- God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything by Christopher Hitchens
- Einstein: His Life and Universe by Walter Isaacson
Francis Collins: The Language of God.
- Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis
- God's Universe by Owen Gingerich
- Simply Christian: Why Christianity Makes Sense by N.T. Wright
- Jesus of Nazareth by Pope Benedict XVI
John Sulston's a Common Thread
- The Genome War: How Craig Venter Tried to Capture the Code of Life and Save the World by James Shreeve
- The Gene Wars: Science, Politics and the Human Genome by Robert Cook-Deegan
- The Third Man of the Double Helix: The Autobiography of Maurice Wilkins by Maurice Wilkins
- Cracking the Genome: Inside the Race to Unlock Human DNA by Kevin Davies
- Stem Cell Wars: Inside Stories from the Frontlines by Eve Herold
Michael Ashburner's Won for All
- Francis Crick: Discoverer of the Genetic Code (Eminent Lives) (rough edge) by Matt Ridley
- Drosophila: A Laboratory Handbook by M. Ashburner
- Coming to Life: How Genes Drive Development by Christiane Nusslein-Volhard
- The Plausibility of Life: Resolving Darwin's Dilemma by Marc W. Kirschner
- Reconceiving the Gene: Seymour Benzer's Adventures in Phage Genetics by Frederic Lawrence Holmes
I am sure there is more fun to be had here with these. And as my brother pointed out - the Amazon function here of listing what other people bought does not say it is representative in any way (that is, they are trying to sell books so perhaps they list the most popular other books not the ones most commonly linked to the book in question). But it is kind of voyeuristic and fun to see the types of books people are buying in association with these books.
I love this kind of informal social anthropological study. I think the results aren't far from the truth and can be considered a rather accurate zeitgeist!
ReplyDeleteWell, I'm not sure that Ashburner really "got people interested in the science" so much as the people who would read "Won for All" are more likely to be professional biologists than in the cases of the other books you mention.
ReplyDelete"Won for All" is a fun book, containing the sort of gossipy stories that most scientists limit to chats over beer, but unless you have a good idea already about who the various players in genomics and Drosophila genetics are, the anecdotes would lose a lot of their humor.
The Craig/atheism link isn't that surprising -- if I recall he contributed a back-cover endorsement to one of the recent books on atheism.
Well I guess this is what I get for not having a copy editor for the blog - Jonathan what I said for Ashburner is "So I guess Ashburner gets the people interested in the science itself." What I meant was that the people who buy his book are the people interested in the science ... not that he ges people interested in science by reading his book.
ReplyDeleteI agree it's fun to do this with Amazon, but let's keep in mind that it is nothing more than a ploy to sell books. In particular, these links are not bidirectional. If you look at Christopher Hitchens book, "God is not great," it doesn't link to Craig Venter. It does link to "Einstein: His Life and Universe," though (as well as Dawkins book, "The God Delusion", Al Gore's new book, and others). Ditto for the other books - they don't link to Venter.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, Hitchens' book is excellent, I just finished it. It's quite a rant, but an incredibly erudite one.
Well, I agree the Amazon function is designed to maximize $$$$ for them. But as for the lack of reciprocity - I would not want it to be reciprocal anyway. I do not care what all the people who bought some linked book bought. I think it is curious to see what the people who bought these books also bought. Now if only Amazon was Open about their database we could see if it was just 1 person who bought the Einstein book, or a lot of people. Even better it would be fun to know where they work/are from. I will add the Hitchens book to my list, but the next one I want to read is Ashburners.
ReplyDelete