Book recommendations

Last updated June 2026

Science

• Power, Sex, Suicide by Nick Lane (2005)

  about mitochondria, obviously

• Revolutions that made the Earth by Tim Lenton and Andrew Watson (2011)

  about how life has radically changed the climate and geochemistry of our planet

• The Logic of Chance by Eugene Koonin (2011)

  on evolution

• The Secret Life of Science by Jeremy Baumberg (2018)

  on how science actually works

• Alien Oceans by Kevin Hand (2020)

  on why we should look for aliens on Enceladus (amongst other places)

• Science Fictions (2020) and Intelligence, all that matters (2015) by Stuart Ritchie

  the first on the replication crisis, the second is a good concise introduction to research on intelligence

• The Worst of Times by Paul Wignall (2015)

  on the end-Permian and end-Triassic mass extinctions

• The Discovery of Global Warming by Spencer Weart (2003)

• Exercised by Daniel Lieberman (2020)

  on exercise and health

• Mom Genes by Abigail Tucker (2021)

  on the biology of motherhood

• Viruses: Intimate Invaders, by Van Wilson (2022)

• T: The Story of Testosterone, by Carole Hooven (2021)

• Immune, by Philipp Dettmer (2021)

  a surprisingly detailed pop-sci discussion about how the immune system works

• Nose Dive, by Harold McGee (2020)

  on smells, fair and foul, and the chemicals underlying them

• A City on Mars by Zach and Kelly Weinersmith (2023)

  about why space colonization is unrealistic and pointless

• The Origins of Genomic Architecture by Michael Lynch (2007)

  not aimed at lay readers but a fascinating nevertheless for those with some background in biology

• Understanding Bird Behavior by Wenfei Tong (2020)

  a very cute book

• The Emperor of All Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee (2010)

  a history of cancer treatment and research

• The Simple Science of Flight by Henk Tennekes (1996)

Engineering and Technology

• Structures, or why things don’t fall down, by JE Gordon (1978)

• Genentech: The Beginnings of Biotech by Sally Hughes (2011)

• How Big Things Get Done by Bent Flyvbjerg (2023)

  about megaprojects and why they often go radically over-budget

• Dealers of Lightning by Michael Hiltzik (1999)

  a history of PARC in the 1970s, part of Xerox, where many key computing innovations occurred

• The Origins of Efficiency by Brian Potter (2025)

• The Infinity Machine by Sebastian Mallaby (2026)

  about Demis Hassabis and DeepMind

Philosophy

• Other Minds by Peter Godfrey-Smith (2016)

  philosophical work on octopuses

• Against Empathy by Paul Bloom (2016)

• Deep Utopia by Nick Bostrom (2024)

  an odd, at times quite funny, at times quite moving, discussion of what to do once everything is solved

Psychology

• The Mating Mind by Geoffrey Miller (2000)

  on the role of sexual selection in human evolution

• The Elephant in the Brain by Kevin Simler and Robin Hanson (2018)

• Why Women Have Sex by Meston and Buss (2009)

  pretty self-explanatory

• Never Enough by Judith Grisel (2019)

  on drugs

• Good Reasons for Bad Feelings by Randolph Nesse (2019)

  on the evolutionary origin of mental illness

• The State of Affairs by Esther Perel (2017)

  on affairs

• Algorithms to Live By by Brian Christian and Tom Griffiths (2016)

• Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert (2006)

  on how to be happy

• Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise (2016)

  much better than I was expecting given the title (the secret is lots of dedicated purposeful practice, if you are wondering)

Sociology

• Very Important People by Ashley Mears (2020)

  on the global partying scene

• Addiction by Design by Natasha Schüll (2012)

  on slot machines, and the people who use them

• Moral Mazes by Robert Jackall (1988)

  a sociologist describes middle and upper management in corporations he studied, and the petty politicking and gross incompetence that the management structure encourages

• Everybody Lies by Seth Stephens-Davidowitz (2017)

  on using Google search data to investigate what people actually think about things

• Codes of the Underworld: How Criminals Communicate by Diego Gambetta (2009)

  applies signalling theory to criminal enterprises

• Status and Culture (2022), and Blank Space (2025), by W. David Marx

Anthropology

• The Secret of Our Success (2015) and The WEIRDest people in the world (2020) by Joseph Henrich

• Religion Explained by Pascal Boyer (2001)

• Gods of the Upper Air by Charles King (2019)

  On pioneering anthropologist Boas and his students

Political Science

• The Dictator’s Handbook by de Mesquita and Smith (2011)

  full of useful advice

• Coup d’Etat: A Practical Handbook by Edward Luttwak (1968)

  also full of useful advice

• Seizing Power by Naunihal Singh (2014)

  the best book on coups I am aware of

• The Origins of Political Order (2011) and Political Order and Political Decay (2014) by Francis Fukuyama

• Only the Dead, by Bear Braumoeller (2019)

  making the case that we don’t have evidence for a decline in war over the past few centuries

• Why We Fight by Christopher Blattman (2022)

  on the causes of war

• Destined For War by Graham Allison (2017)

  about the possibility of a US-China, and how to mitigate the risks

Economics

General

• The Company of Strangers: A Natural History of Economic Life (2004) and The Divine Economy (2024) by Paul Seabright

  the latter is a look at modern religion through the lens of economics

• The Invisible Hook by Peter Leeson (2009)

  on the economics of piracy

• Poor Economics by Banerjee and Duflo (2011)

• Anything by Bryan Caplan

  in particular The Case Against Education (2018) and The Myth of the Rational Voter (2007)

• More Money Than God by Sebastian Mallaby (2010)

  a history of hedge funds, surprisingly fun

• Lying for Money by Daniel Davies (2018)

  a natural history of fraud

• GDP: a brief but affectionate history by Diane Coyle (2014)

• The Box by Marc Levinson (2006)

  a surprisingly interesting book on shipping containers

Economic History

Arranged roughly by how technical/dry they are.

• How the World became Rich by Mark Koyama and Jared Rubin (2022)

  probably the best place to start

• Global Economic History: A Very Short Introduction by Robert Allen (2011)

• The Rise and Fall of American Growth by Robert Gordon (2016)

• Power and Plenty: Trade, War, and the World Economy in the Second Millennium by Findlay and O’Rourke (2007)

• Bourgeois Dignity by Deirdre McCloskey (2010)

  on why every explanation for the great divergence except Deirdre McCloskey’s is bad

• A Culture of Growth by Joel Mokyr (2016)

  a cultural explanation for the great divergence

• Rulers, Religion, and Riches by Jared Rubin (2017)

• The Long Divergence by Timur Kuran (2010)

  why Islamic law held back commerce in the Islamic world

• Trade and Poverty by Jeffery Williamson (2011)

  why the 3rd world fell behind

• Coercion, Capital, and European States by Charles Tilly (1990)

• The Roman Market Economy by Peter Temin (2012)

  textbook on the economy of Rome

• The Economic History of China by Richard von Glahn (2016)

  best (only?) work on this subject, be warned it is a bit dry

History

General

• War in Human Civilization by Azar Gat (2006)

  best book on war in existence

• Pre-Industrial Societies: Anatomy of the Pre-Modern World by Patricia Crone (1989)

  highly recommended for an overview of how, broadly speaking, pre-industrial societies actually operated

• Escape from Rome: The Failure of Empire and the Road to Prosperity by Walter Scheidel (2019)

  about why the Roman empire formed, why no later power managed to recreate the empire, and how this important for understanding why Europe industrialized first

• Why The West Rules for Now by Ian Morris (2010)

  long, but serves as a good introduction to both Western and Chinese history, in parallel.

• Foragers, Farmers, and Fossil Fuels, also by Ian Morris (2015)

  on how the values we hold have changed over time

• The Big Book of Horrible Things by Matthew White (2011)

  a fascinating (if somewhat arbitrary) discussion of the 100 worst atrocities in history, ranked by number of deaths. The author also has an (appropriately dark) sense of humour.

• After Tamerlane by John Darwin (2007)

  a history of European colonialism and the evolution of the great power system over the past five hundred years

• Plagues Upon the Earth by Kyle Harper (2021)

  a history of diseases and pandemics

• Famine, a short history by Cormac O Grada (2009)

Regional Histories

• A History of China (2008) and A History of India (2000) by John Keay

  probably the best single volume introductions to these topics in English, and both are very readable

• A Brief History of Mexico by Lynn Foster (1997)

• The Greeks: A Global History by Roderick Beaton (2021)

Ancient/Medieval

• Who we are and how we got here by David Reich (2018)

  on how recent genetic evidence has given us a much better understanding of human prehistory

• Against the Grain by James Scott (2017)

  or agriculture “it’s a trap!”

• The Indo-Europeans Rediscovered by J. P. Mallory (2025)

• Weavers, Scribes, and Kings by Amanda Podany (2022)

  a history of ancient Mesopotamia

• Understanding Early Civilization by Bruce Trigger (2003)

  a comparative study of seven ancient societies

• Ancient Israel: What we know and how we know it by Lester Grabbe (2007)

• The Rise and Fall of Classical Greece by Josiah Ober (2015)

  poli-sci influenced look at the subject

• The Fate of Rome by Kyle Harper (2017)

  a look at the role of climate, disease, and economic changes and their effect on the collapse of the Roman Empire

• Surviving Rome by Kim Bowes (2025)

  more academic-oriented work, nevertheless gives a great overview of what we actually know about life for typical people living under Roman rule

• Anything by John Julius Norwich

  in particular his trilogy on Byzantine history, and his history of the papacy

• Fifth Sun by Camilla Townsend (2019)

  a history of the Aztecs

• The Four Heavens by David Stuart (2026)

  the current definitive history of the Mayans

• The Carthaginians by Dexter Hoyos (2010)

  the definitive book on the subject

• The Fires of Lust: Sex in the Middle Ages by Katherine Harvey (2021)

Early Modern

• 1491 (2005) and 1493 (2011) by Charles Mann

  on the pre-Columbian Americas, and the Columbian exchange, respectively

• Why Did Europe Conquer the World? by Phillip Hoffman (2015)

  econ history look at the question, very readable and short

• The Gunpowder Age: China, Military Innovation, and the Rise of the West in World History by Tonio Andrade (2016)

  a look at how gunpowder weapons developed, good complement to the previous book

• Osman’s Dream by Caroline Finkel (2005)

  a history of the Ottoman empire

• The Origins of Sex by Faramerz Dabhoiwala (2012)

• The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise of the East India Company by William Dalrymple (2019)

• Return of a King by William Dalrymple (2013)

  about the disastrous, comitragic First Anglo-Afghan War

Modern History

• Dancing in the Glory of Monsters (2011) and The War That Doesn’t Say Its Name (2021) by Jason Stearns

  the former book is a history of the Congo Wars, the deadliest wars that have occurred since the end of the second world war, and the latter is on the aftermath. Be warned that they are pretty dark in places, but very written and fascinating.

• Cold War by John Gaddis (2005)

• Command and Control by Eric Schlosser (2013)

  on early American nuclear weapon usage, and all the many many fuck ups that occurred

• The Last Emperor of Mexico by Edward Shawcross (2021)

  the bizarre story of the short-lived second Mexican empire and its Austrian Habsburg ruler

• Dictatorland by Paul Kenyon (2018)

  a description of six African dictators, all fascinating and disturbing—Macías Nguema is both the most obscure and most bizarre

• Raven Rock by Garrett Graff (2017)

  a history of US continuity of government planning in the face of nuclear war

• The Wages of Destruction by Adam Tooze (2006)

  an economic history of Nazi Germany

• A Short History of World War 1 by James Stokesbury (1981)

• The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes (1986)

• Red Famine by Anne Applebaum (2017)

  a history of the Ukrainian famine in the 1930s

• The Doomsday Machine by Daniel Ellsberg (2017)

• The Dead Hand by David Hoffman (2009)

• Restricted Data by Alex Wellerstein (2021)

  a history of nuclear secrecy

• The Napoleonic Wars: A Global History by Alexander Mikaberidze (2020)

• Freedom’s Forge by Arthur Herman (2012)

• Modern Paraguay by Tomas Mandl (2021)

  not a narrative history, more a portrait of the modern country

• King Leopold’s Ghost by Adam Hochschild (1998)

  on the Congo Free State under King Leopold II

• The Soviet Bioweapons Program by Leitenberg and Zilinskas (2012)

  the definitive work on the topic, surprisingly readable

• How to Hide an Empire by Daniel Immerwahr (2019)

  a history of the “Greater USA”, particular the Philippines and Puerto Rico

• The Making of the Modern Philippines by Philip Bowring (2022)

• Another Day of Life (1976) and The Emperor (1978) by Ryszard Kapuscinski

  the former on the Angolan civil war, the latter an unconventional and not wholly-reliable portrait of Haile Selassie

• Embers of War by Frederik Logevall (2012)

  about the French Indochina war, and how the US first came to be entangled with Vietnam

Other History

• A History of the Bible by John Barton (2019)

  more interesting than it sounds

• The Allure of Battle by Cathal Nolan (2017)

  or, why you shouldn’t spend your time trying to win wars by seeking big battles AKA don’t be Germany in WW1 or WW2

• Christian Beginnings by Geza Vermes (2012)

  covers the first ~300 years of the Christian church

• Buddhism (2001) and The Buddha (2025), both by Donald Lopez

  scholarly and concise

• Religions of Early India: A Cultural History by Richard Davis (2024)

Biography

• Everything by Robert Caro

• The Fish that Ate the Whale by Rich Cohen (2012)

  biography of Sam Zemurray, “the banana man” who became president of the United Fruit Company

• Nine Lives by William Dalrymple (2009)

  a moving work exploring the lives of nine unusual religious figures in modern South Asia

• Nine Lives by Aimen Dean (2018)

  the story of an al-Qaeda member who became a British double agent

Other

• The Sense of Style by Steven Pinker (2014)

  on how to write good

• Resetting the Table by Robert Paarlberg (2021)

  on various issues related to modern food production and consumption

• Good work if you can get it by Jason Brennan (2020)

  on modern academia

• Factfulness by Hans Rosling (2018)

• The Power of Babel by John McWhorter (2001)

  on linguistics

• Pronoun Trouble by John McWhorter (2025)

  short, fascinating look at how English got its pronouns

• Order without Design by Alain Bertaud (2018)

  on urban planning

• The Book by Keith Houston (2016)

  on the history of the book as a physical object

• Anything by A J Jacobs

  if you are looking for something lighter and funnier — maybe try Drop Dead Healthy (2012) or The Year of Living Biblically (2007) to start

• How not to write a novel by Mittelmark and Newman (2008)

  an amusing book which explains how not to write a novel by giving many terrible examples of what not to do