An Illustrative Bibliography for Academic Literacy

K. P. Mohanan

Given below is a sample of non-fiction books for general reading. These are books meant for
educated lay people written by some of the best people in their respective fields, some of them
Nobel Prize winners.
The titles given below do NOT represent a “prescription”. This is not a list of books that we think
every educated person should have read. Rather, it is a set of examples of general reading that
illustrates the concept of academic literacy. The intention that underlies this compilation is to
help students and teachers become aware of the existence of books of this kind, to help students
see that general reading of this kind can be enjoyable – perhaps more enjoyable than reading
popular novels -- and to nudge them to develop the habit of reading good quality non-fiction.
This is NOT meant to be comprehensive either. The expectation is that the community of teachers
and students would contribute to this initial nucleus, working towards a richer bibliography.
A. Scientific Knowledge and Scientific Inquiry
1. Feynman, Richard (1999) The Pleasure of Finding Things Out, Perseus Books
2. Grinnell, Frederick (1992) The Scientific Attitude, The Guilford Press
3. Einstein, Albert & Infeld, Leopold (1938) The Evolution of Physics: From early concepts
to relativity and quanta, Simon and Schuster
4. Wolpert, Lewis (1992) The Unnatural Nature of Science: Why science does not make
(common) sense, Faber and Faber
5. Ziman, John (1978) Reliable Knowledge: An Exploration of the Grounds for Belief in
Science, Cambridge University Press
6. Fleck, Ludwik (1979) Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact, The University of
Chicago Press (Original in German published in 1935)
7. Holton, Gerald (1978) The Scientific Imagination: Case Studies, Cambridge University
Press
8. Holton, Gerald (1993) Science and Anti-Science, Harvard University Press
B. Reasoning
1. Copi, Irving M. and Carl Cohen (1990) Introduction to Logic, Macmillan Publishing
Company
2. Polya, G. (1954) Mathematics and Plausible Reasoning. Volume I: Induction and Analogy
in Mathematics; Volume II: Patterns of Plausible Inference. Princeton University Press
3. Nisbett, R and Lee Ross (1980) Human Inference: strategies and shortcomings of social
judgment, Prentice Hall
4. Hacking, Ian (2001) An Introduction to Probability and Inductive Logic, Cambridge
University Press.
C. Numeracy and statistics
1. Huff, Darrel (1954) How to Lie with Statistics, W. W. Norton and Company
2. Best, Joel (2001) Damned lies and Statistics: Untangling Numbers from the Media,
politicians and Activists, University of California Press
3. Best, Joel (2004) More Damned lies and Statistics: How Numbers Confuse Public Issues,
University of California Press
4. Paulos, John Allen (1995) A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper

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 5. Paulos, John Allen (1989) Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and its Consequences,
Farraar, Stauss, and Giroux
6. Vos Savant, Marilyn (1996) The Power of Logical Thinking, St. Martin’s Press
7. Rowntree, Derek (1981) Statistics without Tears: A Primer for Non-Mathematicians,
Macmillan
D. Mathematical inquiry
1. King, Jerry P. (1992) The Art of Mathematics, Fawcett Columbine
2. Hardy, G.H. (1967) A Mathematician’s Apology, Cambridge University Press (First
published in 1940)
3. Singh, Simon (1997) Fermat’s Enigma, Anchor Books
4. Kline, Morris (1985) Mathematics and the Search for Knowledge, Oxford University Press

E. Mathematical thinking
5. Burger, Edward B. & Starbird, Michael (2005) The Heart of Mathematics: An Invitation to
Effective Thinking, Key College Publishing

F. Ethics, law, and neuroscience

1. Gilligan, James (2001) Preventing Violence, Thames & Hudson
2. Garland, Brent (2004) Neuroscience and Law: Brain, Mind, and the Scales of Justice, Dina
Press
3. Gazzaniga, Michael (2005) The Ethical Brain, Dina Press
4. Zimbardo, Philip (2007) The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil,
Random House
5. Hauser, Marc (2006) Moral Minds: How Nature Designed our Universal Sense of Right
and Wrong, Harper Collins
6. Singer, Peter (1995) How are we to Live? Ethics in an Age of Self-Interest, Prometheus
Books
7. Holloway, Richard (1999) Godless Morality: Keeping Religion out of Ethics, Canongate
Books

The Physical World

1. Asimov, Isaac (1982) Asimov’s Guide to Science, Volume 1: Physical Science, Penguin
books.
2. * Asimov, Isaac (1992) Atom: Journey Across the Subatomic Cosmos, Truman Talley
Books
3. * Einstein, Albert & Infeld, Leopold (1938) The Evolution of Physics: The growth of ideas
from from early concepts to relativity and quanta, Simon and Schuster
4. * Greene, Brian (2000) The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the
Quest for the Ultimate Theory, Vintage Books
5. * Hawking, Stephen (1988) A Brief History of Time, Bantam Books
6. * Singh, Simon (2004) Big Bang: the most important scientific discovery of all time and
why you need to know about it, Harper Perennial
7. Trefil, James S. (1980) From Atoms to Quarks: An Introduction to the Strange World of
Particle Physics, Charles Scribner's Sons

The Biological World

8. Asimov, Isaac (1982) Asimov’s Guide to Science, Volume 2: Biological Science, Penguin
books.

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9. Bodmer, Walter & McKie, Robin (1994) The Book of Man: The Quest to Discover Our
Genetic Heritage, Little, Brown and Company
10. Gribbin, John (1985) In Search of the Double Helix: Quantum Physics and Life, Corgi
Books
11. * Mayr, Ernst (1997) This is Biology: The Science of the Living World, Harvard University
Press
12. Mayr, Ernst (2001) What Evolution is, Basic Books
13. * Moore, John A. (1993) Science as a Way of Knowing: The Foundations of Modern
Biology, Harvard University Press
14. Ridley, Mark (1999) Genome: The autobiography of a species in 23 Chapters, Harper
Collins
15. Wolpert, Lewis (1991) The Triumph of the Embryo, Oxford University Press

The Human World

16. * Butterworth, Brian (1999) What Counts: How every brain is hardwired for math, New
York: The Free Press
17. Cavalli-Sforza, Luigi Luca (2000) Genes, Peoples and Languages, North Point Press
18. Crick, Francis (1994) The Astonishing Hypothesis: The Scientific Search for the Soul,
Charles Scribner's Sons
19. Damasio, Antonio (1995) Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain,
Avon Hearst
20. Damasio, Antonio (1999) The Feeling of What Happens: Body and Emotion in
the Making of Consciousness, Harcourt Brace and Company
21. Davis, James (2004) The Human Story: Our History, from the Stone Age to Today,
Harper Collins
22. Diamond, Jared (1993) The Third Chimpanzee: The Evolution and Future of the Human
Animal, Harper Perennial
23. Diamond, Jared (2005) Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Survive,
Penguin
24. De Waal, Frans (2001) Apes and the Suchi Master: Cultural Reflections of a
Primatologist, Basic Books
25. Ramachandran, V.S. & Blakeslee, Sandra (1998) Phantoms in the Brain: Probing the
Mysteries of the Human Mind, William Morrow and Company
26. Roughgarden, Joan (2004) Evolution’s Rainbow: Diversity, Gender, and Sexuality in
Nature and People, University of California Press

Societal Engagement
27. Bakan, Joel (2004) The Corporation: the Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power,
Penguin
28. Feinberg, Joel (2003) Problems at the Roots of Law: Essays in Legal and Political
Theory, Oxford University Press
29. Gilligan, James (2001) Preventing Violence, Thames & Hudson
30. Gupta, A & M. Asher (1998) Environment and the Developing World, John Wiley and
Sons.
31. Holloway, Richard (1999) Godless Morality: Keeping Religion out of Ethics, Canongate
Books
32. * Huntington, Sameuel (1996) The Clash of Civilizations and The Remaking of World
Order, Touchstone
33. Mitchell, P. and Schoeffel, J (eds.) 2002. Understanding power: The indispensable
Chomsky. The New Press.
34. Sen, A. 2000. Development as freedom. New York: Anchor Books. (UNIT 2)

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35. Stiglitz, Joseph E. (2003) Globalization and Its Discontents, Norton
36. Singer, Peter (1995) How are we to Live? Ethics in an Age of Self-Interest, Prometheus
Books

Religion
37. Armstrong, Karen (1993) A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism,
Christianity and Islam, Ballantine Books
38. Dennet, Daniel (2006) Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon, Viking
Books
39. James, William (2002) The Varieties of Religious Experience, The Modern Library (First
published 1890)
40. Newberg, A., D’Aquili, E. & Rause, V. (2003) Why God Won’t Go Away: Brain Science
& Biology of Belief, Ballantine Books
41. Smith, Houston (1991) The World’s Religions, Harper

Science and Mathematics

42. Barrow, John D (1991) Theories of Everything: The Quest for Ultimate Explanation,
Clarendon Press
43. Davis, Paul (19..)The Cosmic Code
44. * Gell-Man, Murray (1994) The Quark and the Jaguar: Adventures in the Simple and the
Complex, Abacus
45. * Hardy, G.H. (1967) A Mathematician's Apology, Cambridge University Press (First
published in 1940)
46. Hazen, Robert M & Trefil, James (1992) Science Matters: Achieving Scientific Literacy,
Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing
47. * King, Jerry P. (1992) The Art of Mathematics, Fawcett Columbine
48. * Kline, Morris (1985) Mathematics and the Search for Knowledge, Oxford University
Press
49. * Singh, Simon (1997) Fermat's Enigma, Anchor Books
50. Stewart, Ian (1945) Does God Play Dice? : The Mathematics of Chaos
51. * Toulmin, Stephen & Goodfield, June (1965) The Fabric of Heavens: The Development of
Astronomy and Dynamics, Harper Torchbooks
52. Toulmin, Stephen & Goodfield, June (1962) The Architecture of Matter, Harper
Torchbooks
53. * Wolpert, Lewis (1992) The Unnatural Nature of Science: Why science does not make
(common) sense, Faber and Faber

Knowledge and Inquiry

54. * Cajal, Santyago Ramon y (1999) Advice to a Young Investigator, MIT Press
55. * Elton, G.R. (1967) The Practice of History, Fontana Press
56. * Feynman, Richard (1998) The Meaning of It All: Thoughts of a Citizen Scientist, Perseus
Books
57. * Feynman, Richard (1999) The Pleasure of Finding Things Out, Perseus Books
58. * Fleck, Ludwik (1979) Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact, The University of
Chicago Press (Original in German published in 1935)
59. * Grinnell, Frederick (1992) The Scientific Attitude, The Guilford Press
60. * Holton, Gerald (1993) Science and Anti-Science, Harvard University Press
61. * Kuhn, Thomas (1962) The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Chicago University Press
62. * Medawar, Peter B. (1979) Advice to a Young Scientist, Basic Books
63. * Poincare, Henri (1952) Science and Hypotheses, Dover Publications (First published in
1905)

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64. * Snow, C. P. (1991) The Two Cultures, Canto (First published 1951)
65. * Wilber, Ken ed. (1984) Quantum Questions: Mystical Writings of the World's Great
Physicists, Shambala Publications
66. * Weiner, Norbert (1994) Invention: The Care and Feeding of Ideas, The MIT Press
(Written in 1954)
67. * Ziman, John (1978) Reliable Knowledge: An Exploration of the Grounds for Belief in
Science, Cambridge University Press