 | Critical Mass: How One Thing Leads to Another by Philip Ball
Buy new: $10.88 / Used from: $4.89 social science takes more cues from the physical sciences. crtical states and phase transitions apply to human phenomena.
|
 | Origin of Wealth: Evolution, Complexity, and the Radical Remaking of Economics by Eric D. Beinhocker
Buy new: $19.77 / Used from: $1.45 great intro to the renaissance in economics.
|
 | The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Buy new: $17.79 / Used from: $12.99 randomness rules the world
|
 | Strangers to Ourselves: Discovering the Adaptive Unconscious by Timothy D. Wilson
Buy new: $16.65 / Used from: $13.07 we think we make conscious decisions, but in fact we often make decisions non-consciously and then later interpret them as conscious decisions.
|
 | The Good Man: A Novel by Edward Jae-Suk Lee
Buy new: $21.95 / Used from: $0.01 wonderful story of a korean vet coming to grips with his past.
|
 | Mean Genes: From Sex to Money to Food: Taming Our Primal Instincts by Terry Burnham
Buy new: $10.20 / Used from: $4.47 we evolved for life on the savannah, not the modern world, and we pay the price every day
|
 | Survival of the Sickest: A Medical Maverick Discovers Why We Need Disease by Sharon Moalem
Buy new: $17.13 / Used from: $3.49 evolutionary explanations for why genetic diseases persist
|
 | Blindsight by Peter Watts
Buy used from: $4.81 alien first contact story with cool ideas about biology and neurology
|
 | The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom by Jonathan Haidt
Buy new: $10.85 / Used from: $5.55 matching old world knowledge of human behavior with modern science
|
 | Big Bang: The Origin of the Universe (P.S.) by Simon Singh
Buy new: $10.85 / Used from: $2.31 history, physics, and cosmology for the common man.
|
 | Ubiquity: The Science of History . . . or Why the World Is Simpler Than We Think by Mark Buchanan
Buy used from: $2.82 power law relationships reveal similarity in structure between earthquakes, forest fires, species extinction, financial markets, and other human endeavors
|
 | Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert
Buy new: $16.47 / Used from: $3.50 objective happiness succumbs to synthetic happiness.
|
 | Why Most Things Fail: Evolution, Extinction and Economics by Paul Ormerod
Buy new: $11.53 / Used from: $4.52 lol fail
|
 | Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell
Buy new: $17.13 / Used from: $2.11 great storytelling that compels you to read more about the underlying concepts in psychology and economics.
|
 | A Deepness in the Sky (Zones of Thought) by Vernor Vinge
Buy new: $7.99 / Used from: $1.42 space opera at its finest.
|
 | Cloud Atlas: A Novel by David Mitchell
Buy new: $10.17 / Used from: $5.37 from historical fiction to comedy to grisham-suspense to sci-fi... and back.
|
 | The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality by Brian Greene
Buy new: $11.53 / Used from: $5.72 for anyone interested in physics and cosmology.
|
 | The Social Atom: Why the Rich Get Richer, Cheaters Get Caught, and Your Neighbor Usually Looks Like You by Mark Buchanan
Buy new: $16.47 / Used from: $7.49 more statistical physics applied to social science. strong reciprocity as basis for social phenomena
|
 | The Illusion of Conscious Will (Bradford Books) by Daniel M. Wegner
Buy new: $14.93 / Used from: $8.00 title is pretty self-explanatory
|
 | The Code Book: The Science of Secrecy from Ancient Egypt to Quantum Cryptography by Simon Singh
Buy new: $10.85 / Used from: $4.38 fascinating history of the cat and mouse game between encrypters and decrypters.
|
 | Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood by Marjane Satrapi
Buy new: $10.36 / Used from: $6.74 growing up female in iran
|
 | Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Buy new: $10.88 / Used from: $7.75 results are irrelevant and can be explained by randomness.
|
 | Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge by Edward O. Wilson
Buy new: $10.85 / Used from: $3.51 unite the sciences
|
 | The Progress Paradox: How Life Gets Better While People Feel Worse by Gregg Easterbrook
Buy new: $10.17 / Used from: $3.88 a few too many stats, but still a great overall message.
|
 | Fortune's Formula: The Untold Story of the Scientific Betting System That Beat the Casinos and Wall Street by William Poundstone
Buy new: $10.20 / Used from: $8.40 math and statistics are cool.
|
 | The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game by Michael Lewis
Buy new: $16.47 / Used from: $0.95 more of an exploration of the chasm between the underclass and middle/upper classes than an analysis of football.
|
 | The Undercover Economist: Exposing Why the Rich Are Rich, the Poor Are Poor--and Why You Can Never Buy a Decent Used Car! by Tim Harford
Buy new: $10.17 / Used from: $6.40 good intro to economics for the average person.
|
 | The Ancestor's Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution by Richard Dawkins
Buy new: $11.53 / Used from: $4.50 get your biology on.
|
 | The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less by Barry Schwartz
Buy new: $11.16 / Used from: $4.90 our freedom of choice is cramping our pursuit of happiness.
|
 | Armchair Economist: Economics & Everyday Life by Steven E. Landsburg
Buy new: $11.20 / Used from: $7.50 economic musings on various topics of interest to the layperson
|
 | The Difference: How the Power of Diversity Creates Better Groups, Firms, Schools, and Societies by Scott E. Page
Buy new: $18.45 / Used from: $14.00 explains how the wisdom of crowds works and the power of diversity in problem solving
|
 | Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins
Buy new: $10.20 / Used from: $7.45 not sure if everything contained is completely true, but still a riveting story. a must read for anyone interested in world events (which should be "everyone").
|
 | Number9Dream by David Mitchell
Buy new: $10.17 / Used from: $4.54 whisks you away to japan.
|
 | No One Belongs Here More Than You: Stories by Miranda July
Buy new: $15.64 / Used from: $4.96 funny stories that are often delicately touching as well
|
 | Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation by Joseph J. Ellis
Buy new: $10.17 / Used from: $4.52 america is born
|
 | Tailgating, Sacks, and Salary Caps: How the NFL Became the Most Successful Sports League in History by Mark Yost
Buy new: $16.47 / Used from: $8.49 nfl owners are quasi-marxists working toward league-wide parity? no, they're still entrepeneurial capitalists... and they're really good at funneling tax dollars into new stadiums using dubious models of "community economic development"
|
 | The Separation by Christopher Priest
Buy new: $19.50 / Used from: $4.28 alternate history of WWII through eyes of twin brothers
|
 | The Trouble With Physics: The Rise of String Theory, the Fall of a Science, and What Comes Next by Lee Smolin
Buy new: $15.13 / Used from: $6.00 theory should be testable by experiment. if not, it's philosophy not science.
|
 | After Dark by Haruki Murakami
Buy new: $15.61 / Used from: $4.00 late night turns to early morning in tokyo
|
 | Nexus: Small Worlds and the Groundbreaking Theory of Networks by Mark Buchanan
Buy new: $10.85 / Used from: $6.25 patterns emerge from the connectedness of things, not necessarily their individual characteristics
|
Listmania!
