Hello! I've been in quite a reading slump for a while, I always thought I only liked fiction novels (particularly sci fi I guess I'm learning I like the sci without the fi just as much) but I recently finished my first book in a while 'everything is tuberculosis" by John Green and am now most of the way through "the immortal life of Henrietta lacks" I was wondering if anyone had another book I can put on deck for when I finish my current one I am looking for science/medical history especially. I really appreciate that both books have a really accessible narration for people not super versed in the fields.
by cryptbian
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For the history of science, I liked The Age of Wonder by Richard Holmes
The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes is also really good
A Primate’s Memoir is one of my top nonfiction recs of all time, it’s about a neuroscientist who did field work studying primates in Africa. It is memoir style including not just the science but also the political and cultural happenings in Africa of the day that influenced his travels.
Edit cause I thought of another one, but Oliver Sacks is a neuroscientist who has written fascinating books about case studies of his patients. The Man Who Mistook His Wife for A Hat, and Awakenings are two of the famous ones.
Edit again: Hyperspace by Michio Kaku if you are interested in pop physics/astrophysics. It’s a couple decades old now so likely a bit on the dated side as far as new developments/observations but sooo interesting if you are at all into space or quantum physics.
It’s an oldie but a goodie — Charles Darwin’s *Origin of Species* is surprisingly readable, and still relevant. And if you like that, you might also like his other most popular books, *The Voyage of the Beagle* and *The Descent of Man*.
*The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory,* by Brian Greene, explains theories about the incredible subatomic world (a/k/a the world of quantum mechanics) in layman’s terms. And if it still doesn’t make sense, Greene reassures you by quoting Nobel Prize winner Richard Feynman, who said “I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics.” Despite all this, I found the book fascinating, so much so that I read it twice in a row.
*An immense world* by Ed Yong
*The light eaters* by Zoe Schlanger
And for science history specifically:
*Horizons* by James Poskett
Irrelevant but I hope you get around to reading The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green sometime if you haven’t already…
Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time
Book by Dava Sobel