 | Carl Sagan's Cosmic Connection: An Extraterrestrial Perspective by Carl Sagan
Buy new: $46.71 / Used from: $9.74 This book made me want to become an astronomer. I did.
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 | The Ascent of Man by Jacob Bronowski
Buy used from: $3.91 Pity this is out of print.
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 | Disturbing The Universe (Sloan Foundation Science Serie) by Freeman J. Dyson
Buy new: $13.57 / Used from: $4.54 RAF statistics stories were most interesting. Greatest 20th Century physicist without a Ph.D.
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 | Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values by Robert Pirsig
Buy used from: $0.01 I liked it in 1985. Don't know how well it would stand rereading.
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 | Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None (Modern Library) by Friedrich Nietzsche
Buy new: $13.60 / Used from: $3.67 Unlike most philosophers, Nietzsche was a good writer.
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 | Celtic Folklore: Welsh and Manx by John Rhys
Buy used from: $54.98 I'm amazed that this wonderful book isn't so far out of print to not appear on Amazon at all.
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 | If the War Goes on: Reflections on War and Politics by Hermann Hesse
Buy used from: $0.29 Weak compared to the rest of the list, but read during my first year in grad school. Too busy to read much other than school.
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 | The Discoverers: A History of Man's Search to Know His World and Himself by Daniel J. Boorstin
Buy used from: $0.01 I need to read _The Creators_ and _The Seekers_ too.
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 | The Masks of God, Vol. 1: Primitive Mythology by Joseph Campbell
Buy new: $13.60 / Used from: $6.50 First of four volumes (yes, read all four). Nothing like comparative religion to turn you off all of 'em. But fascinating stuff.
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 | Woody Guthrie: A Life by Joe Klein
Buy new: $11.56 / Used from: $5.49 Guthrie was one of the more interesting Americans of the 20th Century.
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 | Bully for Brontosaurus: Reflections in Natural History by Stephen Jay Gould
Buy new: $12.21 / Used from: $0.55 I once subscribed to Natural History Magazine just to read Gould's essays. Then I stopped when I realized they all ended up in books.
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 | Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman by James Gleick
Buy new: $11.53 / Used from: $0.01 Feynman was more than the greatest physicist of his generation; he was its most colorful character.
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 | Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era by James M. McPherson
Buy used from: $0.36 The Civil War is the single most important event in US history. You cannot understand the US without understanding this war. (I must read Foote's 3 vol. history).
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 | The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark by Carl Sagan
Buy new: $11.56 / Used from: $4.97 Sagan's best book. Perhaps his most important.
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 | Doing Battle: The Making of a Skeptic by Paul Fussell
Buy new: $16.19 / Used from: $3.45 After reading this book, my thankfulness of never having to fight in a war increased exponentially.
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 | Angela's Ashes: A Memoir by Frank McCourt
Buy new: $10.88 / Used from: $0.01 Did McCourt embelish his tale? Perhaps. But brilliantly written.
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 | D Day: June 6, 1944: The Climactic Battle of World War II by Stephen E. Ambrose
Buy new: $12.96 / Used from: $0.01 _Citizen Soldiers_ is better, but it was edged out by _Angela's Ashes_ the previous year. Now, I wonder if Ambrose wrote all of this book.
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 | In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex by Nathaniel Philbrick
Buy new: $16.47 / Used from: $0.01 A partial inspiration for Moby-Dick. Not for the faint of heart.
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 | Our Oriental Heritage (The Story of Civilization, Vol.1) by Will Durant
Buy used from: $3.90 The first volume of eleven. Read them all. Too bad the Durants died before they could get past Napoleon. I miss reading them.
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 | Kings Depart by Richard watt
Buy used from: $5.29 I hadn't realized that Germany actually experienced a civil war after the end of WWI. Helps make sense of the conditions which led to the horrors of the Third Reich.
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 | Anti-Intellectualism in American Life by Richard Hofstadter
Buy new: $12.24 / Used from: $7.48 This gave me a new perspective on the cultural and political history of the United States.
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 | Philosophical Dictionary (Penguin Classics) by Francois Voltaire
Buy new: $10.20 / Used from: $3.44 It was tough to pick a best nonfiction book of 2003, but Voltaire won. Crush the Infamy!
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 | Uncertainty: The Life and Science of Werner Heisenberg by David C. Cassidy
Buy used from: $20.58 An excellent scientific biography and an excellent portrait of Germany between the wars.
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Listmania!
