Chruser's Summer Reading List - Biology Books.

Anything more specific than biology? Cause I have around . . . probably 50 or so I could rattle off for ya, but if you're looking for something more specific let me know.

Exobiology? Furthermore, I have to obtain On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life someplace.

Well, I'll go ahead and give you a few...

Evolution

The Selfish Gene. Richard Dawkins. Describes the gene-centric view of modern evolutionary theory, and chronologically is the first book in the Dawkins anthology. A must read.

The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe Without Design. Richard Dawkins. A general explanation of evolution, and a rebuttal to intelligent design.

The Ancestor's Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution. Richard Dawkins. A fantastic book, based on a (as far as I can tell) novel idea. Traces human evolution backwards through time, starting from modern humans and ending with our microbial origins.

The Origin of Species. Charles Darwin. Yes, the tome that started it all. This is not a fun book to read, and some of Darwin's ideas were wrong, to put it bluntly. However, this is the book that started it all, and it still has an incredible amount of relevant information. Reads like a textbook, however.

The Structure of Evolutionary Theory. Stephen Jay Gould. This book is massive. It is far, far bigger than my textbook on evolution. It is written indulgently, but it contains a massive amount of useful information and interesting ideas.

At the Water's Edge: Fish With Fingers, Whales With Legs, and How Life Came Ashore but Then Went Back to Sea. Carl Zimmer. The focus of this book is on the evolution of tetrapods and cetaceans. A very in-depth examination of the evidence.

Trilobite: Eyewitness to Evolution. Richard Fortey. An introduction to the world of trilobites and paleontology.

Taking Wing: Archaeopteryx and the evolution of bird flight. Pat Shipman. Everything you want to know about the current speculation on how birds evolved flight.

What Evolution Is. Ernst Mayr. A survey of the theory by a master.

Biased Embryos and Evolution. Wallace Arthur. A slim and readable book about evolution, development, and how they link together.

Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why It Matters. Donald Prothero. This book is a documentation of how rich the fossil record has become, including transitional forms and what we can infer from them.

Other Biology Books.

Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters. Matt Ridley. This is one of my favorite books. It basically examines each chromosome of the human genome and explains how a certain gene on it ties into a relevant aspect of life.

The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature. Matt Ridley. In this book, one of the ideas Ridley contends is that one of the main reasons we have sex is to combat disease. Other controversial ideas put forth by Ridley are that men are polygamous for the obvious reason and that women will commit adultery if stuck with an inferior partner. The book may be a bit outlandish, but it's a very interesting read.

Extinction: Bad Genes or Bad Luck? David M. Raup. A little statistics, a lot of paleontology, a good introduction to how we try to puzzle out what the world was like from a sparse data set.

The Triple Helix: Gene, Organism, and Environment. Richard Lewontin. A laconic summarization of the non-reductionist stance of modern biology.

I would also recommend Darwin's other three books. Though not as influential, and some have been dismissed largely, they are still probably worthy of reading. (*Note* I have not read any of Darwin's books other than The Origin. I can't personally comment on how they are.)

Textbooks

Biology. Campbell and Reece. This is the ultimate tome for biological knowledge in my opinion. It is a general overview, so it may not be as in-depth as you want for particular topics, but is nevertheless an excellent overview of everything from molecular biology, evolution, genetics, taxonomy, organ systems, and ecology.

Evolutionary Analysis. Freeman and Herron. This book is a pretty in-depth look at evolution. It describes the terminology and the concepts you need to know to fair depth. It also provides quite a bit of commentary on very recent research and relates it to what you're learning -- an aspect I particularly liked.

Molecular Biology of the Cell. Alberts, Johnson, Lewis, Raff, Roberts, and Walter. An excellent, in-depth book about biology at the molecular level.

Ahh. If it's exobiology you're looking for, I don't think I'd be much help. Carl Sagan has some pretty excellent books. He's the only one I can really think of who even muses on such subjects in any real depth.

Well, I'll go ahead and give you a few...

I had completely forgotten about Carl Sagan. I have intended to read The Selfish Gene but haven't found time to do so yet. Thank you for your list, by the way! I will investigate its entries in more detail in a few days.