Books Recommended by Richard Dawkins

"Entangled Life by @MerlinSheldrake is one of the best works of scientific literature I have ever read: intelligent (a scientist can be good at philosophy), informative (I learned so much), inspiring (almost every sentence made me pause for thought), beautifully written (this author has a real way with words). The vignettes of autobiography add to the appeal. A marvellous book."

"“The Spy & the Traitor” by Ben Macintyre. “The best true spy story I have ever read” (John Le Carré). I’d call it the best, most thrilling thriller I’ve ever read, with the bonus that it’s – astonishingly – true. Breathtaking courage, cliff-edge suspense, even black comedy."

"I recommend Conundrum by Jan Morris. Moving story of growing up feeling like a female trapped in a male body. 10-year odyssey of hormone therapy and surgery, after which she felt happy & fulfilled & remarried her former wife. Very much not a victim of transient fashion."

"The Coddling of the American Mind by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt, audiobook read by @JonHaidt. Utterly superb book, recommended unreservedly. Brilliant book, exposes one of the major things wrong with society today. Please please read it."

"Strongly recommend The Tangled Tree. @DavidQuammen is an excellent writer, as we know from e.g. The Song of the Dodo. Good science & balanced judgment enlivened with warts-&-all portraits & anecdotes of scientist personalities: Carl Woese, Ford Doolittle, Lynn Margulis etc."

"I love a book that teaches me things I didn’t know while provoking in me thoughts I never had before, setting my mind racing in new directions. Such a book is The Dawn of Language by Sverker Johansson. Alongside his own view of language origins, he fairly treats alternatives."

"Finished Jonathan Haidt’s The Righteous Mind. V important book. Well-written, wise, even-handed, informed by wide reading in evolution, sociology, psychology, economics, moral & political theory. Every page stimulates constructive thought (& sometimes constructive disagreement)."

"From time to time I read a book which I find seminal: seeds new constructive thought. Jonathan Haidt’s The Righteous Mind (I’m now half way through) is seminal. Recommended, especially if you’re one of those who fashionably rubbishes Evolutionary Psychology & its “modules”."

"Finished The Book of Humans by Adam Rutherford. It’s really very good. Highly stimulating, lots to think about, lots to learn. Very well-written, though the occasional bouts of over-egged political correctness burst onto the page a little jarringly. Thoroughly recommended."

"Very nice to see a thorough and vivid exposition of the Extended Phenotype (he calls it “Exophenotype”) by @NAChristakis in Chapter 10 of Blueprint, a book that I strongly recommend in general. So good to read a sociologist who understands evolution and takes it seriously."