The Selfish Gene
Dawkins argues genes are the units of selection, recasting kinship, conflict and altruism through replicators, game theory and memes.
2,439-word summary · 11 min read
Tag: science
44 books with this tag.
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Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams
A Berkeley sleep scientist explains how sleep shapes memory, mood, and health, and what happens when we miss it.
2,755-word summary · 12 min read
State of Wonder
A researcher travels into the Amazon to learn what happened to her colleague, and finds her fearsome former teacher guarding a fertility discovery.
2,648-word summary · 12 min read
Factfulness
A doctor shows why we misread global trends and offers ten habits for seeing progress clearly.
2,247-word summary · 10 min read
Einstein: His Life and Universe
Isaacson traces Einstein from patent clerk to world fame using newly opened papers, through 1905, relativity, exile, and the long unified theory search.
2,773-word summary · 12 min read
Astrophysics for People in a Hurry
Tyson condenses the Big Bang, dark matter, and exoplanets into twelve short chapters for busy readers.
2,314-word summary · 10 min read
The Omnivore's Dilemma
Four meals traced from corn fields to foraging show what industrial food costs and what else is possible.
1,918-word summary · 9 min read
Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!
Feynman drums, cracks safes, and learns by doing from Los Alamos to Caltech classrooms.
1,946-word summary · 9 min read
Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers
What happens to donated bodies, from crash labs and decay farms to composting and space tests.
2,051-word summary · 9 min read
Born to Run
A hurt runner seeks the Tarahumara of Copper Canyons, finds Caballo Blanco, and joins a hidden fifty mile race about why people run.
2,679-word summary · 12 min read
The Soulmate Equation
Statistician Jess matches a genetics grump at top score ever, then tests dating by data.
2,006-word summary · 9 min read
The God Delusion
Dawkins argues a personal God almost certainly does not exist, then traces religion and morals to evolution.
3,426-word summary · 15 min read
Origin
Robert Langdon chases Edmond Kirsch's lost discovery through Bilbao and Barcelona to answer where we come from and where we are going.
2,604-word summary · 12 min read
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Bryson asks how we know what we know, from atoms to continents, with humor and awe.
2,134-word summary · 9 min read
Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
Diamond argues geography and crops explain why some societies expanded faster than others.
3,432-word summary · 15 min read
A Brief History of Time
Hawking walks from ancient spheres to big bang, black holes, and time arrows without equations.
2,210-word summary · 10 min read
Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking
Fast judgments can beat analysis, and fail hard, in Gladwell's 2005 book on snap thinking.
2,008-word summary · 9 min read
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
The cells of a poor Black tobacco farmer revolutionized medicine, taken without her knowledge in 1951.
2,139-word summary · 10 min read
Lessons in Chemistry
Lessons in Chemistry retold: Elizabeth Zott fired, TV cooking with science, Six-Thirty helps.
1,951-word summary · 9 min read
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
Harari's Sapiens from cover to cover: the cognitive revolution, the agricultural bargain, shared fictions like money and nations, and the scientific centuries…
2,145-word summary · 10 min read