 | A New Kind of Science by Stephen Wolfram
Buy new: $38.21 / Used from: $7.99 The most important book for decades. At least go to the library and read the last chapter.
"Everything is simpler than you think and at the same time more complex than you imagine." - Goethe
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 | A Different Universe: Reinventing Physics from the Bottom Down by Robert B. Laughlin
Buy used from: $3.61 Why emergence is important in physics, explained with dark humor.
"Now my own suspicion is that the Universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose." - J. B. S. Haldane
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 | Phase Change: The Computer Revolution in Science and Mathematics (Computer Sciences) by Douglas S. Robertson
Buy used from: $7.21 How computation is changing the process of science.
Dont worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, youll have to ram them down peoples throats. Howard Aiken
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 | The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology by Ray Kurzweil
Buy new: $13.00 / Used from: $7.74 Mostly correct - things are changing fast. However, like smart people, smart computers will be out of the social mainstream for a long time.
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 | The Unfolding of Language : An Evolutionary Tour of Mankind's Greatest Invention by Guy Deutscher
Buy used from: $4.75 How language is evolving.
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 | The Power of Babel: A Natural History of Language by John Mcwhorter
Buy new: $9.88 / Used from: $5.17 How languages combine.
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 | The Rag and Bone Shop of the Heart: A Poetry Anthology
Buy new: $14.03 / Used from: $1.57 Poetic language.
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 | Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud
Buy used from: $11.17 Visual language.
Please click through to get to the paperback edition.
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 | Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert
Buy new: $10.85 / Used from: $1.89 We don't know what will make us happy. But if we watch other people, what works for them usually works for us.
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 | The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom by Jonathan Haidt
Buy used from: $12.14 Our happiness is mostly driven by our unconscious, animal self. Train it.
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 | Present Moment Wonderful Moment: Mindfulness Verses for Daily Living by Thich Nhat Hanh
Buy used from: $0.99 Ways to be happy.
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 | Genes, Peoples, and Languages by Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza
Buy new: $13.57 / Used from: $5.95 How we got to here and now.
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 | The Real Eve: Modern Man's Journey Out of Africa by Stephen Oppenheimer
Buy used from: $9.80 How we got to here and now.
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 | THE EMPTY CRADLE: How Falling Birthrates Threaten World Prosperity And What to Do About It by Phillip Longman
Buy used from: $6.90 Our culture is declining.
"Evil always carries the seeds of its own destruction, as it makes people, at the least, uncomfortable. Against folly we have no defense. Neither protests nor force can touch it; reasoning is no use; facts that contradict personal prejudices can simply be disbelieved [...]" - D. Bonhoeffer
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 | Unprotected: A Campus Psychiatrist Reveals How Political Correctness in Her Profession Endangers Every Student by MD Anonymous
Buy used from: $6.89 How political correctness undercuts the healthy growth of young people.
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 | Religion Explained by Pascal Boyer
Buy new: $12.24 / Used from: $4.20 Why we used to believe.
"Belief means not wanting to know what is true." - Friedrich Nietzsche
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 | Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl
Buy new: $6.99 / Used from: $3.29 What is your purpose?
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 | The Five Books of Moses: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy (The Schocken Bible, Volume 1)
Buy new: $19.80 / Used from: $12.60 What we used to believe.
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 | Gandhi An Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments With Truth by Mohandas Karamchand (Mahatma) Gandhi
Buy new: $10.88 / Used from: $4.75 A rare mix of committed moral philosopher and successful political leader.
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| Mahabharata by C.V. Narasimhan
Buy used from: $6.95 An ancient Greek philosopher called this the Indian Illiad.
Please click through to get to the paperback edition.
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 | The Upanishads (Classic of Indian Spirituality)
Buy new: $8.54 / Used from: $6.80 Indian culture is the world's second largest, and the most prolific source of religious thought.
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 | The Tao Te Ching: A New Translation With Commentary
Buy new: $12.71 / Used from: $5.52 Religion from the largest culture on earth, and one of the most different from America.
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 | Meta Maths: The Quest for Omega by Gregory J. Chaitin
Buy used from: $4.91 A readable overview of the philosophy of information.
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 | Asymmetry: The Foundation of Information (The Frontiers Collection) by Scott J. Muller
Buy new: $87.00 / Used from: $79.58 A good overview of information. Too expensive, so get it from your library.
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 | Traders, Guns & Money: Knowns and unknowns in the dazzling world of derivatives by Satyajit Das
Buy new: $19.79 / Used from: $16.14 How did the finance-government complex implode? This book gives a rare look at the thoughts of the men in finance who did the destruction.
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 | Resource Wars: The New Landscape of Global Conflict With a New Introduction by the Author by Michael T. Klare
Buy new: $10.88 / Used from: $1.50 Why are countries going to war?
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 | Governments, Citizens, and Genocide: A Comparative and Interdisciplinary by Alex Alvarez
Buy used from: $9.33 Why do people slaughter their neighbors by the thousand? Because it's government policy.
"[...] any violent display of power, whether political or religious, produces an outburst of folly [groupthink] in a large portion of mankind [...]" - D. Bonhoeffer
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 | Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, 2nd Edition by Steve Krug
Buy new: $26.40 / Used from: $21.96 How to talk to your web users.
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 | Why We Get Sick: The New Science of Darwinian Medicine by Randolph M. Nesse
Buy new: $10.20 / Used from: $1.84 Stay healthy.
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 | Dark Star Safari: Overland from Cairo to Cape Town by Paul Theroux
Buy used from: $3.35 A look at the other side of the demographic divide.
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 | The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature by Matt Ridley
Buy new: $10.19 / Used from: $4.74 Why there is sex.
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 | Life Itself: Exploring the Realm of the Living Cell by Boyce Rensberger
Buy new: $15.96 / Used from: $3.08 Just a toe into the water of the vast ocean of how our bodies work. Somebody else's list will have to take you on from there.
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