My favorite book by any scientists is Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman! (Adventures of a Curious Character). I wondered if there might be something similarly interesting and biographical but by someone in the bio-sciences. DS2 was tops in his AP Bio class this past sophomore year and I’d like to have him read some bios of a inspirational person or two in the field. Thanks!
There are so many interesting popular science books. Here are some to consider (some more biographical than others, some shade more into the medical side of things):
Lewis Thomas, Lives of a Cell
Mary Roach, Gulp!
Edmund O. Wilson, Letters to a Young Scientist
Rebecca Skloot, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
James Watson, The Double Helix
Elizabeth Kolbert, The Sixth Extinction
William & Helen Bynum, Remarkable Plants That Shape Our World
Siddhartha Mukherjee, The Emperor of All Maladies: A biography of Cancer
Jonathan Weiner, Time, Love & Memory: A Great Biologist & His Quest for the Origins of Behavior
Craig Venter, A Life Decoded
John Bonner, Lives of a Biologist: Adventures in a Century of Extraordinary Science
Richard Preston, The Hot Zone: The Terrifying True Story of the Origins of the Ebola Virus
Sacks, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat
De Kruif, Microbe Hunters
Rob Dunn, The Wild Life of Our Bodies: Predators, Parasites, and Partners That Shape Who We Are Today
@zapfino - These are great. Thanks!
I’ve been meaning to read Emporer of All Maladies…
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is really good.
Also anything by Oliver Sacks or Atul Gawande. Oliver Sacks’s books played a significant role in my decision to study neuroscience.
Not a biography, but I always recommend Phantoms in the Brain by VS Ramachandran.