These are all the books I read during my sophomore year... mostly over Christmas and spring breaks. I think maybe I read too much.
Books on this page are codified on an Amazon list which I maintain.
Glorious Appearing by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins. The Left Behind series, admittedly, is not necessarily fiction in the league of the classics. However, I have been anxiously awaiting installments for the better part of five years, and the last book in the series was definitely worth it. I totally cried.
Rocks of Ages: Science and Religion in the Fullness of Life by Stephen Jay Gould. I love Gould's books, and I love reading about the interplay between science and religion, as I am a religious scientist, I suppose. Gould's position in this classic is that religion and science are non-overlapping magisteria and neither has anything to say about the domain of the other. Science shouldn't dictate morality, and religion shouldn't dictate what's taught in science classes.
Pendulum: Leon Foucalt and the Triumph of Science by Amir Aczel. I had really liked a few of Aczel's other books, but this one tended to be a little disjointed as it discussed very broadly developments leading up to Foucalt's famous experiment and the scientific reaction to it, as well as political developments in France in the mid-nineteenth century. Kind of scattered.
Soul Made Flesh: The Discovery of the Brain and How It Changed the World by Carl Zimmer. This was a good history of the origins of neuroscience, although reading over and over about early (wrong) theories of the mind and body did get a little irritating. Overall, it was enjoyable.
Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond. This book was fabulous! I had enjoyed The Third Chimpanzee by Diamond, and in this book he expands upon some of the ideas he brought forth in the earlier book. This was a Pulitzer Prize winner, and I fully believe it was deserved.
Dating Game by Danielle Steel. When I was in seventh grade, I read all of the Danielle Steel books which had been written at the time and came to the conclusion that they were all basically the same. This one doesn't break the pattern. Oh well, it was a good quick vacation read.
How We Believe: Science, Skepticism, and the Search for God by Michael Shermer. Shermer writes a column for Scientific American, which I love, so I thought I'd read his book. It was okay... not much I hadn't read already. I'm pretty firmly of the belief that science and religion don't have much to say about each other, so I guess I went in a little skeptical myself.
Drive: Neurobiological and Molecular Mechanisms of Sexual Motivation by Donald Pfaff. I saw this book in the MIT Press bookstore and thought it would be good... it was a little too textbooky for my liking. Definitely not a popular science book. And it irritated me by referring to experimental animals as "lower animals" and insinuating that human sexual drive was far more complex and advanced than drives in other animals. Not recommended.
Genes, Girls, and Gamow: After the Double Helix by James Watson. Although this book isn't particularly well-written, it's interesting for its gossip about the scientific community in the years immediately following Watson and Crick's elucidation of the double helix. Read only if interested in knowing who was doing what in the scientific community in the 1950's.
The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin. I had been meaning to get around to this practically forever, since it is the foundation of modern biology and all. I was a little disappointed... Darwin's thesis would have been so much more convincing if he had known molecular biology...
The Trouble with Testosterone and Other Essays on the Biology of the Human Predicament by Robert M. Sapolsky. This was a gift from Stephen for belated Christmas, and it was a fantastic pick. The author discusses some of my favorite topics with a witty and amusing flair... I'm definitely going to read some more of his work.
The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown. I knew this had been on the best-seller list for a while, and when Ashley offered to let me read hers, I couldn't pass it up. Wow. I devoured it in three hours. What an absolutely fascinating piece of fiction!
The X in Sex: How the X Chromosome Controls Our Lives by David Bainbridge. I'm a big fan of the X chromosome, and I really enjoyed this book, which finally explained a few things, like X inactivation, which had been puzzling me for a while.
Genome by Matt Ridley. I bought this book on my way home for Thanksgiving and enjoyed it for almost two full weeks while running my mice through the maze. It's a great book and a fantastic introduction to cutting-edge genetic research.
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov. Well, it's a classic, and I had never read it, so when I got it for Laura for her birthday, it seemed like a great time to read it. After her, of course. It's... well, kinda screwed up... but it's a fascinating and intoxicating piece of literature.
The Man Who Tasted Shapes by Richard E. Cytowic. I've been interested in synesthesia (when two senses get "crossed" -- people hear in colors or taste in shapes) for a while, and when I saw a book on it at the MIT Coop (where books can be paid for using my meal plan card = my parents' money), I couldn't refuse. The writing style is... interesting... but the subject matter is fascinating, and that's what made this book worthy of my time during a term when I don't have time to spare.
What's Wrong with My Mouse?: Behavioral Phenotyping of Transgenic and Knockout Mice by Jacqueline N. Crawley. I definitely read this book for my UROP. And it's a much more scientifically intense book than the title makes it sound... in my own defense.
Heroes, Rogues, and Lovers: Testosterone and Behavior by James MacBride Dabbs. Quite enlightening, as a matter of fact... a book about what makes men tick that enjoys far better scientific support than my beloved Cosmo.
The Power of Babel: A Natural History of Language by John McWhorter. I read this as preparation for taking 24.900 (Linguistics) this fall. I enjoyed it for the most part, but I got a little weary of reading about different pronunciations of words in various languages. Guess I'm not cut out to be a linguist, but it was a good read in the car on the way to Boston.
The Pinball Effect: How Renaissance Water Gardens Made the Carburetor Possible by James Burke. James Burke (the crazy Englishman from Mr. Hughes' class) wrote this book about how one technological advance or scientific discovery can make possible a whole bunch of unintended consequences. It's a very wide-ranging and engaging book.
"Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!": Adventures of a Curious Character by Richard Feynman. I just think Feynman is hysterical, and his stories of a life in science are priceless.
The Hedgehog, the Fox, and the Magister's Pox: Mending the Gap Between Science and the Humanities by Stephen Jay Gould. This was Gould's last book, published posthumously... I don't think it was as polished as his others, but enjoyable nonetheless.
The Threat and the Glory: Reflections on Science and Scientists by Sir Peter Medawar. This was a book about the relationship between science and the public written by Sir Peter, a crotchety British Nobelist. Some of it is a little dated, having been written in the 70s, but I love grouchy British scientists and I really liked the book.
Billions and Billions: Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the Millennium by Carl Sagan. I love Carl Sagan. This book was a delight to read, and it really wove together a lot of the themes discussed in many of the books I've read this summer. Thoroughly enjoyable.
The Third Chimpanzee: The Evolution and Future of the Human Animal by Jared Diamond. This was a very good read on many aspects of human physiology, history, evolution, and sociology... at times, though, it seemed a little bit broader than the human subject matter it purported to discuss, and ended up reminding me of the Peter Ward book I read earlier. I enjoyed it nonetheless.