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A few people have mentioned that my Goodreads profile has been helpful to them. I used to find Amazon’s recommendations very useful, but lately that’s been less so, perhaps because the low hanging fruit has been picked. So manual/human curation has been more important for me of late. As an example, I really like checking out Thomas Mailund’s profile. Anyway, because of the feedback I went back last night and roughly categorized all my books. So instead of having to sift through a bunch of mediocre fantasy or science fiction, if you want to see a bunch of books on genetics that I remember reading, now just look in that shelf.
Finally, I wanted to mention a book I hadn’t talked about much that I saw on my profile, that’s Matt Ridley’s Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters. The book is 15 years old, and so probably dated. I’m actually curious to go back and re-read it now. But it was arguably one of the major reasons I’m here now, as someone who is professionally a genome-nut. Of Ridley’s book I think it’s probably the most readable.
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Matt Ridley’s The Agile Gene was the first book on the subject that I ever read; I got it at a used bookstore some years ago because it “looked interesting.” The one thing I remember from it was learning what heritability means.
Haven’t read Genome, though.
I was deeply influenced by Viscount Ridley’s later book “Rational Optimist.” I think it finally made to give up on IP (& consequent corporatism).
It provides a rational libertarian perspective.
Matt Ridley’s book “The Red Queen” was pretty interesting as well, although it’s 20 years old now, so I would be curious how well it has held up since I read around 2000. I also read his biography of Francis Crick, very good and a quick read, only about 200 pages.
If you are looking for books on the history of technology as well as some earth science, anything I have read by Vaclav Smil is excellent. He is a Czech born Geologist/Earth Scientist who is now Canadian and teaches at the the University of Manitoba. I recommend ” Enriching the Earth ” and “Prime Movers of Globalization “. The first is about the invention and development of ammonia synthesis by Fritz Haber and Carl Bosch, the second about the impact of Diesel Engines and Jet Engines on the world economy mostly since the end of WW2. He has written a ton of books, something like 30 to date.
This is a great list. Thanks, Razib. Do you have any recommendations on the intersection between genomics and immunology?
I just started reading (actually, listening on audiobook) to The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution, by Walter Isaacson. It sounds really interesting. I knew the Babbage and Ada Lovelace parts (from having read “The Information”) but coming to the 1930s and 1940s I am learning new things. Worth a look https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/21856367-the-innovators?from_search=true
That must be why Goodreads said I had 500 or so books added by my friends. That was a trifle startling.
“Genome” was a great read — taught this chemist a lot of biology. I found it in the laundry room of the apartment building I was living in at the time (in a “free books, please take” pile). People used to leave back-issues of Science and Cell in the laundry room as well. It was that kind of place.
I also found Razib’s Goodreads useful. Perhaps other readers here will find mine useful: https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/8884040-emil-ow-kirkegaard?shelf=read
I read almost exclusively non-fiction.