology through computing led to a pharmaceutical company recruiting me to do bioinformatics for them. However, not content with studying genes and proteins, I pushed for bioinformatics to move up into metabolism, anatomy, and physiology. That’s when I discovered systems biology. My international reputation lies at this interface and includes discoveries in microbial physiology, botany, agriculture, animal biology, and antenatal diseases.

Charlie's book list on the intersection of Bioinformatics and Systems Biology

Charlie Hodgman Why did Charlie love this book?

This book turns on its head what I was taught about what controls metabolite flow through a pathway. It covers highly remarkable discoveries concerning which steps control changes in metabolite levels: those at the end rather than the start of pathways. This is amazing because it explains why decades of effort by bioengineers to overproduce particular metabolites was unsuccessful.

In response to a request from such a project, I explained how to block the inhibitory regulation by the early pathway step but added that, according to metabolic control theory, this would leave the end-product levels unchanged. I was correct on both counts! When my group later provided results from using a systems biology approach, they achieved their production target levels.

By David Fell,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Understanding the Control of Metabolism as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Book by Fell, David


Book cover of Biochemical Pathways: An Atlas of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology

Charlie Hodgman Author Of BIOS Instant Notes in Bioinformatics

From my list on the intersection of Bioinformatics and Systems Biology.

Why am I passionate about this?

Mathematics and chemistry were my strongest subjects at school, and I started programming computers when I was 16, but life seemed most important. Hence I studied biochemistry in university but moved into molecular biology with programming to assist the data analysis. My track record in successfully predicting new biology through computing led to a pharmaceutical company recruiting me to do bioinformatics for them. However, not content with studying genes and proteins, I pushed for bioinformatics to move up into metabolism, anatomy, and physiology. That’s when I discovered systems biology. My international reputation lies at this interface and includes discoveries in microbial physiology, botany, agriculture, animal biology, and antenatal diseases.

Charlie's book list on the intersection of Bioinformatics and Systems Biology

Charlie Hodgman Why did Charlie love this book?

This is one of my most valued reference books, and I have referred to it many times.

With some explanatory text, it consists of a set of maps of biochemical pathways, differentiating between organism kingdoms, and includes how specific metabolites regulate the activity of particular enzymes. The pathways are very easy to find and easy to interpret. In contrast, the online equivalents can be difficult to interpret for a variety of reasons.

The book has the added advantage that it does not need a power supply or an internet connection and can be used in a far wider range of temperatures than computer hardware.

By Gerhard Michal (editor), Dietmar Schomburg (editor),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Biochemical Pathways as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The pathways and networks underlying biological function

Now in its second edition, Biochemical Pathways continues to garner praise from students, instructors, and researchers for its clear, full-color illustrations of the pathways and networks that determine biological function.

Biochemical Pathways examines the biochemistry of bacteria, plants, and animals. It offers a quick overview of the metabolic sequences in biochemical pathways, the chemistry and enzymology of conversions, the regulation of turnover, the expression of genes, the immunological interactions, and the metabolic background of health disorders. A standard set of conventions is used in all illustrations, enabling readers to easily gather information and…


Book cover of Programming Perl: Unmatched Power for Text Processing and Scripting

Charlie Hodgman Author Of BIOS Instant Notes in Bioinformatics

From my list on the intersection of Bioinformatics and Systems Biology.

Why am I passionate about this?

Mathematics and chemistry were my strongest subjects at school, and I started programming computers when I was 16, but life seemed most important. Hence I studied biochemistry in university but moved into molecular biology with programming to assist the data analysis. My track record in successfully predicting new biology through computing led to a pharmaceutical company recruiting me to do bioinformatics for them. However, not content with studying genes and proteins, I pushed for bioinformatics to move up into metabolism, anatomy, and physiology. That’s when I discovered systems biology. My international reputation lies at this interface and includes discoveries in microbial physiology, botany, agriculture, animal biology, and antenatal diseases.

Charlie's book list on the intersection of Bioinformatics and Systems Biology

Charlie Hodgman Why did Charlie love this book?

This book has been a companion for almost three decades.

Any bona fide bioinformatician will write some program scripts if only to reformat data in new and useful ways. Perl is not the most efficient or widespread scripting language, but it has the advantage of being highly flexible. It offers many ways to write a program to carry out a given task, so even computationally naive programmers can generate effective code.

Even though I am no longer actively developing software, I still have occasions when it is quicker to script something in Perl than do battle with larger apps.

By Tom Christiansen, Larry Wall, Jon Orwant , Brian d Foy

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Programming Perl as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

When it comes to learning Perl, programmers consider this book to be the undisputed bible. You not only learn every nuance of this language, you also get a unique perspective on the evolution of Perl and its future direction. The 4th edition has been thoroughly updated for version 5.14, with details on regular expressions, support for UNICODE, threads, and many other features. Many Perl books explain typeglobs, pseudohashes, and closures, but only this one shows the motivations behind these features and why they work the way they do. It's exactly what you'd expect from its prominent authors: Larry Wall is…


Book cover of Oh, the Places You'll Go!

Markette Sheppard Author Of What Is Light?

From my list on children’s books to spark your inner light.

Why am I passionate about this?

I take joy in the simple delights of life, such as eating chocolate, enjoying the sights of flowers in full bloom, and soaking in the sun on warm, sunny days. Those are the times I like to get out and explore, be inspired, and write. I like to write about all of the light we can discover in our world—the light from within and all around us—because it is easy for people to get sucked into focusing on the dim realities of our world or what’s not right. My goal is always to entertain, inspire, and spark wonder in my readers.

Markette's book list on children’s books to spark your inner light

Markette Sheppard Why did Markette love this book?

This is a book that someone gifted me for college graduation, and although I had no aspirations of becoming a children’s book author at the time, I loved the inspirational message of the story. 

What will I do? Where will I live? Who will I become? These are questions that most young people ask themselves, especially at a milestone moment in their lives, like graduation. In this book—with its lyrically wonderful rhyming words and otherworldly illustrations—Dr. Seuss reminded me that I am in control of my destiny.

The book does a good job of blending the realities of life with the possibilities of what life can become. It taught me that, although there will be ups and downs, twists and turns, and a few dead ends, ultimately, I can choose which way to go in life. What an empowering message to read at any age or stage in life!

By Dr. Seuss (author & illustrator),

Why should I read it?

8 authors picked Oh, the Places You'll Go! as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Celebrate life's ups and downs in this exquisite slipcase and hardback edition of the bestselling Dr. Seuss classic!

Congratulations!
Today is your day.
You're off to Great Places!
You're off and away!

For more than thirty years, this Dr. Seuss classic has carried us through life's ups and downs - from fun times and triumphs, to lurches and slumps!

Take an entertaining look at the adventures life has in store for all of us in this very special slipcase and hardback edition of the beloved classic.

The perfect gift for every moment in life, from graduations, weddings and birthdays, to…


Book cover of Debating Procreation: Is It Wrong to Reproduce?

Trevor Hedberg Author Of The Environmental Impact of Overpopulation: The Ethics of Procreation

From my list on philosophers about whether it’s okay to have kids.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have been researching and teaching about moral issues for more than a decade. How people procreate and how often they procreate has a huge impact on both the children born and others who interact with them. Yet even in academic philosophy – a discipline that often questions the appropriateness of ordinary behavior – the moral scrutiny of having children has been lacking. As I observed the population continue to rise and the circumstances of future people become more precarious, I thought the ethics of procreation needed deeper investigation. I hope my recent work on this topic will help others think more carefully about the moral complexities of having and raising children.

Trevor's book list on philosophers about whether it’s okay to have kids

Trevor Hedberg Why did Trevor love this book?

In this book, David Benatar defends a strong version of antinatalism – the view that it is morally wrong to procreate – and David Wasserman attempts to defend the moral permissibility of procreation.

Like most people, I originally found antinatalism deeply counterintuitive when I first encountered it, but some of Benatar’s arguments are hard to refute. I consider many of Wasserman’s responses reasonable, but as his exchange with Benatar progresses, the caveats and limits on permissible procreation become harder to ignore.

Even if antinatalism is false, this debate left me with the impression that the moral standards for procreation are much stricter than most believe. 

By David Benatar, David Wasserman,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Debating Procreation as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

While procreation is ubiquitous, attention to the ethical issues involved in creating children is relatively rare. In Debating Procreation, David Benatar and David Wasserman take opposing views on this important question. David Benatar argues for the anti-natalist view that it is always wrong to bring new people into existence. He argues that coming into existence is always a serious harm and that even if it were not always so, the risk of serious harm is
sufficiently great to make procreation wrong. In addition to these "philanthropic" arguments, he advances the "misanthropic" one that because humans are so defective and cause…


Book cover of The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language
Book cover of The Runaway Brain: The Evolution of Human Uniqueness
Book cover of The Collapse of Chaos: Discovering Simplicity in a Complex World

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