Books

Here, I keep track of the non-technical books I’ve read, I’m currently reading (or are on hold) and books I’d like to read next or in the future. I’ll try to write short reviews on some of them as time permits.

The list contains only complete books read in whole, no articles, interviews or previews. Some of the books in the wishlist were skimmed or read in part. They are listed so I’d read them in whole. Some others were read in part but I’ve since decided not to read them in whole; these are not listed at all.

Starred items have been read in whole or in part multiple times.

Books read:

Fiction:

1. The Hitch-hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (5 books)* (Douglas Adams).
2. The Salmon of Doubt (Douglas Adams).
3. The Godfather* (Mario Puzo).
4. The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown).
5. Hearts in Atlantis (Stephen King).
6. Oliver Twist* (Charles Dickens).
7. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Brontë).
8. Pygmalion (George Bernard Shaw).
9. Jonathan Livingston Seagull (Richard Bach).
10. The Little Prince* (Antoine de Saint Exupery).
11. The Metamorphosis (Franz Kafka).
12. Slaughterhouse 5 (Kurt Vonnegut).
13. Ishmael (Daniel Quinn).
14. The Diaries of Adam and Eve (Mark Twain).
15. Brothers Karamazov (Fyodor Dostoevsky).
16. The Snows of Kilimanjaro (Ernest Hemingway).

Non-Fiction:

1. A Brief History of Time* (Stephen Hawking).
2. Black Holes and Baby Universes (Stephen Hawking).
3. The Universe in a Nutshell* (Stephen Hawking).
4. A Short History of Nearly Everything* (Bill Bryson).
5. Dreams of a Final Theory (Steven Weinberg).
6. Kinds of Minds (Daniel Dennett).
7. Captain Scott (Ranulph Fiennes).
8. Surely You’re Joking Mr. Feynman* (Richard Feynman).
9. What Do You Care What Other People Think? (Richard Feynman).
10. Perfectly Reasonable Deviations from the Beaten Track (Richard Feynman).
11. Richard Feynman: A Life in Science (John and Marry Gribbin).
12. T Rex and the Crater of Doom (Walter Alvarez).
13. The Red Limit (Timothy Ferris).
14. The Universe in a Single Atom (Dalai Lama).
15. ABC’s of Quantum Mechanics* (V. Rydnik).
16. Einstein’s Unfinished Symphony (Marcia Bartusiak).
17. A Beautiful Mind (Sylvia Nasar).
18. Pale Blue Dot (Carl Sagan).
19. The Demon Haunted World (Carl Sagan).
20. The Ancestor’s Tale (Richard Dawkins).
21. The Greatest Show on Earth (Richard Dawkins).
22. The God Delusion (Richard Dawkins).
23. God is not Great (Christopher Hitchens).
24. The Portable Atheist* (Christopher Hitchens).
25. Articles and Essays* (Bertrand Russell).
26. Religion & Science* (Bertrand Russell).
27. The End of Faith (Sam Harris).
28. Letter to a Christian Nation (Sam Harris).
29. The Pluto Files (Neil Degrasse Tyson).
30. The Truth About Muhammad (Robert Spencer).
31. Jesus Interrupted (Bart D. Ehrman).
32. Why Evolution Is True (Jerry A. Coyne).
33. Why People Believe Weird Things (Michael Shermer).
34. The Borderlands of Science (Michael Shermer).
35. Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction (Edward Craig).
36. The Physics of Star Trek (Lawrence Krauss).
37. Almost Everyone’s Guide to Science (John Gribbin).
38. Stuff of Thought (Steven Pinker).
39. The Antichrist (Friedrich Nietzsche).
40. Dialogs Concerning Natural Religion (David Hume).
41. God’s Problem (Bart D. Ehrman).
42. A History of God (Karen Armstrong).
43. Death By Black Hole (Neil deGrasse Tyson).
44. The Moral Landscape (Sam Harris).
45. Collapse (Jared Diamond).
46. How The Mind Works (Steven Pinker).
47. Fermat’s Last Theorem (Simon Singh).
48. Before the Dawn (Nicholas Wade).
49. The Problems of Philosophy (Bertrand Russell).
50. History: A Very Short Introduction (John Arnold).
51. Physics of the Impossible (Michio Kaku).
52. Last Words (George Carlin).
53. How We Decide (Jonah Lehrer).
54. Confessions of an Economic Hitman* (John Perkins).
55. Existentialism: A Very Short Introduction (Thomas Flynn).
56. How To Argue And Win Every Time (Gerry Spence).
57. River out of Eden (Richard Dawkins).
58. The Pleasure of Finding Things Out (Richard Feynman).
59. The Rational Optimist (Matt Ridley).
60. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (Robert M. Pirsig).
61. Meditations on First Philosophy (Rene Descartes).
62. The Shock Doctrine (Naomi Klein).
63. The Age of Reason (Thomas Paine).
64. Dreams from my Father (Barack Obama).
65. The Grand Design (Stephen Hawking).
66. Hitch-22 (Christopher Hitchens).

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In Progress:

1. Our Inner Ape (Franz de Waal).
2. Biblical Nonesense (Jason Long). 54/181
3. The Liar Paradox and the Towers of Hanoi (Marcel Danesi). 120/259
4. Kepler’s conjecture (George G. Szpiro). 40/306
5. To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee). 1/11
6. God According to God (Gerald L. Schroeder).

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On Hold:

1. The Satanic Verses (Salman Rushdie). 1/30
2. The Character of Physical Law (Richard Feynman). 1/6
3. The Selfish Gene (Richard Dawkins).
4. Paradise Lost (John Milton).

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Fiction Wish List:

1. Candid (Voltaire).
2. Micromegas (Voltaire).
3. Pagan Christianity (Frank Viola).
4. Labyrinths (Borges).
5. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand).
6. Animal Farm (George Orwell).

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Non-Fiction Wish List:

Philo

1. The Republic (Plato).
2. A History of Western Philosophy (Bertrand Russell).
3. Thomas Paine’s Rights of Man (Christopher Hitchens).
4. Discourse on the Method (Rene Descartes).
5. Philosophy Who Needs It (Ayn Rand).
6. Capital (Karl Marx).
7. Dialogues (Plato).

Theo

8. Atheism, A Very Short Introduction (Julian Baggini).
9. Milestones (Syed Qutb).
10. Islam Unveiled (Robert Spencer).
11. Why I am not Muslim (Ibn Warraq).
12. The Christ Conspiracy (Acharya).

Bio

13. The Making of the Fittest (Sean Carroll).
14. Origin of Species (Charles Darwin).
15. Genome (Matt Ridley).
16. Evolution and Extinction (Stephen Jay Gould).

Physo

17. The Black Hole War Susskind vs Stephen Hawking (Susskind).
18. The Fabric of the Cosmos (Brian Greene).
19. The Whole Shebang (Timothy Ferris).
20. Just Six Numbers (Martin Rees).
21. E=mc2 (David Bodanis).

Scio

22. The Language Instinct (Steven Pinker).
23. The Blank Slate (Steven Pinker).
24. Guns, Germs and Steel (Jared Diamond).
25. The Oxford Book of Modern Science Writing (Richard Dawkins).

Socio

26. Infidel (Ayaan Hirsi Ali).
27. Nomad: From Islam to America (Ayaan Hirsi Ali).
28. The Audacity of Hope (Barack Obama).
29. The Snowball (Warren Buffet).
30. Moab is My Washpot (Stephen Fry).
31. Mein Kampf (Adolf Hitler).
32. Genius (James Gleick).
33. Feynman’s Rainbow (Leonard Mlodinow).

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To Checkout:

1. Modernity (Jurgen Habermas).
2. Shakespeare’s Universal Wolf: Studies in Early Modern Reification (Hugh Grady).
3. Time and the Other (Emmanuel Levinas).
4. History of Madness (Foucault).
5. ().