A site always Under Construction, with lots of favorite authors still in the backlog and new books constantly coming out. It features some of the books that I've learned a lot from, using custom links to amazon.com so you can quickly investigate price and availability (some favorites, alas, are out of print -- but used books are now on the web too).

More.... takes you to excerpts from the book or comments from me.

As you will see, my interests span anthropology,

biology,

cognitive sciences,

ethology,

climate,

evolution,

brains,

language,

the future

-- not to mention Patrick O'Brian novels and the Science Masters series.

You can click on the topics to see a collection of favorite books on the subject.

And six more.

There are three recent books which are exactly what you might want to give policymakers to help them sort through the more general issues of climate change.  Anyone who wishes to speak intelligently about ozone, greenhouse, and El Niño needs to read them. 

A Devil's Chaplain : Reflections on Hope, Lies, Science, and Love Richard Dawkins

Is the Temperature Rising? The Uncertain Science of Global Warming by S. George Philander (Paperback ).  Written with grace and understatement for general readers, by someone deeply involved with modeling the climate, it covers much of a Princeton introductory course in the earth sciences.  The IPCC analysis of where gradual climate change is going, “Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis,” can be found at http://www.ipcc.ch

Floods, Famines, and Emperors : El Nino and the Fate of Civilizations
by Brian Fagan. Paperback (March 2000.)  Archaeologists have this wonderful perspective on what’s gone wrong in the past, both with climate and human institutions.

The Two-Mile Time Machine by Richard B. Alley (Princeton University Press, 2000).  It is written for nonspecialists (Alley has gotten a lot of practice as a frequent commentator for Science news articles).  The book contains far more detail on abrupt climate change than the others.   So if you find yourself asking, “But how could they possibly know that?” you’ll find most of the answers in Alley’s excellent book.  Its final chapter about the future, alas, is informed by conventional economic extrapolation rather than by the more relevant perspective of high-risk management seen in medicine, re-insurance, and disaster planning.

Antonio R. Damasio, The Feeling of What Happens: Body and Emotion in the Making of Consciousness . This is clearly a must-read book for anyone wanting a neurologist's perspective on one of the greatest of the unsolved mysteries, human consciousness and the ways in which it exceeds that of the other apes. By the author of Descartes' Error.

The Tangled Wing : Biological Constraints on the Human Spirit by Melvin J. Konner (Hardcover - April 2001) "Indecently elegant—a beautifully written book by any standard—and it's about language, love, lust, learning and all the rest of our apes-and-beyond nature…. Every behavioral biology topic reflects the enlightenment of the past two decades since this classic book first appeared." — William H. Calvin. "Melvin Konner is. . . the nearest we have to a poet laureate of behavioral biology. This is an indispensable book." — Robert Sapolsky

The Ape and the Sushi Master: Cultural Reflections of a Primatologist by Frans De Waal (Basic Books, 2001).

V. S. Ramachandran, Sandra Blakeslee, Phantoms in the Brain : Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind (William Morrow & Company, 1998). More....      amazon.com

George Lakoff, Moral Politics: What Conservatives Know That Liberals Don't (U of Chicago Press, 1996). More....      amazon.com

Daniel C. Dennett, Brainchildren : Essays on Designing Minds, 1984-1996 (Representation and Mind Series; MIT Press, 1998). More....      amazon.com

Mark Turner, The Literary Mind (Oxford University Press 1996). More....     amazon.com

E. Sue Savage-Rumbaugh, Stuart Shanker, Talbot J. Taylor, Apes, Language, and the Human Mind (Oxford University Press, May 1998). More....     amazon.com

David Brin, The Transparent Society: Will Technology Force Us to Choose Between Privacy and Freedom? (Addison-Wesley 1998). More....     amazon.com

Richard Byrne, The Thinking Ape: Evolutionary Origins of Intelligence (Oxford Univ Press 1995). More....     amazon.com

Charles Darwin (edited by Paul Ekman), The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals 3rd Edition (Oxford Univ Press, 1998 reprint). More....     amazon.com

Terrence Deacon, The Symbolic Species: The Co-Evolution of Language and the Brain (W. W. Norton, August 1997). More....      amazon.com

Adrian Desmond, Huxley: From Devil's Disciple to Evolution's High Priest (Addison-Wesley, 1997). More....     amazon.com

Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs and Steel: Fates of Human Societies (W. W. Norton, 1997). More....     amazon.com

Jared Diamond, Why Is Sex Fun? The Evolution of Human Sexuality (BasicBooks -- Science Masters Series, 1997). More....     amazon.com

Ernst Mayr, This is Biology: The Science of the Living World (Harvard University Press, March 1997). More....     amazon.com

David F. Noble, The Religion of Technology : The Divinity of Man and the Spirit of Invention (Knopf 1997). More....     amazon.com

Steven Pinker, How the Mind Works (W. W. Norton, 1997). More....     amazon.com

Frans de Waal, Chimpanzee Politics: Sex and Power Among the Apes (revised edition, Johns Hopkins University Press 1998).

More.... amazon.com

Frans de Waal, Frans Lanting, Bonobo: The Forgotten Ape (University of California Press 1997). More....     amazon.com

E. O. Wilson, Consilience: Unity of Knowledge (Knopf 1998). More....     amazon.com

Richard Wrangham, Dale Peterson, Demonic Males: Apes and the Origins of Human Violence (Houghton Mifflin, 1996). More....     amazon.com

More.... takes you to excerpts from the book or comments from me.

As you will see, my interests span anthropology, biology, cognitive sciences, ethology, climate, evolution, brains, language, the future -- not to mention Patrick O'Brian novels and the Science Masters series.

You can click on the topics to see a collection of favorite books on the subject.

Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species (London 1859). More....     amazon.com

Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex (London 1871). More....     amazon.com

Charles Darwin (edited by Paul Ekman), The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals 3rd Edition (Oxford Univ Prress, 1998 reprint). More....     amazon.com

Michael White, John R. Gribbin, Darwin: A Life in Science (E P Dutton, 1995). More....     amazon.com

Richard Dawkins, Climbing Mount Improbable (Norton, 1996). More....     amazon.com

Richard Dawkins, River Out of Eden (Science Masters, BasicBooks, 1995). More....     amazon.com

Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe Without Design (Norton, 1986). More....     amazon.com

Richard Dawkins, The Extended Phenotype: The Long Reach of the Gene (Oxford UP, 1982). More....     amazon.com

Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene (Oxford UP, 1976). More....     amazon.com

Terrence Deacon, The Symbolic Species: The Co-Evolution of Language and the Brain (W. W. Norton, August 1997). More....      amazon.com

Daniel C. Dennett, Brainchildren : Essays on Designing Minds, 1984-1996 (Representation and Mind Series; MIT Press, 1998). More....      amazon.com

Daniel C. Dennett, Kinds of Minds: Toward an Understanding of Consciousness (Science Masters, BasicBooks, 1996). More....     amazon.com

Daniel C. Dennett, Darwin's Dangerous Idea (Simon & Schuster 1995). More....     amazon.com

Daniel C. Dennett, Consciousness Explained (Little, Brown, 1991). More....     amazon.com

Daniel C. Dennett, The Intentional Stance (MIT Press, 1987). More....     amazon.com

Daniel C. Dennett, Elbow Room: The Varieties of Free Will Worth Wanting (MIT Press, 1984). More....     amazon.com

Daniel C. Dennett, Brainstorms: Philosophical Essays on Mind and Psychology (MIT Press, 1978). More....     amazon.com

Daniel C. Dennett, Content and Consciousness (Routledge and Kegal Paul 1969). More....     amazon.com

More.... takes you to excerpts from the book or comments from me.

As you will see, my interests span anthropology, biology, cognitive sciences, ethology, climate, evolution, brains, language, the future -- not to mention Patrick O'Brian novels and the Science Masters series.

You can click on the topics to see a collection of favorite books on the subject.

Adrian Desmond, Huxley: From Devil's Disciple to Evolution's High Priest (Addison-Wesley, 1997). More....     amazon.com

Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs and Steel: Fates of Human Societies (W. W. Norton, 1997). More....     amazon.com

Jared Diamond, Why Is Sex Fun? The Evolution of Human Sexuality (BasicBooks -- Science Masters Series, 1997). More....     amazon.com

Jared Diamond, The Third Chimpanzee (HarperCollins, 1992). More....     amazon.com

Merlin Donald, Origins of the Modern Mind: Three Stages in the Evolution of Culture and Cognition (Harvard University Press, 1991). More....     amazon.com

Esther Dyson, RELEASE 2.0: A Design for Living in the Digital Age (Broadway Books, 1997). More....     amazon.com

Freeman Dyson, Imagined Worlds (Jerusalem-Harvard Lectures) (Harvard University Press, 1997). More....     amazon.com

George Dyson, Darwin Among the Machines (Addison-Wesley, 1997). More....     amazon.com

Loren Eiseley, The Star Thrower (1976). More....     amazon.com

Brian Eno, A Year With Swollen Appendices: The Diary of Brian Eno (Faber and Faber, 1996). More....     amazon.com

Walter J. Freeman, Societies of Brains (Erlbaum, 1995). More....     amazon.com

Kathleen R. Gibson and Tim Ingold (Editors), Tools, Language and Cognition in Human Evolution (Cambridge University Press, 1993). More....     amazon.com

Jane Goodall, The Chimpanzees of Gombe (Harvard University Press, 1986). More....

James Gould and Carol Grant Gould, The Animal Mind (Scientific American Library, 1994). More....     amazon.com

Stephen Jay Gould, Ontogeny and Phylogeny (Harvard University Press, 1977). More....     amazon.com

Eugen Herrigel, Zen in the Art of Archery (Vintage 1999, reprints 1953).      amazon.com

J. Allan Hobson, The Chemistry of Conscious States (Little, Brown, 1994). More....     amazon.com

J. Allan Hobson, The Dreaming Brain (BasicBooks, 1988). More....     amazon.com

Douglas R. Hofstadter, Metamagical Themas (BasicBooks 1985). More....     amazon.com

Nicholas Humphrey, Consciousness Regained (Oxford University Press, 1983). More....     amazon.com

More.... takes you to excerpts from the book or comments from me.

As you will see, my interests span anthropology, biology, cognitive sciences, ethology, climate, evolution, brains, language, the future -- not to mention Patrick O'Brian novels and the Science Masters series.

You can click on the topics to see a collection of favorite books on the subject.

Ray Jackendoff, Patterns in the Mind (BasicBooks 1993). More....     amazon.com

Kay Redfield Jamison, Touched With Fire: Manic Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament (Free Press 1993). More....     amazon.com

Kay Redfield Jamison, An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness (Knopf 1995). More....     amazon.com

Mark Johnson, Moral Imagination: Implications of Cognitive Science for Ethics (University of Chicago Press 1993). More....     amazon.com

Mark Johnson, The Body in the Mind: The Bodily Basis of Meaning, Imagination, and Reason (University of Chicago Press 1987). More....     amazon.com

Kevin Kelly, Out of Control: The Rise of Neobiological Civilization (Addison-Wesley 1994). More....     amazon.com

Melvin Konner, The Tangled Wing: Biological Constraints on the Human Spirit (Holt 1990 softcover). More....     amazon.com

John Maynard Smith and Eors Szathmary The Major Transitions in Evolution (Freeman 1995). More.... s.htmp;   amazon.com

Ernst Mayr, This is Biology: The Science of the Living World (Harvard University Press, March 1997). More....     amazon.com

Ernst Mayr, One Long Argument: Charles Darwin and the Genesis of Modern Evolutionary Thought (Harvard University Press, 1992). More....     amazon.com

Ernst Mayr, Toward a New Philosophy of Biology (Harvard University Press, 1988). More....     amazon.com

Jonathan Miller, Darwin for Beginners (Pantheon Books 1983). More....     amazon.com

Marvin Minsky, Society of Mind (S and S, 1987). More....     amazon.com

David F. Noble, The Religion of Technology : The Divinity of Man and the Spirit of Invention (Knopf 1997). More....     amazon.com

Patrick O'Brian, the Aubrey-Maturin Series of 19 novels (Norton, 1970ff). More....

Heinz Pagels, The Dreams of Reason (Simon and Schuster 1988). More....    

Steven Pinker, How the Mind Works (W. W. Norton, 1997). More....     amazon.com

Steven Pinker, The Language Instinct (Morrow, 1994). More....     amazon.com

Israel Rosenfield, The Strange, Familiar, and Forgotten: An Anatomy of Consciousness (Knopf 1992). More....     amazon.com

More.... takes you to excerpts from the book or comments from me.

As you will see, my interests span anthropology, biology, cognitive sciences, ethology, climate, evolution, brains, language, the future -- not to mention Patrick O'Brian novels and the Science Masters series.

You can click on the topics to see a collection of favorite books on the subject.

Oliver Sacks, An Anthropologist from Mars (Knopf 1995) More....     amazon.com

Oliver Sacks, Seeing Voices (University of California Press, 1989). More....     amazon.com

Sue Savage-Rumbaugh and Roger Lewin, Kanzi (Wiley, 1994). More....     amazon.com

Peter Schwartz, The Art of the Long View (Doubleday, 1991). More....     amazon.com softcover

Linda Simon, Genuine Reality: A Life of William James (Harcourt Brace 1998). More....     amazon.com

Ian Stewart, Nature's Numbers (Science Masters, 1995). More....     amazon.com

Tom Stoppard, Arcadia (Faber and Faber, 1996). More....     amazon.com

Lewis Thomas, Late Night Thoughts on Listening to Mahler's Ninth Symphony (Viking 1979). More....     amazon.com

Mark Turner, The Literary Mind (Oxford University Press 1996). More....     amazon.com

Frans de Waal, Frans Lanting, Bonobo: The Forgotten Ape (University of California Press 1997). More....     amazon.com

Frans de Waal, Good Natured: The Origins of Right and Wrong (Harvard UP 1996). More....     amazon.com

Frans de Waal, Peacemaking Among Primates (Harvard UP 1989). More....     amazon.com

Frans de Waal, Chimpanzee Politics: Sex and Power Among the Apes (Harper and Row 1982). More....     amazon.com

Jonathan Weiner, The Beak of the Finch: A Story of Evolution in Our Time (Knopf, 1994). More....     amazon.com

E. O. Wilson, Consilience: Unity of Knowledge (Knopf 1998). More....     amazon.com

Richard Wrangham, Dale Peterson, Demonic Males: Apes and the Origins of Human Violence (Houghton Mifflin, 1996). More....     amazon.com

J. Z. Young, Philosophy and the Brain (Oxford University Press, 1987). More....     amazon.com

Steven M. Stanley, Children of the Ice Age: How a Global Catashrophe Allowed Humans to Evolve (Crown 1996; Freeman pb 1998). More....     amazon.com

Ernst Mayr, William B. Provine (editors), The Evolutionary Synthesis : Perspectives on the Unification of Biology (Harvard University Press, 1998). More....     amazon.com

Elliott Sober, David Sloan Wilson, Unto Others: The Evolution and Psychology of Unselfish Behavior (Harvard University Press, 1998).

"Their book provides a panoramic view of altruism throughout the animal kingdom - from self-sacrificing parasites to insects that subsume themselves in the superorganism of a colony to the human capacity for selflessness - even as it explains the evolutionary sense of such behavior. Sober and Wilson offer a detailed case study of scientific change as well as an indisputable argument for group selection as a legitimate theory in evolutionary biology." More....     amazon.com

S. George Philander, Is the Temperature Rising? : The Uncertain Science of Global Warming (Princeton University Press, 1998). First chapter is available. More....     amazon.com .

George Lakoff, Moral Politics: What Conservatives Know That Liberals Don't (University of Chicago 1996).

Lakoff reveals how family-based moral values determine views on such diverse issues as crime, gun control, taxation, social programs, and the environment. He shows why it is consistent for conservatives to oppose subsidies for the poor but endorse them for business, or for liberals to oppose the death penalty but support abortion. He also explains why liberal and conservative stances contain the constellations of policies they do.
More....     amazon.com .