1 Recommended Reads

Here’s a small list of books I recommend others to read:

Social Science/Culture

Guns, Germs, and Steel The Fates of Human Societies
Jared Diamond
W.W. Norton & Company, Ltd. (1999)

COLLAPSE, How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
Jared Diamond
Penguin Group (2005)

THE THIRD CHIMPANZEE, The Evolution and Future of the Human Animal
Jared Diamond
Harper Perennial (1992)

(Three Jared Diamond books. Isn’t it obvious now that I am a fan?)

THE COSMIC SERPENT, DNA and the Origins of Knowledge
Jeremy Narby
Penguin Putnam, Inc. (1999)

THE SPIRIT CATCHES YOU AND YOU FALL DOWN, A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collisions of Two Cultures
Anne Fadiman
Farrar, Strauss and Giroux (1997)

Philosophy

Heidegger and a Hippo Walk through those Pearly Gates
Using Philosophy (and Jokes) to Explore Life, Death, the Afterlife, and Everything in Between
Thomas Cathcart and Daniel Klien
Penguin Group (2009)

Plato and Platypus Walk Into a Bar
Understanding Philosophy through Jokes
Thomas Cathcart and Daniel Klien
Penguin Group (2007)

History

FASTING GIRLS, The History of Anorexia Nervosa
Joan Jacobs Brumberg
Vintage Books (2000) (This is a favorite of mine.)

(A caveat for the reader who may be suffering from eating disorder: Read the book to understand the historical perspective of anorexia; don’t seek reverse trigger images to reinforce your condition for when you find them, they will…they sure will.)

The Monster of Florence, A True Story
Douglas Preston with Mario Spezi
Grand Central Publishing (2008)

The Black Death, A Chronicle of the Plague
Johannes Nohl
Westholme Publishing (2006)

Psychology/Psychoanalysis

Madness and Civilization, A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason
Michel Foucault
Vintage Books (1965)

The Birth of the Clinic, An Archaeology of Medical Perception
Michel Foucault
Vintage Books (1973)

Touched with Fire, Manic Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament
Kay Redfield Jamison
Free Press (1993)

An Unquiet Mind, A Memoir of Moods and Madness
Kay Redfield Jamison
Vintage Books (1995)

Economics

FREAKONOMICS, A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
Steven Levitt & Stephen Dubner
Harper Perennial (2005)

Literature/Critical Theory

Reading Lolita in Tehran, A Memoir in Books
Azar Nafisi
Random House (2003)

All Art is Propaganda
George Orwell
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company (2008)

The Writing Life, Writers on How they Think and Work
Marie Arana (Ed.)
Public Affairs (2003)

Telling Tales
Nadine Gordimer (Ed.)
Picador (2004)

Academic Instincts
Marjorie Garber
Princeton University Press (2001)

An Introductory Guide to Post-structuralism and Postmodernism
Madan Sarup
Pearson Education Limited (1993)

Enjoy Your Symptom! Jacques Lacan in Hollywood and Out
Slavoj Zizek
Routledge Classics (1992)

Gender Trouble, Feminism and the Subversion of Identity
Judith Butler
Routledge Classics (1990)

Life Science/Genetics/Natural Science

THE RED QUEEN, Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature
Matt Ridley
Harper Perennial (1993)

GENOME, The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters
Matt Ridley
Harper Perennial (1999)

THE SEVEN DAUGHTERS OF EVE, The Science that Reveals our Genetic Ancestry
Bryan Sykes
W.W. Norton Book & Company (2001)

THE MAKING OF THE FITTEST, DNA and the Ultimate Forensic Record of Evolution
Sean B. Carroll
W.W. Norton Book & Company (2006)

The Ten Most Beautiful Experiments
George Johnson
Vintage Books (2008)

General Interest

-ISMS AND -OLOGIES, All the Movements, Ideologies, and Doctrines that have Shaped the World
Arthur Goldwag
Vintage Books (2007)

Acquainted with the Night, Excursions through the World After Dark
Christopher Dewdney
Henry Holt & Company (2004)

Professor Stewart’s Cabinet of Mathematical Curiosities
Ian Stewart
Basic Books (2009), (Now, why do I have this one?)