Having grown up in a low-income neighborhood of housing projects as the son of bohemian artists, I always had a keen interest in understanding why some people got ahead while others floundered. Being a sociology professor at Princeton only got me so far. I had to get another Ph.D. in biology to understand that it was not nature or nurture that makes us who we are but the combination of our unique genetic inheritance and our particular social circumstances. The books I recommended all tackle the question of nature and nurture from one angle or another. Hope you enjoy them and learn as much as I did reading them.
I’ve always wondered why history turned out the way it did—why some societies enjoy wealth and security and others live in dire poverty. I didn’t know that where we physically live on the planet had such a critical impact on our societies until I read this book. This is literally the history of the world going back to before the Neolithic Revolution.
The environments we take for granted—for example, whether there are domesticateable large mammals in our midst or whether there is coal near the surface of the ground—have incredible consequences for the inequalities in the world today. I was blown away by reading this book, which explained the world as we know it to me.
Why did Eurasians conquer, displace, or decimate Native Americans, Australians, and Africans, instead of the reverse? In this "artful, informative, and delightful" (William H. McNeill, New York Review of Books) book, a classic of our time, evolutionary biologist Jared Diamond dismantles racist theories of human history by revealing the environmental factors actually responsible for its broadest patterns.
The story begins 13,000 years ago, when Stone Age hunter-gatherers constituted the entire human population. Around that time, the developmental paths of human societies on different continents began to diverge greatly. Early domestication of wild plants and animals in the Fertile Crescent, China,…
Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!
On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…
I often think of the ways my life could have gone differently. Career-changing emails that were only narrowly rescued from spam folders, for example. In many parallel timelines, I doubt I’m still doing what I do today—which makes me cherish my good fortune to still be doing it. What I do is study the ways people have come to understand everything can go otherwise and that the future is, therefore, an open question and undecided matter. Of course, for ages, many have instead assumed that events can only go one way. But the following books persuasively insist history isn’t dictated by destiny, but is governed by chance and (sometimes) choice.
My dad read sections of this book aloud to me when I was far too young to grasp anything inside. It is, after all, a book on Darwinism written by a paleontologist who specialized in macroevolutionary patterns. Such polysyllabic words were inscrutable to me. But, back then, I could look at the cover. The copy we had depicted a beautiful scene showing some of the earliest animals to appear on Earth. They are alien creatures—surprisingly unfamiliar—unlike anything alive today.
This left an impression on me: life was different in the past, shockingly different, which became an insight I extended to my study as a historian of ideas researching how human worldviews have also changed drastically over time.
It was fitting that when I returned to the book as a young adult—now old enough to understand it—it immediately became one of my all-time favorites. So, too, did Gould himself, who remains…
High in the Canadian Rockies is a small limestone quarry formed 530 million years ago called the Burgess Shale. It hold the remains of an ancient sea where dozens of strange creatures lived-a forgotten corner of evolution preserved in awesome detail. In this book Stephen Jay Gould explores what the Burgess Shale tells us about evolution and the nature of history.
Telmo Pievani is Full Professor in the Department of Biology at the University of Padua, where he covers the first Italian chair of Philosophy of Biological Sciences. A leading science communicator and columnist for Il corriere della sera, he is the author of The Unexpected Life, Creation without God, Serendipity, and other books.
I find crucial the main message of this book: Human evolution is unity in diversity.
I love the story of how the wonderful diversity of the world's cultures and languages, many of which are now extinct or threatened, radiated from a handful of African pioneers. In Homo sapiens, races do not exist. And for me, that's good.
Historians relying on written records can tell us nothing about the 99.9% of human evolution which preceded the invention of writing. It is the study of genetic variation, backed up by language and archaeology, which provides concrete evidence aboutthe spread of farming, the movements of peoples across the globe, the precise links between races - and the sheer unscientific absurdity of racism. Genes, Peoples and Languages offers an astonishing investigation into the past 100,000 years of human history and a rare, firsthand account of some of the most significant and gripping scientific work of recent years. Cavalli-Sforza is one of…
Trapped in our world, the fae are dying from drugs, contaminants, and hopelessness. Kicked out of the dark fae court for tainting his body and magic, Riasg only wants one thing: to die a bit faster. It’s already the end of his world, after all.
Telmo Pievani is Full Professor in the Department of Biology at the University of Padua, where he covers the first Italian chair of Philosophy of Biological Sciences. A leading science communicator and columnist for Il corriere della sera, he is the author of The Unexpected Life, Creation without God, Serendipity, and other books.
I like this book so much because it tells us that we are the last twig in a bush of human species.
Until a few tens of millennia ago, five different human species lived on our planet, that’s amazing! Only recently, thanks to the surge of symbolic intelligence, have we become a marvel of creativity and invasiveness, an ambivalent species.
Human life, and how we came to be, is one of the greatest scientific and philosophical questions of our time. This compact and accessible book presents a modern view of human evolution. Written by a leading authority, it lucidly and engagingly explains not only the evolutionary process, but the technologies currently used to unravel the evolutionary past and emergence of Homo sapiens. By separating the history of palaeoanthropology from current interpretation of the human fossil record, it lays numerous misconceptions to rest, and demonstrates that human evolution has been far from the linear struggle from primitiveness to perfection that we've…
I love nature and feature it in many of my books, including a poetry collection about the ocean and a board book series about famous naturalists. As a gardener, I have trouble with outside plants thanks to the deer that live in the canyon out back. However, I have 50 houseplants and an herb garden in pots on the balcony. Our house is surrounded by trees, and one of my favorite places in the world is Sequoia National Park, with its green meadows and giant sequoia trees. We spent several summers there when I was a child.
This author is well known for her nonfiction picture books that clearly explain science topics, in this case, the growth of plants. Step by step, Gibbons walks young readers through pollination, the growth of seeds, and how seeds are distributed, such as by squirrels and birds. Then she goes on to talk about how plants grow. The whole process is reader-friendly, and the illustrations are clean and attractive. A great introduction for kindergarten through third graders.
Flowers, trees, fruits—plants are all around us, but where do they come from?
With simple language and bright illustrations, non-fiction master Gail Gibbons introduces young readers to the processes of pollination, seed formation, and germination. Important vocabulary is reinforced with accessible explanation and colorful, clear diagrams showing the parts of plants, the wide variety of seeds, and how they grow.
The book includes instructions for a seed-growing project, and a page of interesting facts about plants, seeds, and flowers. A nonfiction classic, and a perfect companion for early science lessons and curious young gardeners.
It started when my friend gave me several pumpkin seeds he acquired from a giant pumpkin grower. He said it came from a large pumpkin, and growing one in my backyard would be fun. As a gardener, I thought this sounded entertaining. I planted the seeds in little pots and moved one of them to my garden during the spring. Soon, the plant began to grow astoundingly, taking over the entire garden area. Then, pumpkins started growing. I culled all but one pumpkin, and I witnessed a little pumpkin grow to 800 pounds in three months. I was amazed and astonished, and I was forever hooked on the sport of growing Atlantic Giant Pumpkins.
This book is one of my favorites about growing Atlantic Giant Pumpkins. It is very inspiring.
The first half features accomplished growers who have set records, and each one shares something unique and valuable about growing pumpkins. The second half covers basic growing methods and serves as an excellent guidebook to help you start your growing season off on the right foot.
The reader will find much in this third book in a trilogy of information on growing giant pumpkins. How-to-Grow World Class Giant Pumpkins, III presents the newest information on cultural methods, whos who, and records. New ideas about plant size and pruning strategies throw a whole new light on the grower with only a small area to devote to giant pumpkins. New discoveries involving the use of considerably more calcium in feeding programs, a steadily growing consensus on the use of nitrogen, the beginnings of a real effort at applying genetic theory in pollination strategies, how-to select the best seed,…
Everyday Medical Miracles
by
Joseph S. Sanfilippo (editor),
Frontiers of Women from the healthcare perspective. A compilation of 60 true short stories written by an extensive array of healthcare providers, physicians, and advanced practice providers.
All designed to give you, the reader, a glimpse into the day-to-day activities of all of us who provide your health care. Come…
I have been enthralled with the natural world since childhood, but it was not until I had enjoyed a career as a theatre director, that my life changed course and I became a professional beekeeper. My new job took be across the rooftops of London, managing bees and hives for The Bank of England, Kensington Palace, The London College of Fashion, Heathrow Airport, Bloomberg, and many others. Now I run a small environmental charity, The Bee Friendly Trust, helping to make the world a little more hospitable to honeybees and some of the many other pollinators that make human life possible.
You don’t have to have a beehive to help keep bees.
The honeybee, along with the thousands of other bees and insects that live alongside us, are vital to keeping us alive. At least a third of all we humans eat and drink is the direct result of bee pollination. So we owe it to the bees and to ourselves, to do all we can to create an environment to support them.
If you want to give over your garden to a wildflower meadow, or just plant up a window box, Sarah’s book will give you lots of easy ideas. And her illustrations are a rare treat.
Of the 25,000 known species of bee worldwide, only seven species are honeybees.
Bees and plants have a sophisticated and delicate symbiosis. In recent years, the shrinking of green spaces has endangered the honeybee. Now Planting for Honeybees shows you how you can help these delightful pollinators to flourish by creating a garden as a habitat for them.
No matter how small or large your space - from a window ledge in the city to a country garden - Sarah Wyndham Lewis offers practical advice on which plants to grow, and when and where to plant them.
My education began in a one room school in rural western New York. A lonely, curious childhood led me to love reading, and to explore woods, fields, and creeks. After high school I had no expectations of college, but serendipity led me to earn science degrees from Cornell University and the University of Massachusetts. Soon serendipity struck again: I was hired for a rookie editing/writing job at a children's science magazine. Lucky me, my curiosity about "how" and "why" questions led to being an award-winning author of 125 books, some for adults, nearly all children's nonfiction—about history, environmental problems, ecology, lives of scientists, and many creatures—including some that fascinated me as a kid.
I am impressed by how the author packs into just 94 pages a wealth of basic information, and even some fascinating obscure details about the process of evolution.
It is generously illustrated with color photographs and charts. Drawings and captions show "How Fossils Form," "Geological Time," and "Evidence in the Rocks," and Anne Wanjie's text is inviting and clear.
This compelling text examines evolution, its definition, the scientific evidence that evolution has taken place, natural selection, Darwin’s Origin of Species, genetics and evolution, population genetics, patterns in evolution and species concepts, the story of life and geological time, and human evolution. The easy-to-follow narrative offers students additional biological information in sidebars, such as “Closeup” boxes that give details about main concepts, “Try This” boxes that provide safe experiments for readers to perform, “What Do You Think?” panels that challenge students’ reading comprehension, “Applications” boxes that describe how biological knowledge improves daily life, “Red Herring” boxes that profile failed theories,…
I’m a research physicist working in fusion energy and astrophysics. To explain our work, I’ve had to overcome the misconceptions about science that are widespread in the media and among the general population. These books are the best ones I know to correct the mystification of science, especially of topics like quantum mechanics, time, consciousness, and cosmology.
This groundbreaking work, published posthumously, is the first attempt to explain consciousness as the product of the evolutionary process. In doing this, Teilhard de Chardin outlines many characteristics of the evolutionary process that have never been described before. It is his effort to unite evolutionary theory, a Marxist view of evolution, and….Christianity.
The final chapter trying to drag Christ into this scientific work did not impress me, but it does not detract from the earlier chapters either.
Visionary theologian and evolutionary theorist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin applied his whole life, his tremendous intellect, and his great spiritual faith to building a philosophy that would reconcile religion with the scientific theory of evolution. In this timeless book, which contains the quintessence of his thought, Teilhard argues that just as living organisms sprung from inorganic matter and evolved into ever more complex thinking beings, humans are evolving toward an "omega point"—defined by Teilhard as a convergence with the Divine.
Karl's War is a coming-of-age-meets-thriller set in Germany on the eve of Hitler coming to power. Karl – a reluctant poster boy for the Nazis – meets Jewish Ben and his world is up-turned.
Ben and his family flee to France. Karl joins the German army but deserts and finds…
Steven C. Hayes is Nevada Foundation Professor at the Department of Psychology at the University of Nevada. An author of 47 books and nearly 675 scientific articles. He is the developer of Relational Frame Theory, and has guided its extension to Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) a popular evidence-based form of psychotherapy that is now practiced by tens of thousands of clinicians all around the world.
We can’t understand ourselves, unless we understand our evolutionary history. In his book Evolution for Everyone, evolutionary biologist David Sloan Wilson outlines the principles behind our biology, history, culture, and morality. In order to understand how these processes came to be, we must view evolution through a multi-level and multi-dimensional lense, which is not only central to our modern understanding of evolution, but provides an extended evolutionary synthesis that allows evidence-based psychotherapists to view themselves as applied evolution scientists. David Sloan Wilson describes these processes and more in an accessible and engaging manner – all inside this volume.
With stories that entertain as much as they inform, renowned evolutionist David Sloan Wilson outlines the basic principles of evolution and shows how, when properly understood, they can illuminate the length and breadth of creation, from the origin of life to the nature of religion.
What is the biological reason for gossip? For laughter? For the creation of art? Why do dogs have curly tails? What can microbes tell us about morality?
These and many other questions are tackled by Wilson in this witty and groundbreaking new book. Now everyone can move beyond the sterile debates about creationism and intelligent…
