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Jim Prall's book lists
Current reading
- Green Mars by Kim Stanley Peterson (e-book)
Recently read
- Red Mars by Kim Stanley Peterson (e-book)
- The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, Mariner by Daniel Dafoe (audiobook)
- Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stephenson (e-book)
- The Draining Lake by Arnuldur Indriðason (Icelandic, spelled with an "eth" - looks like a small d with a line through the vertical stem but sounds like "th"; often rendered as a plain 'd' in English references)
- Climate Cover-Up by Richard Littlemore, 2010
- Not a Conspiracy Theory: How Business Propaganda Hijacks Democracy by Donald Gutstein, 2009
- Doubt is Their Product: How Industry's Assault on Science Threatens Your Health by David Michaels, 2008
Top Picks of past reading
- Crimes against Nature: How George W. Bush and His Corporate Pals Are Plundering the Country and Hijacking Our Democracy by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., 2004
- Coal: A Human History by Barbara Freese [Eng.Sci. Library] 2003
- Sustainable Fossil Fuels by Mark Jaccard [Robarts Library] 2005
- The Science and Politics of Global Climate Change by Andrew Dressler [Gerstein Library] 2007
- Collapse: How Civilizations Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared Diamond
- The Ancestor's Tale by Richard Dawkins
- It's the Crude, Dude by Linda McQuaig
- Thin Ice: unlocking the secrets of climate in the world's highest mountains by Mark Bowen
- A Thousand Barrels a Second by Peter Tertzakian
- Twilight in the Desert, by Matthew Simmons [St. Mike's library]
- The Final Energy Crisis, McKillop & Newman, eds.
- Energy at the Crossroads by Vaclav Smil
- The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
- The End of Oil: On the Edge of a Perilous New World by Paul Robberts [St. Mike's library]
- Beyond Oil: The View from Hubbert's Peak by Kenneth S. Deffeyes [Engsci library]
- The Electric Universe by David Bodanis
- Murder on the Yukon Quest by Sue Henry
- Winner of the National Book Award by Jilcy Willett
- Happiness(TM) by Will Ferguson
- The Tapir's Morning Bath by Elizabeth Royte
- The Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal - 1870-1914 by David McCullough
- The Darkest Jungle: the true story of the Darien Expedition and America's Ill-fated race to connect the seas by Todd Balf
- The Tailor of Panama by John LeCarre
- Maximum Sail Power by Brian Hancock
- Immunology and Evolution of Infectious Diseases by Steven
A. Frank
- Immunology: the Making of a Modern Science by R.B.
Gallagher et al.
- Falling Off the Map: Some Lonely Places of the World by
Pico Iyer
- Notes from a Small Island by Bill Bryson
- The Discovery of Global Warming by Spencer R. Weart [2003]
In-depth content to supplement the above excellent book: The Discovery of
Global Warming - website
- In a Sunburned Country by Bill Bryson
- Energy Storage for Power Systems by A. Ter-Gazarian
- In Trouble Again by Redmond O'Hanlon
- Congo Journey by Redmond O'Hanlon
- The Rules Book 2001-2004 by Eric Twiname [ISAF Racing
Rules of Sailing with interpretations]
- Fatal Climate by David Hood
- The Hydrogen Economy by Jeremy Rifkin
- Stranger in the Forest: On Foot Across Borneo by Eric
Hansen
- Honeymoon in Purdah: An Iranian Journey by Alison Wearing
- Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of
a Continent by Eduardo Galeano
- Into the Amazon by Augusta Dwyer
- Waorani: the contexts of violence and war by Clayton and
Carole Robarchek
- Drama bajo el manto amazónico : el turismo y otros
problemas de los huaorani en la actualidad (Crisis under the Canopy :
tourism and other problems facing the present day Huaorani) by
Randy Smith
(We met Randy at Sacha Lodge
in the Ecuadorian Amazon during our Christmas 2002 holiday!)
- Savages by Joe Kane - account of travels with the Waorani
- Trekking through history: The Huaorani of Amazonian Ecuador
by Laura M. Rival
- The Cherry Orchard by Anton Chekov
- The Triplet Genetic Code by Lynn Trainor (UT, Physics)
- Riddle of the Ice by Myron Harms
- After the Ice Age by E.C. Pielou
- Evolution and Natural Selection by George Williams
- Extinction: Bad Genes or Bad Luck by David M. Raup
- An Unexpected Light: Travels in Afghanistan by Jason
Elliot
- Narrow Roads of Geneland by William Hamilton
- The Biology of Arctic Habitats by G. E. Fogg
- The Birds of Ecuador by Robert S. Ridgely et al.
- Viral Sex by Jaap Goudsmit
- At War Within: The Double-Edged Sword of Immunity by
William R. Clark
- One Renegade Cell by Robert Weinberg
- The Seven Daugthers of Eve by Bryan Sykes
- T. Rex and the Crater of Doom by Walter Alvarez
- Taking Darwin Seriously by Michael Ruse
- The Malaria Capers by Robert S. Desowitz
- Living with Our Genes by Dean Hamer
- Genome by Matt Ridley
- Why We Get Sick: The New Science of Darwinian Medicine by R.M. Nesse and George Williams, ISBN 0-679-74674-9
- Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond
- The Red Queen by Matt Ridley
- The Touchstone of Life by Werner Loewenstein
- Deadly Feasts by Richard Rhodes
- The Science of Jurassic Park and the Lost World by Rob
DeSalle
- The Moral Animal by Robert Wright
- How Brains Think by William H. Calvin
- The Endless Steppe by Esther Hautzig
- Life and Death in Shanghai by Nien Chang
- Red China Blues by Jan Wong
- Birds of Tropical America by Steven Hilty
- The Third Chimpanzee by Jared Diamond
- Tropical Gangsters by Robert Klitgaard
- Video Night in Kathmandu, and Other Reports from the
Not-so-Far East by Pico Iyer
- A Leg to Stand On by Oliver Sacks
- The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks
- Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and its Consequences
by John Allen Paulos
Book suggestions related to engineering:
These books are each lively and enjoyable reading, particularly
pertinent to engineers and systems people. If you want a break from
equations that's still relevant to your career, a look at the "big
picture", or a taste of what you could be getting yourself into
professionally, check out any or all of the following:
Normal Accidents : living with high-risk technologies by
Charles Perrow
[New York : Basic Books, c1984.]
-- 5 copies in UT Library system including 2 at Eng. Library.
An excellent survey of the many ways that systems fail and the
sometimes bizarre consequences. Memorable and a great source of
cautionary lines of thought. I have retold several of the disasters
recounted in this book at parties, to good effect.
To Engineer is Human : the role of failure in successful design
by Henry Petroski. [New York : Vintage Books, 1992.]
-- 4 copies in UTL including 2 at Eng. Library.
An enjoyable account of the engineering way of life. Reflections on
what it means to be an engineer. Highly readable.
Fatal Defect : chasing killer computer bugs by Ivars
Peterson. [New York : Times Books, c1995.]
-- One copy at Gerstein Library.
An engrossing look at the perils of software-based systems in control
of safety-critical applications. Inspired by the fascinating
discussions over recent years in the comp.risks newsgroup. A must-read
for anyone looking to work in a field where software plays a part in
systems control.
The Cuckoo's Egg: tracking a spy through the maze of computer
espionage by Cliff Stoll. [New York : Doubleday, 1989.] One of the
granddads of the internet as we know it, Stoll writes a truly engaging
and amusing account of his time as a "volunteer" unix admin during his
grad studies at Berkeley.
For ongoing reading, I can think of nothing more sobering,
eye-opening, and also amusing than the comp.risks newsgroup on
usenet.