Books & Authors

• John Thorne, Home Body, 1997
• William Finnegan, Barbarian Days, 2015
• Yuval Noah Harari, Homo Deus, 2018
• John Green, looking for alaska 2005
• Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens, 2015
• Matthew B. Crawford, Why We Drive, 2020
• Robert Moor, On Trails, 2016
• Yuval Levin, The Great Debate..., 2014
• Bill Green, Boltzman's Tomb, 2011
• Nate Silver, The Signal and the Noise, 2012
• Timothy Ferris, The Science of Liberty, 2010
• Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers, 2008 (and his other volumes)

• Stefan Jaeger, The Jackhammer Elegies, 2012 (hey, it's about CEs!)
• Tom Vanderbilt, Traffic -- Why We Drive the Way We Do, 2008
• Earl Swift, The Big Roads, 2011
• Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, 2006
• Kevin Phillips, Wealth and Democracy, 2002 (one in the same...)
• Simon Schama, Landscape and Memory, 1995
• Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs, and Steel, 1999
• Jared Diamond, Collapse, 2005 (read this instead of Al Gore)
• Alain de Botton, The Art of Travel, 2002 Web Site
• Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner, Freakonomics, 2005 (overhyped but good)

• Robert Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, 1974
• Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire, 1968
• Douglas Hofstadter, Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, 1979
• Douglas Hofstadter and Daniel Dennett, The Mind's I, 1981
• Bruce Chatwin, The Songlines, 1987 [ Web: 1 2 3 ]
• Bruce Chatwin, In Patagonia, 1985
• Jostein Gaarder, Sophies World, 1991
• Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being
• Richard Powers, The Goldbug Variations, 1994
• Daniel Boorstin, The Creators (more than The Discovers or The Seekers), 1992

• Bill Bryson, The Mother Tongue (and most everything else) Web Site
• Douglas Adams, The Hitchhikers Trilogy (all five volumes), 1977-1987 Web Site
• Tony Hillerman, A Thief of Time, 1983
• Norman Lewis, The World, The World, 1993
• Graham Swift, Last Orders, 1996
• Isaac Asimov, The Foundation Trilogy (and related fiction), 1951, 1952, 1953
• John E. Wills, JR., 1688 - A Global History, 2001
• Lisa Jardine, Ingenious Pursuits, 1999
• Geoff Nicholson Still Life with Volkswagens, 1996
• John Hanson Mitchell, Trespassing, 1998

• Paul Theroux, My Secret History, 1985 (and much else)
• Neil Postman, Building a Bridge to the 18th Century, 1999
• Jorge Luis Borges, Labyrinths, 1964
• Tom Stone, Summer of My Greek Taverna, 2002
• Calvin Trillan, Tepper Isn't Going Out, 2001 (a parking novel!)
• Sherman Alexie, Reservation Blues, 1995
• Richard Ford, Rock Springs, 1987
• The many essays of David Quammen and Stephen Jay Gould
• Nicholson Baker, The Mezzanine, 1988
• Nicholson Baker, The Fermata, 1994

• David Yeadon, Lost Worlds, 1993
• Richard Lees, Parachute, 1988
• Shirley Hazzard, Greene on Capri, 1999
• Jim Marshall, Not Fade Away, 1997 Web Site
• Richard Feynman, Surely You Must Be Joking, Mr. Feynman, 1983
• Charlene Spretnak, The Resurgence of the Real, 1997
• Chris Fuhrman, The Dangerous Lives of Alter Boys, 1994
• John Irving, The 158 Pound Marriage, 1974
• John Updike, The Witches of Eastwick, 1982
• John Updike, Roger's Version, 1984

• Richard Matthiessen, Indian Country, 1979
• Terry Southern, Blue Movie, 1980
• Raymond Carver, Where I'm Calling From, 1988
• Michael Chabon, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, 1988
• Phillip Morrison et al., Powers of Ten, 1982
• Simon Blackburn, Think, 1999
• John Straley, The Curious Eat Themselves, 1993
• Jack Kerouac, On the Road, 1955
• Alfred W. Crosby, The Measure of Reality, 1997
• Carl Sagan, The Dragons of Eden, 1977

• Martin Gardner, The Annotated Alice, 1986
• Christopher Evans, The Micro-millenium, 1979
• William Hauptman, Good Rockin' Tonight, 1988
• Stephen King, Pet Sematary (only one I've read!)
• Joseph "Red Dog" Campbell, A Book of Tails, 2001
• Arthur C. Clarke, Childhood's End, 1953
• Jane Smiley, Moo, 1995
• Bret Easton Ellis, Less Than Zero, 1985
• John Mortimer, Paradise Postponed, 1986
• Tim Parks, Shear, 1993

• JK Rowling, Harry Potter series
• Larry Gonick, The Cartoon History of the Universe Web Site
• James Christensen, Voyage of the Basset, 1996
• JRR Tolkein, The Hobbit, 1959
• Bertrand Brimley, The Mad Scientists Club, 1965 Web Site
• The Three Investigator Series (at least the first 8 or so)
• Nancy Patz, Gina Farina and the Prince of Mintz, 1986
• Chris Van Allsburg, The Polar Express, 1985
• Maurice Sendak, Where the Wild Things Are, 1963
• Melinda Long / David Shannon, How I Became a Pirate, 2003
• Granta (many issues) [ web ]

For some background material on essayists such as Gould, Quammen, Florman, Postman, and others,
see my freshmen seminar site Essays in Engineering, Science, and Technology.