Favorite Med/Sci Books??

[FoxTrot12]

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OK as a follow up to j-weezy's fav TV station thread, what are everybody's favorite medical/science books? Know any that are inspirational, educational, just plain awesome??

I'll get it started:

1) Surely You're Joking, QED ... etc: Feynman might be pretty arrogant but he'll get you pumped about science like no other.
2)DNA by Watson: Cause, well ... it's sweet
3) Elephants on Acid and Other Bizarre Science Experiments: Cause people are weird
4) Musicophillia: Oliver Sacks rocks my world! 🙂

So what are yall reading for fun?

 

[Inuranic]

The God Delusion by Dawkins (amazing)
The Selfish Gene by Dawkins
A Devil's Chaplain by Dawkins
The Demon Haunted World by Sagan (amazing)
A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bryson
I Wish I'd Made You Angrier Earlier by Perutz
Guns, Germs, and Steel by Diamond

Currently reading: The Fabric of Reality (can't remember author)

I love non-fiction.

 

[xanthines]

I've posted this before, but I really think that every MSTP student should read Arrowsmith by Sinclair Lewis. Despite being written in 1924 (or something like that) it's surprisingly relevant. I'm undecided as to whether that's amusing or depressing. 🙂 In any case, Lewis did win the Nobel prize for literature for a series of books of which Arrowsmith was a part.

-X

 

[Inuranic]

1) Surely You're Joking, QED ... etc: Feynman might be pretty arrogant but he'll get you pumped about science like no other.

I started reading a book written from one of Feynman's lectures and couldn't finish it. It was too general for my tastes. I have a suspicion his books may be better, but I haven't gotten around to reading one.

 

[FoxTrot12]

I started reading a book written from one of Feynman's lectures and couldn't finish it. It was too general for my tastes. I have a suspicion his books may be better, but I haven't gotten around to reading one.

Oh definitely read one by Feynman! QED was super cool and will hopefully keep you thinkin' for a while, and Surely You're Joking is just hilarious.

 

[marctam86]

one, two, three, infinity by George Gamow, who is pretty damn cool

 

[LunderKind]

Any book or article by Atul Gawande.

The Best Science Writing series.

Time, Love, Memory by Jonathan Weiner.

The Joy of Cooking...does that count as science? Does to me.

 

[solitude]

House of God by Samuel Shem is the best medical/science book I've read. It's purportedly fiction but the author claims it is a largely true portrait of his intern year at BWH/MGH.

Dawkins is good but gets a bit too didactic at times for my taste.

I've read all of Diamond's books but in my opinion they are pretty tedious. I think you can get the entirety of them by reading the prologues.

Carl Sagan is great if you want to realize how truly insignificant is this ball of mass (and by extension, you).

The string theory guy's books are good, but the second one is largely redundant.

I like E.O. Wilson's books a lot. The Naturalist is a great little autobiography, and On Human Nature and Consilience are must reads.

The one by Watson written in the 70s about the frenetic race to decipher DNA structure is a quick read and exhilirating.

I've only read a few by Stephen Jay Gould. You have to read Wonderful Life. The others were pretty dull in my opinion.

The Genome War by Shreeve is very good I think.

Matt Ridley is off and on and when he strays into evolutionary psychology I want to puke.


Hmm I guess that's all I can think of off the top of my head. I went through a phase where I read a lot of medicine/science books but over the last couple years as my curriculum has focused into almost entirely science courses, I've largely abandoned medicine/science for other disciplines of nonfiction or literature. There are a lot of good medicine/science books out there but I found that they started to get really redundant after I had read a bunch.

 

[Inuranic]

There are a lot of good medicine/science books out there but I found that they started to get really redundant after I had read a bunch.

I've found this too. I also agree about Diamond being tedious - especially when I was trying to read one of his books on a Caribbean cruise...

 

[xanthines]

Anyone read GEB by Douglas Hofstadter? I started it awhile ago but never picked it up again. It's kind of about science and math. And music. And stuff.

-X

 

[FoxTrot12]

GEB was sweet, but kind of long so I did it in spurts 😛

 

[reine1jb]

complications by atul gawande is good
In search of memory-Eric Kandel
The discovery of insulin-Bliss.. you would think it woudl be a boring book but the three/four people given the nobel prize for the discovery were quite...charasmatic to say the least..definitely didn't get a long well at all

the man who mistook his wife for a hat-Oliver Sacks. I have musicophila i haven't started reading it yet though
I just started reading the God delusion-Richard Dawkins. I must say as a Christian I find myself surprisingly not offended (probably because I haven't read enough of it yet 🙄)

 

[Inuranic]

complications by atul gawande is good
In search of memory-Eric Kandel
The discovery of insulin-Bliss.. you would think it woudl be a boring book but the three/four people given the nobel prize for the discovery were quite...charasmatic to say the least..definitely didn't get a long well at all

the man who mistook his wife for a hat-Oliver Sacks. I have musicophila i haven't started reading it yet though
I just started reading the God delusion-Richard Dawkins. I must say as a Christian I find myself surprisingly not offended (probably because I haven't read enough of it yet 🙄)

I forgot all about In Search of Memory! That book owns.

 

[reine1jb]

I forgot all about In Search of Memory! That book owns.

oh I agree...aside from the fact that he completely revolutionized molecular neuroscience, he as lead probably the most creative, and interesting lives of any scientist

 

[mudphudwannabe]

The Man Who Tasted Shapes by Richard Cytowic - a neurologist writing about his experiences with patients with synesthesia (tasting shapes, etc), the essays in the second part get a bit dull, but the first part is really interesting.
I am a Strange Loop by Douglas Hofstadter - maybe not completely about science..more about philosophy (what does it mean to have consciousness, do souls have sizes, etc), and I've only finished the first chapter, but I think it will be pretty enlightening.

 

[meowkat444]

i agree with a lot of these recommendations. i want to plug paperbackswap.com as a great way to acquire them 🙂

 

[seraph524]

This isn't medical/science related, but still school related... I'm currently reading The Price of Admission by Daniel Golden. Interesting detail on how admissions committee works at the undergrad level.

 

[StarTrack]

Oliver Sacks rocks my world!

Seconded

 

[StarTrack]

Dawkins is pretty cool too, if you can get past the arrogance.

 

[Ruz]

I'm surprised that no one mentioned The Hot Zone by Richard Preston.

Its a good read about the Ebola outbreak in the late 80's (i think).

 

[Myempire1]

"Surely you're joking Mr. Feynman!" by Feynman
"Harvey Cushing a life in surgery" by Bliss
"William Osler a life in medicine" by Bliss
"The man who mistook his wife for his hat" by Sacks
There are others... but I cannot remember them right now.

 

[FoxTrot12]

OK, here's one more that isn't quite med/sci but it was incredible and definitely related to education.

Anyone read "Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace... One School at a Time"?

I loved it and I have never been so grateful for the opportunities that education has afforded me. These guys are definitely going to be up for a Nobel Prize sometime soon.

 

[j-weezy]

apparently Dawkins is coming to my school to give a lecture in March...guess I should read one of two of his books before then!

 

[jlamacc1]

I'm surprised that no one mentioned The Hot Zone by Richard Preston.

Its a good read about the Ebola outbreak in the late 80's (i think).

Oh god, The Hot Zone is awesome! The descriptions of what ebola does to you are unforgettable. I would also highly recommend The Double Helix for history's sake and a lesson on how NOT to do science.

 

[jlamacc1]

Ramachandran's Phantoms of the Brain is interesting, too, in that Oliver Sacks sort of way.

 

[MSTPbound]

I second Bliss' "Harvey Cushing" book... haven't read the Osler one, but plan to.

Other books:

Psychological Types, by Jung
Another Day in the Frontal Lobe, by Firlik (quick layman's read on Neurosurgery)
The Essential Chomsky, by Chomsky. Collection of essays, mostly treating linguistics, and political criticism (if it's your thing)
Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance, by Gewande
The Audacity of Hope, by Obama... as a presidential hopeful, he might have some major influence on science and medicine in this country (e.g. freeing up some of that Iraqi funding for our labs!) - so I count it here.

 

[FoxTrot12]

I'm also reading on Intelligence by Jeff Hawkins, he's certainly got a unique take on the brain that I really like but maybe not everyone agrees with.

And since we seem to be seeing so many Neuro books I'll throw in something on a completely different note: I really liked Faster Than The Speed of Light because even if it is totally wrong at least this guy wasn't afraid to challenge Einstein, and how many people are willing to do that!?

 

[RxnMan]

I am about halfway through Knut Schmidt-Nielsen's "How Animals Work," a neat little book about comparative physiology. Lots of fun integerations of ideas, thermodynamics, and biology.

 

[j-weezy]

Advice needed:

I'm allowed to choose a book (less than or equal to $100) - I think it would be appropriate to be science-y but after that I'm lost. I want this to be a book that I know I'll use

Thoughts? Suggestions?

-j

 

[RxnMan]

Advice needed:

I'm allowed to choose a book (less than or equal to $100) - I think it would be appropriate to be science-y but after that I'm lost. I want this to be a book that I know I'll use

Thoughts? Suggestions?

-j

"Physical Chemistry: a molecular approach" by McQuarrie is the best p-chem book I've seen, and one of the best textbooks I've ever read. This book always seemed to have all of the answers.

 

[AMMOPIG]

Hyperspace: Michio Kaku (future stuff)
When the Air Hits Your Brain: Frank Vertosick (fun times w/ nuerosurgery residency.)
The Brain That Changes Itself: Norman Doidge (plasticity)

 

[robo]

I began GEB but it's kind of long, so I rotate it with other books I read. (I'm really enjoying it, though!) I think my favorite books are And the Band Played On by Randy Shilts and Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder. That's right...typical idealistic (closet) pre-med...😳

 

[Nerve]

... and Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder. That's right...typical idealistic (closet) pre-med...😳

I have to second Mountains Beyond Mountains. I got my copy in Qatar, read it on my way to Iraq, lent it to a Ugandan security guard and she hasn't given it back yet! It's been like two-and-a-half-months...An inspiring story.
I'll also pitch In Search of Memory (just started it and I can't stop reading)
--Scientific American's Best of The Brain-- gives the lowdown of some major advances in brain science over the last ten years. Great for aspiring physician scientists like myself (easy-read/intro to terminology and concepts/experiments).

FYI> Nerve=AMMOPIG