Books ----- Ron Nicholson's recommended book and reading list: ( with some 4 and 5 star review rankings ) A Conflict of Visions by Thomas Sowell , 1988 ISBN: 0688079512 *****(five stars) Moral Politics : What Conservatives Know That Liberals Don't by George Lakoff , 1996 ISBN: 0226467961 ***** The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable by Nassim Nicholas Taleb , 2007 ISBN: 1400063515 ***** The Innovator's Dilemma by Clayton M. Christensen , 1997 ISBN: 0875845851 ***** Plows, Plagues, and Petroleum: How Humans Took Control of Climate by William F. Ruddiman , 2007 ISBN: 0691133980 ***** Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert , 2006 ISBN: 1400042666 ***** Descartes' Error : Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain by Antonio R. Damasio , 1994 ISBN: 0380726475 ***** The Mind's Past by Michael S. Gazzaniga , 1998 ISBN: 0520224868 ***** The Right Mind : Making Sense of the Hemispheres by Robert Ornstein , 1997 ISBN: 0156006278 ***** Influence : The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert B. Cialdini , 1984 ***** Irrationality : Why We Don't Think Straight! by Stuart Sutherland , 1994 ISBN: 0813521505 Inevitable Illusions : How Mistakes of Reason Rule Our Minds by Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini , 1994 ISBN: 047115962X How We Know What Isn't So : The Fallibility of Human Reason in Everyday Life by Thomas Gilovich , 1991 ISBN: 0029117062 Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets by Nassim Nicholas Taleb , 2004 ISBN: 158799190X **** Guns, Germs and Steel : The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond , 1997 ***** The Mystery of Capital : Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else by Hernando De Soto , 2000 ISBN: 04650161 **** The Suicide of Reason by Lee Harris , 2007 ISBN: 046500203X **** Against the Gods : The Remarkable Story of Risk by Peter L. Bernstein , 1996 ISBN: 0471121045 **** Prime Obsession : Bernhard Riemann and the Greatest Unsolved Problem in Mathematics by John Derbyshire , 2003 ISBN: 0309085497 ***** Decoding the Universe: How the New Science of Information Is Explaining Everything in the Cosmos, from Our Brains to Black Holes by Charles Seife , 2006 ISBN: 067003441X **** Programming the Universe: A Quantum Computer Scientist Takes On the Cosmos by Seth Lloyd , 2006 ISBN: 1400040922 Wittgenstein's Poker : The Story of a Ten-Minute Argument Between Two Great Philosophers by David Edmonds, John Eidinow , 2002 ISBN: 0060936649 **** Everything and More: A Compact History of Infinity (Great Discoveries) by David Foster Wallace , 2003 ISBN: 0393003388 An Imaginary Tale by Paul J. Nahin , 1998 ISBN: 0691027951 **** Chaos : Making a New Science by James Gleick , 1988 ISBN: 0140092501 ***** Complexity : Life at the Edge of Chaos by Roger Lewin ISBN: 0226476553 ***** Artificial Life : A Report from the Frontier Where Computers Meet Biology by Steven Levy , 1992 ISBN: 0679743898 ***** Deep Simplicity: Bringing Order to Chaos and Complexity by John Gribbin , 2005 ISBN: 140006256X The Quest for Cosmic Justice by Thomas Sowell , 1999 ISBN: 0684864622 ***** Balance: In Search of the Lost Sense by Scott McCredie , 2007 ISBN: 0316011355 **** Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain by John J. Ratey , 2008 ISBN: 0316113506 ***** Natures Mind : The Biological Roots of Thinking by Michael S. Gazzaniga , 1992 ISBN: 0465048633 **** The Three-Pound Enigma : The Human Brain and the Quest to Unlock Its Mysteries by Shannon Moffett , 2006 ISBN: 1565124235 Soul Made Flesh : The Discovery of the Brain--and How it Changed the World by Carl Zimmer , 2004 ISBN: 0743230388 On Intelligence by Jeff Hawkins and Sandra Blakeslee , 2004 ISBN: 0805074562 This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession by Daniel J. Levitin , 2006 ISBN: 0525949690 ***** The Piano Shop on the Left Bank : Discovering a Forgotten Passion in a Paris Atelier by Thad Carhart , 2002 ISBN: 0375758623 ***** Temperament : How Music Became a Battleground for the Great Minds of Western Civilisation by Stuart Isacoff , 2002 ISBN: 0571196225 **** The Riemann Hypothesis: The Greatest Unsolved Problem in Mathematics by Karl Sabbagh , 2003 ISBN: 0374250073 Stalking the Riemann Hypothesis : The Quest to Find the Hidden Law of Prime Numbers by Dan Rockmore , 2005 ISBN: 037542136X The Number Sense : How the Mind Creates Mathematics by Stanislas Dehaene , 1997 ISBN: 0195110048 Letters to a Young Mathematician (Art of Mentoring) by Ian Stewart , 2006 ISBN: 0465082319 Blink : The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell , 2005 ISBN: 0316172324 Linked: The New Science of Networks by Albert-Laszlo Barabasi , 2002 ISBN: 0738206679 Gravity's Arc by David Darling , 2006 ISBN: 0471719897 A Brief History of the Human Race by Micheal Cook , 2003 ISBN: 0393052311 A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson , 2003 ISBN: 0767908171 Universe on a T-Shirt: The Quest for the Theory of Everything by Dan Falk , 2004 ISBN: 1559707070 Feynman's Rainbow: A Search for Beauty in Physics and in Life by Leonard Mlodinow , 2003 ISBN: 044653045X My Life as a Quant: Reflections on Physics and Finance by Emanuel Derman , 2004 ISBN: 0471394203 The Poker Face of Wall Street by Aaron Brown , 2006 ISBN: 0471770574 **** Inventing Money: The Story of Long-Term Capital Management by Nicholas Dunbar , 1999 ISBN: 0471899992 Richistan : A Journey Through the American Wealth Boom and the Lives of the New Rich by Robert Frank , 2007 ISBN: 0307339262 Mine's Bigger: Tom Perkins and the Making of the Greatest Sailing Machine Ever Built by David A. Kaplan , 2007 ISBN: 0061227943 Stargazer: The Life and Times of the Telescope by Fred Watson , 2007 ISBN: 0306814323 Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist's Guide to Global Warming by Bjorn Lomborg , 2007 ISBN: 0307266923 To Follow the Water: Exploring the Ocean to Discover Climate by Dallas Murphy , 2007 ISBN: 158243350X Extreme Waves by Craig B. Smith , 2006 ISBN: 0309100623 Windswept: The Story of Wind and Weather by Marq de Villiers , 2006 ISBN: 080271469 **** Water: The Fate of Our Most Precious Resource by Marq de Villiers , 2000 ISBN: 0618030093 **** Hurricane Watch: Forecasting the Deadliest Storms on Earth by Bob Sheets, Jack Williams ISBN: 037570390X The Two-Mile Time Machine : Ice Cores, Abrupt Climate Change, and Our Future by Richard B. Alley ISBN: 0691102961 Brunelleschi's Dome: How a Renaissance Genius Reinvented Architecture by Ross King , 2000 ISBN: 0802713661 Aristotle's Children : How Christians, Muslims, and Jews Rediscovered Ancient Wisdom and Illuminated the Dark Ages by Richard E. Rubenstein , 2003 ISBN: 0151007209 **** Abraham : A Journey to the Heart of Three Faiths by Bruce Feiler , 2002 ISBN: 0-380-97776-1 Ingenium: Five Machine That Changed the World by Mark Denny , 2007 ISBN: 0801885860 Blip, Ping, and Buzz: Making Sense of Radar and Sonar by Mark Denny , 2007 ISBN: 0801886651 Jacquard's Web: How A Hand-Loom Led To The Birth Of The Information Age by James Essinger , 2005 ISBN: 0192805770 The Victorian Internet : The Remarkable Story of the Telegraph ... by Tom Standage , 1998 ISBN: 0802713424 Thread Across the Ocean by John Steele Gordon , 2002 ISBN: 0802713645 Shrinking the Cat: Genetic Engineering Before We Knew About Genes by Sue Hubbell , 2001 ISBN: 0618040277 A Guinea Pig's History of Biology by Jim Endersby , 2007 ISBN: 0674027132 The Making of the Fittest: DNA and the Ultimate Forensic Record of Evolution by Sean B. Carroll , 2006 ISBN: 0393061639 **** The Monk in the Garden : The Lost and Found Genius of Gregor Mendel by Robin Marantz Henig , 2000 ISBN: 0395977657 Calendar : Humanity's Epic Struggle to Determine a True and Accurate Year by David Ewing Duncan , 1998 ISBN: 0380793245 ***** Time's Pendulum : The Quest to Capture Time From Sundials to Atomic Clocks by Jo Ellen Barnett , 1988 ISBN: 0306457873 Newton's Clock : Chaos in the Solar System by Ivars Peterson , 1995 ISBN: 0716727242 Measuring Eternity : The Search for the Beginning of Time by Martin Gorst , 2001 ISBN: 0767908279 The Great Disruption : Human Nature and the Reconstitution of Social Order by Francis Fukuyama , 1999 ISBN: 0-684-84530-X The Axemaker's Gift : Technology's Capture and Control of Our Minds and Culture by James Burke, Robert Ornstein , 1997 **** Acid Tongues and Tranquil Dreamers : Tales of Bitter Rivalry That Fueled the Advancement of Science and Technology by Michael White , 2002 ISBN: 0380806134 Artifacts by Christine Finn , 2001 ISBN: 0262062240 Shadow Syndromes by John J. Ratey & Catherine Johnson , 1997 ISBN: 0553379593 The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat : And Other Clinical Tales by Oliver W. Sacks , 1992 ISBN: 0684853949 Older and Wiser : How to Maintain Peak Mental Ability for As Long As You Live by Richard M., Md. Restak, 1999 ISBN: 0425165868 Turning the Tables: Restaurants from the Inside Out by Steven A. Shaw , 2005 ISBN: 0060737808 The Argument Culture : Moving from Debate to Dialogue by Deborah Tannen ISBN: 0679456023 **** Science on Trial by Marcia Angell MD ISBN: 0393316726 Why Our Children Can't Read : A Scientific Revolution in Reading by Diane McGuinness ISMN: 0684831619 Coercion, Why We Listen to What 'They' Say by Douglas Russkoff , 1999 ISBN: 1573221155 Are We Unique? by James S. Trefil ISBN: 0471249467 **** Maxwell's Demon : Why Warmth Disperses and Time Passes by Hans Christian Von Baeyer , 1998 ISBN: 0679433422 The Code Book : The Evolution of Secrecy from Mary, Queen of Scots to Quantum Cryptography by Simon Singh , 1999 ISBN: 0385495315 Big Bang : The Origin of the Universe by Simon Singh , 2005 ISBN: 0007162200 Count Down : Six Kids Vie for Glory at the World's Toughest Math Competition by Steve Olson , 2004 ISBN: 0618251413 In Code: A Mathematical Journey by Sarah Flannery, David Flannery , 2002 ISBN: 1565123778 The Universal Computer: The Road from Leibniz to Turing by Martin Davis , 2000 ISBN: 0393047857 ENIAC: The Triumphs and Tragedies of the World's First Computer by Scott McCartney , 2000 ISBN: 0425176444 Electric Universe: The Shocking True Story of Electricity by David Bodanis , 2005 1400045509 The Triumph of Numbers by I. B. Cohen , 2006 ISBN: 0393328708 A Mathematical Mystery Tour : Discovering the Truth and Beauty of the Cosmos by A. K. Dewdney , 1999 ISBN: 0471238473 200% Of Nothing : An Eye-Opening Tour Through ... Math Abuse and Innumeracy by A. K. Dewdney ISBN: 0471145742 The Natural History of Zero by Robert Kaplan , 1999 ISBN: 0195128427 Euclid's Window: The Story of Geometry from Parallel Lines to Hyperspace by Leonard Mlodinow , 2002 ISBN: 0684865238 e: The Story of a Number by Eli Maor ISBN: 0691058547 Faster : The Acceleration of Just About Everything by James Gleick , 1999 Times Pendulum : From Sundials to Atomic Clocks, the Fascinating History of Timekeeping by Jo Ellen Barnett , 1999 Uncommon Sense : The Heretical Nature of Science by Alan Cromer , 1993 ASIN: 0195082133 Inside the Animal Mind by George Page , 1999 ISBN: 038549291X Is Your Cat Crazy? : Solutions from the Casebook of a Cat Therapist by John C. Wright, Judi Wright Lashnits , 1996 The Mind's I by Douglas R. Hofstadter, Daniel C. Dennett, Doug Hofstadter , 1985 ISBN: 0553345842 **** A Fish Caught in Time : The Search for the Coelacanth by Samantha Weinberg , 2000 ISBN: 0060932856 **** Of Flies, Mice, and Men by Francois Jacob , 1999 Cradle of Life by J. William Schopf , 1999 Lifelines : Biology Beyond Determinism by Steven Rose , 1998 Science As a Way of Knowing : The Foundations of Modern Biology by John A. Moore Alternate Realities : How Science Shapes Our Vision of the World by Joel Davis , 1997 Entanglement: The Greatest Mystery in Physics by Amir D. Aczel Doubt and Certainty : The Celebrated Academy : Debates on Science ... by Tony Rothman, George Sudarshan , 1999 ISBN: 0738201693 **** Our Cosmic Habitat by Martin J. Rees , 2001 ISBN: 0691089264 Sounds of the River: A Memoir by Da Chen , 2002 ISBN: 0060199253 **** (& China's Son : Growing Up in the Cultural Revolution) North Atlantic Civilization at War: The World War II Battles of Sky, Sand, Snow, Sea, and Shore by Patrick L. Hatcher ISBN: 0765601354 Why Most Things Fail: Evolution, Extinction and Economics by Paul Ormerod , 2006 ISBN: 0375424059 **** The Perfect Store: Inside eBay by Adam Cohen ISBN: 0316150487 Piloting Palm: The Inside Story of Palm, Handspring and the Birth of the Billion Dollar Handheld Industry by Andrea Butter, David Pogue , 2002 ISBN: 0471089656; Don't Think of an Elephant: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate--The Essential Guide for Progressives by George Lakoff, Howard Dean (Foreword) , 2004 ISBN: 1931498717 Elephants Can't Dance by Lou Gerstner , 2002 ISBN: 0060523794 Antarctica, the Last Continent by Kim Heacox , 1998 Explorations; My Quest for Adventure and Discovery Under the Sea by Robert D. Ballard, Malcolm McConnell , 1995 The Eternal Darkness by Robert D. Ballard , 2000 ISBN: 069109554X ***** Blind Man's Bluff : The Untold Story of American Submarine Espionage by Sherry Sontag, Christopher Drew, Annette Lawrence Drew , 1998 The Lady Tasting Tea: How Statistics Revolutionized Science in the Twentieth Century by David Salsburg , 2001 ISBN: 0716741067 Chances Are: Adventures in Probability by Michael Kaplan, Ellen Kaplan , 2006 ISBN: 0670034878 Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Steven Levitt, Stephen Dubner , 2005 ISBN: 0061234001 Fortune's Formula by William Poundstone , 2005 ISBN: 0809046377 Blind Side : Evolution of a Game by Michael Lewis , 2006 ISBN: 039306123X ***** Moneyball by Michael Lewis , 2003 ISBN: 0393057658 The New New Thing by Michael Lewis , 1999 ISBN: 0140296468 **** Go Long! : My Journey Beyond the Game and the Fame by Jerry Rice with Brian Curtis , 2007 ISBN: 0345496116 The Measure of Reality : Quantification and Western Society, 1250-1600 by Alfred W. Crosby ISBN: 0521639905 Lies My Teacher Told Me : Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong by James W. Loewen ISBN: 0684818868 Marriage Shock : The Transformation of Women into Wives by Dalma Heyn , 1997 How to Make Anyone Fall in Love With You by Leil Lowndes , 1997 ISBN: 0809229897 Glamour Addiction: Inside the American Ballroom Dance Industry by Juliet McMains . Wesleyan University Press 2006 ISBN: 0819567744 Kiss and Tango : Looking for Love in Buenos Aires by Marina Palmer , 2005 ISBN: 0060742925 The Curse of the Singles Table by Suzanne Schlosberg ISBN: 0446690546 Husbandry: Sex, Love & Dirty Laundry--Inside the Minds of Married Men by Stephen Fried , 2007 ISBN: 0553806653 Where in the World Is Osama bin Laden? by Morgan Spurlock , 2008 ISBN: 1400066522 Inside the Kingdom : My Life in Saudi Arabia by Carmen Bin Ladin , 2004 ISBN: 0446577081 Deer Hunting with Jesus: Dispatches from America's Class War by Joe Bageant , 2007 ISBN: 030733936X God And Country: How Evangelicals Have Become America's New Mainstream by Monique El-faizy , 2006 ISBN: 1582345198 The Politically Incorrect Guide to Science by Tom Bethell , 2005 ISBN: 089526031X China Dawn: The Story of a Technology and Business Revolution by David Sheff , 2002 ISBN: 0060005998 The Supermen : The Story of Seymour Cray and the Technical Wizards Behind the Supercomputer by Charles J. Murray ISBN: 0471048852 Game Over; How Nintendo Conquered the World by David Sheff ISBN: 0679736220 **** The Chunnel : The Amazing Story of the Undersea Crossing of the English Channel by Drew Fetherston , 1997 ISBN: 0812921984 Defining Vision : The Battle for the Future of Television by Joel Brinkley , 1998 * Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson , 1999 ISBN: 0380788624 ***** The Diamond Age (A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer) by Neal Stephenson ISBN: 0553573314 ***** Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson ISBN: 0553562614 Interface by Stephen Bury (N. Stephenson?) Mathematicians in Love by Rudy Rucker , 2006 ISBN: 076531584X Frek and the Elixir by Rudy Rucker , 2004 ISBN: 0765310589 Spaceland: A Novel of the Fourth Dimension by Rudy Rucker , 2002 ISBN: 0765303663 First Kyu by Sung-Hwa Hong , 1999 ISBN: 0964479699 A Dance for Emilia by Peter S. Beagle , 2000 ISBN: 0451458001 Till We Have Faces : A Myth Retold by C. S. Lewis ISBN: 0156904365 ***** The Great Divorce by C. S. Lewis ***** - The Evolution of Cooperation by Robert Axelrod , 1985 ISBN: 0465021212 A Random Walk Down Wall Street by Burton Gordon Malkiel **** The Only Investment Guide You'll Ever Need by Andrew P. Tobias How to Lie With Statistics by Darrell Huff Games People Play : The Psychology of Human Relationships by Eric, M.D. Berne ISBN: 0345410033 Language in Thought and Action by S. I. Hayakawa ISBN: 0156482401 -- -- -- -- -- Some Textbooks and Reference Books : Visual Complex Analysis by Tristan Needham , 1999 ISBN: 0198534469 A Technical Introduction to Digital Video by Charles A. Poynton ISBN: 047112253X The Mac Bathroom Reader by Owen W. Linzmayer ISBN: 0782115314 The Complete Palmpilot Guide by Calvin O. Parker ISBN: 1558285865 Sams Teach Yourself Palm Programming in 24 Hours by Gavin Maxwell, Brad Jones , 1999 ISBN: 0672316110 -- -- -- -- -- Books, as of yet unread/unfinished my me, but which look very promising : Chinese America: The Untold Story of America's Oldest New Community Peter Kwong & Dusanka Miscevic , 2005 ISBN: 1595581197 Bound Together: How Traders, Preachers, Adventurers, and Warriors Shaped Globalization Nayan Chanda , 2007 ISBN: 0300112016 Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain Oliver Sacks , 2007 ISBN: 1400040817 Proust Was a Neuroscientist Jonah Lehrer , 2007 ISBN: 0618620109 Gut Feelings: The Intelligence of the Unconscious Gerd Gigerenzer , 2007 ISBN: 0670038636 The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Practices Bryan Caplan , 2007 ISBN: 0691129428 The Myths of Innovation Scott Berkun , 2007 ISBN: 0596527055 The Creation of the Media : Political Origins of Modern Communications Paul Starr , 2004 ISBN: 0465081932 Phantoms in the Brain : Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind V. S. Ramachandran, Sandra Blakeslee , 1998 ISBN: 0688152473 Music, the Brain & Ecstasy : How Music Captures Our Imagination Robert Jourdain , 1998 Sweet Anticipation: Music and the Psychology of Expectation David Huron , 2006 ISBN: 0262083450 The Tree : A Natural History of What Trees Are & Why They Matter Colin Tudge , 2006 ISBN: 0307395391 The Misbehavior of Markets Benoit Mandelbrot ISBN: 0465043550 -- -- -- -- -- I found many of these books on Amazon.com . If you enjoyed this reading list, please use this URL to find and buy books at Amazon.com : and I could end up with some gift certificates (for more books!) from your referral. Thanks! -- - 2008Jun12 Copyright 1998-2008 rhn AT nicholson DOT com http://www.nicholson.com/rhn/home.html