Here are 100 books that The Only Constant fans have personally recommended if you like
The Only Constant.
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As a painfully shy child, I found friendship, adventure and ultimately my own voice reading about—and spending time with—animals. Animals felt safer to talk to than people, and they gave me the gift of their presence and time to practice communication. Overtime, I conquered my extreme shyness, obtained a Masters degree in counseling, and, eventually, began writing about the many ways animals can help people. There is no denying the role that animals—and books about animals—have played in my life. And by sharing this list, I hope to help others find that same comfort and inspiration.
This book is an invitation to paws and ponder the lessons our four-legged friends have to teach us about life, love, loss, and legacy. Christine Ferris writes in such a way that you feel like you are sitting with a close friend, enjoying a cup of coffee together and learning from her beloved collie, Lad.
This is the perfect book for dog lovers who desire to grow closer to God while learning lessons from one of his greatest gifts to us—our beautiful dogs. This collection of short stories will work its way into your heart, and the lessons you learn from Lad will stay with you long after you turn the last page.
In "Lessons from Lad," Christine Nicole Ferris offers a poignant and insightful journey into the lessons learned from her beloved rough collie, Lad. Although their time together was brief, the impact Lad left on Christine's life was profound. This book delves deep into the heart-wrenching story of losing not just a cherished pet but a long-held dream and the transformative wisdom that emerged from that loss.
Through fifty-two beautifully crafted lessons, Christine shares Lad's enduring legacy. These lessons are a mosaic of joy, heartache, and enlightenment, reflecting on the nuances of life with a companion who was much more than…
I have long been fascinated by how very complicated things can arise from comparatively simple ones, because it seems counterintuitive that this is even possible. This led me to lead a life in science, researching how a whole human body can come from a simple egg, and trying to apply what we learn to make new body parts for those who need them. Though much of my professional reading consists of detailed research papers, I have always relied on books to make me think and to show me the big picture. I write books myself, to share with others some of the amazing things that science lets us discover.
This is the best scientific novel I have ever read. The story is fiction (not 'science fiction' in the sense of fantasy, but a story that could easily take place in the real world right now), but its portrayal of how science is done, by a bunch of completely believable characters, is really true-to-life. It's a great way for young people considering a research career to taste what they are really like, and a great way for everyone to ask why we do science the way we do, while enjoying a well-paced multi-layer story, that is written with real wit. [Declaration for transparency: I know the author as a scientific collaborator, but this is nothing to do with my recommendation of her fiction].
Sexism, Secrets and Science: Cat Zero by Jennifer Rohn
Scientist Artie Marshall is perpetually underfunded, relegated to a damp basement, and besieged on all sides by sexist colleagues. Added to that, she is immersed in a messy divorce. But she’s never been happier, studying an obscure cat virus that nobody else in the world seems to have heard of – or cares about.
Everything changes when local cats start dropping dead and Artie’s arcane little research problem becomes worryingly relevant. Matters get worse when people start getting infected too.
Working with her right-hand man Mark, her vet friends and her…
I studied statistics and data science for years before anyone ever suggested to me that these topics might have an ethical dimension, or that my numerical tools were products of human beings with motivations specific to their time and place. I’ve since written about the history and philosophy of mathematical probability and statistics, and I’ve come to understand just how important that historical background is and how critically important it is that the next generation of data scientists understand where these ideas come from and their potential to do harm. I hope anyone who reads these books avoids getting blinkered by the ideas that data = objectivity and that science is morally neutral.
People need less Dawkins in their lives and more Lewontin, whose thought-provoking, accessible writing about evolutionary biology stands in fierce opposition to the trend toward genetic determinism that seems to be the rage nowadays. We are not simply our genes, Lewontin says, because the effects DNA has on our lives are mediated by social and environmental factors, many of which we can influence. While it’s nominally about biology, I also read this as a critique of causal inference, generally. What we consider a “cause” reveals our ideological commitments to certain aspects of the world being maintained, and we should be careful what causal lessons we draw from data.
Following in the fashion of Stephen Jay Gould and Peter Medawar, one of the world's leading scientists examines how "pure science" is in fact shaped and guided by social and political needs and assumptions.
I am Professor of Philosophy of Science at the University of Bristol. I am interested in most areas of contemporary philosophy, in particular the interplay between philosophy and the natural and social sciences. Much of my recent work has focused on evolutionary biology, a science that is replete with implications for traditional philosophical debates about human nature, knowledge, and our place in the world.
The traditional neo-Darwinian view of evolution understands inheritance in genetic terms, as the transmission of DNA from parents to offspring. Jablonka and Lamb argue convincingly that in addition to genetic inheritance, there exist three other inheritance systems in nature – epigenetic, symbolic, and behavioural – all of which play an important role in evolution. The book is not a work of philosophy in the strict sense, but rather a fascinating and conceptually-rich synthesis of a diverse body of empirical findings which, the authors argue, can only be accommodated by going beyond a purely geno-centric view of evolution.
Ideas about heredity and evolution are undergoing a revolutionary change. New findings in molecular biology challenge the gene-centered version of Darwinian theory according to which adaptation occurs only through natural selection of chance DNA variations. In Evolution in Four Dimensions, Eva Jablonka and Marion Lamb argue that there is more to heredity than genes. They trace four "dimensions" in evolution -- four inheritance systems that play a role in evolution: genetic, epigenetic (or non-DNA cellular transmission of traits), behavioral, and symbolic (transmission through language and other forms of symbolic communication). These systems, they argue, can all provide variations on which…
I am a psychiatrist and public health doctor, non-fiction writer, and lay and medical editor. For over 12 years, I have taught non-fiction writing for a general audience at Columbia medical and public health schools to physicians, neuroscientists, epidemiologists, psychologists, and other professionals. I have published 14 books and over 500 written articles and videos. I love to write and help others write...well.
I loved this book because it demonstrates we can write about any subject we have a passion for: bowling, the bassoon, the Canary Islands, UFOs, opium, truffles, cats and dogs, evil and good, or cells!
Thomas starts his book by marveling about cells. Vivid imagination, not labor, carries him to subjects like insects, music, language, computers, and medicine. After all, they are interconnected, like we are.
Which means I need only start with one subject* that stirs my wonder or worry and holds meaning for me. I don’t need to hunt for something to write about, it is right in front of my eyes.
*BTW, the author of my book choice #1, Bill Zinsser, covered war, theatre, baseball, music, nonfiction writing, and memoirs. Note to self: One subject will do.
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…
I am Professor of Philosophy of Science at the University of Bristol. I am interested in most areas of contemporary philosophy, in particular the interplay between philosophy and the natural and social sciences. Much of my recent work has focused on evolutionary biology, a science that is replete with implications for traditional philosophical debates about human nature, knowledge, and our place in the world.
This book is an engaging treatment of philosophical issues in biology, with a strong though not exclusive focus on evolution. Written by two leading practitioners, the book continues to be an excellent entry point into the subject despite being more than 20 years old. For any reader of my own book who wants more detail, Sterelny and Griffiths’ text is ideal. Chock full of real-life examples, the book offers an excellent model of how philosophy can engage with biology. Topics discussed include function and adaptation, reductionism, levels of selection, the “selfish gene” theory, and more.
Is the history of life a series of accidents or a drama scripted by selfish genes? Is there an "essential" human nature, determined at birth or in a distant evolutionary past? What should we conserve-species, ecosystems, or something else?
Informed answers to questions like these, critical to our understanding of ourselves and the world around us, require both a knowledge of biology and a philosophical framework within which to make sense of its findings. In this accessible introduction to philosophy of biology, Kim Sterelny and Paul E. Griffiths present both the science and the philosophical context necessary for a critical…
I have long been fascinated by how very complicated things can arise from comparatively simple ones, because it seems counterintuitive that this is even possible. This led me to lead a life in science, researching how a whole human body can come from a simple egg, and trying to apply what we learn to make new body parts for those who need them. Though much of my professional reading consists of detailed research papers, I have always relied on books to make me think and to show me the big picture. I write books myself, to share with others some of the amazing things that science lets us discover.
When I was an undergraduate, the editor of Nature called this book "the best candidate for burning there has been for many years". I therefore rushed out to buy a copy to see why, and I have treasured the book and recommended it ever since. Almost every idea between its covers is wrong, but marshalling evidence to refute the ideas makes readers ask the most fundamental questions about biology and why they believe what they do. I am eternally grateful to Sheldrake for making me justify my opinions properly, with evidence, not just because they were what I read or heard in some classroom. And he will do the same for anyone else: heretics like Sheldrake are really important for testing mainstream science.
**The fully revised edition of Rupert Sheldrake's controversial science classic, from the author of the bestselling Dogs That Know When Their Owners are Coming Home, celebrates its 40th anniversary in 2021!**
After chemists crystallised a new chemical for the first time, it became easier and easier to crystallise in laboratories all over the world. After rats at Harvard first escaped from a new kind of water maze, successive generations learned quicker and quicker. Then rats in Melbourne, Australia learned yet faster. Rats with no trained ancestors shared in this improvement.
Rupert Sheldrake sees these processes as examples of morphic resonance.…
I’ve always been fascinated by the names of people and things. Why do we use the names we do? What do they mean? Who made them up? Is there power in knowing something’s name? I later discovered that all these questions are very old—the idea that names have power goes back at least to ancient Egypt. When I became a biology professor, I found that my students and colleagues mostly didn’t know or care why animals and plants have the Latin names they do. But those names are fascinating, and there are stories to uncover whenever we tug on a name’s meaning like a loose thread.
I’ll admit that I’m fiercely jealous of this book’s title, which is clever and à propos (but now, thanks to Wright, it’s taken). But the book is also delightful.
It’s a history of scientific naming, more or less, but Wright has a ton of fun with that. He asks how plants were named in ancient Assyria and Greece, winds his way through the Middle Ages, and continues to the present day. Does that sound dry? It isn’t—I chortled at the discussion of rude Latin names (Geastrum fornicatum, anyone?), and giggled at Wright’s appropriately disrespectful take on the modern profusion of “species concepts” (“You will be delighted to hear that I will not be describing the remaining twenty-five concepts.”).
I learned a bunch and had fun doing it, and that’s a big win.
'Who would have thought that a book about Latin names could be quite so compelling!' Alan Titchmarsh
'Nature writing at its best: insightful, entertaining and often very funny' British Wildlife
Latin names - frequently unpronounceable, all too often wrong and always a tiny puzzle to unravel - have been annoying the layman since they first became formalised as scientific terms in the eighteenth century.
Why on earth has the entirely land-loving Eastern Mole been named Scalopus aquaticus, or the Oxford Ragwort been called Senecio squalidus - 'dirty old man'? What were naturalists thinking when they called a beetle Agra katewinsletae,…
Sam Kean is the New York Times bestselling author of five books, including The Bastard Brigade, The Dueling Neurosurgeons, and The Disappearing Spoon. He edited The Best American Nature and Science Writing in 2018, and his stories have appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, The New York Times Magazine, and Slate. His work has been featured on NPR’s “Radiolab,” “Science Friday,” “All Things Considered,” and “Fresh Air,” and his podcast, The Disappearing Spoon, debuted at #1 on the iTunes charts for science podcasts.
A topsy-turvy look at biology from the point of view of the animals (and plants) that make it possible. Richly detailed and full of engrossing characters, from Darwin’s time up to the genetically engineered marvels of today.
"Endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved," Darwin famously concluded The Origin of Species, and for confirmation we look to...the guinea pig? How this curious creature and others as humble (and as fast-breeding) have helped unlock the mystery of inheritance is the unlikely story Jim Endersby tells in this book.
Biology today promises everything from better foods or cures for common diseases to the alarming prospect of redesigning life itself. Looking at the organisms that have made all this possible gives us a new way of understanding how we got here--and perhaps of thinking…
Coffee was a hobby that went off the rails. I moved to Hawai‘i to study coffee horticulture in graduate school and became a generalist coffee scientist by the end of it. My coffee library contains over 100 books, and it is incomplete! I approach coffee as an academic, but I’ve owned some retail companies that have taught me to talk and think about coffee in a way that doesn’t scare people off. Coffee is what I love, and I love talking about it with other people.
It can be a challenge for academics to write books that are everyday-useful to practitioners.
I love this book because it is written as a guide for farmers. Thus, anyone can read it and learn about coffee biology, production, processing, defects, and a slew of other topics without needing a technical background. I always start looking for production-relevant material with this book. It has never led me astray!
An outstanding and currently the only comprehensive handbook for the coffee-professional. 40 authors from the leading coffee-growing countries present the most recent technologies applied to coffee husbandry. The book features 900 carefully selected illustrations, 300 of these in full color, which substantiate the written text. The handbook provides basic guidelines and recommendations which are applicable everywhere rather than referring to any specific country. Added to this, the reader will find numerous data tables and an overview of relevant information sources.
