Whether you want to learn more about microorganisms, bugs, animals or humans, Five Books has got you covered, with numerous interviews recommending with leading scientists and other experts in the life sciences recommending their best biology books.
For a general introduction to the subject, check out our interview with Professor Sean Carroll. In the animal kingdom, you'll find interviews covering everything from microbes to bugs, bees, birds, bats, and dinosaurs. On the human side, you can find the best book recommendations on Man and Ape, Evolution and Human Cooperation, the Human Brain, and Cultural Evolution.
If you want to go straight to reading, the most recommended book in our biology interviews is The Blind Watchmaker by Richard Dawkins.
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The Eighth Day of Creation: Makers of the Revolution in Biology
by Horace Freeland Judson -
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Darwin: The Life of a Tormented Evolutionist
by Adrian Desmond & James Moore -
3
The Man Who Found the Missing Link
by Pat Shipman -
4
The Statue Within: An Autobiography
by Francois Jacob -
5
The Song of the Dodo
by David Quammen
The Best Biology Books, recommended by Sean B Carroll
The Best Biology Books, recommended by Sean B Carroll
What do molecules in a cell have in common with lions in the Serengeti? They all follow rules, says scientist and author Sean B Carroll. He chooses the best books on biology, from the death of the dodo to the discovery of DNA.
The best books on Immunology, recommended by John Rhodes
John Rhodes, immunologist and author of The End of Plagues and How to Make a Vaccine, selects five of the best books to help the layperson understand the human immune system in all its fiendish complexity—and explains why the discovery of a successful vaccine is only the initial breakthrough in the long and logistically challenging battle for disease eradication.
The best books on Evolution, recommended by Jerry Coyne
Evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne tells us why Darwin is still essential reading and sifts the vast amount of more recent writing on evolution for books that are both inspiring to scientists and accessible to general readers. He picks the best books on evolution.
The best books on The Strangeness of Life, recommended by Carl Zimmer
The science writer and award-winning blogger Carl Zimmer discusses the strangeness of life, from viruses to manipulative flatworms
The best books on Viruses, recommended by Dorothy H. Crawford
Many of us have developed a new fascination for viruses and virology during the global COVID-19 crisis. Here, Dorothy Crawford, professor of medical microbiology and the author of Viruses: A Very Short Introduction, selects five of the best books on viruses for the general reader.
The best books on Ocean Life, recommended by Helen Scales
We plunder the ocean for food, dump our waste in it, respect its wildlife less than land-based creatures. Why? Is it a case of “out of sight, out of mind”? Marine biologist Helen Scales tells us what’s down there and what we’re doing to it.
The best books on Life Below the Surface of the Earth, recommended by Tullis Onstott
The ‘subterranaut’ describes how the discovery of ancient bacteria miles beneath the Earth’s surface opens the possibility of finding life on Mars. He picks five books that show how our knowledge of life deep in this planet could lead us to discover it elsewhere.
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The Selfish Gene
by Richard Dawkins -
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Not by Genes Alone: How Culture Transformed Human Evolution
by Peter J. Richerson & Robert Boyd -
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Guns, Germs and Steel
by Jared Diamond -
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The Creation of Inequality: How Our Prehistoric Ancestors Set the Stage for Monarchy, Slavery, and Empire
by Joyce Marcus & Kent Flannery -
5
The Cultural Origins of Human Cognition
by Michael Tomasello
The best books on Cultural Evolution, recommended by Joseph Henrich
The best books on Cultural Evolution, recommended by Joseph Henrich
What role did culture play in human evolution? Why did human brains get so big so quickly? When and why did inequality first emerge in human society? Harvard professor and author Joe Henrich picks some of the best books for understanding ‘cultural evolution.’
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Micrographia: The Complete Facsimile of the First Printing of 1665
by Robert Hooke -
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Life on a Young Planet: The First Three Billion Years of Evolution on Earth
by Andrew H Knoll -
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The Genesis of Germs
by Alan L. Gillen -
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Plankton: Wonders of the Drifting World
by Christian Sardet -
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Microcosmos: Four Billion Years of Microbial Evolution
by Dorion Sagan & Lynn Margulis
The best books on Microbes, recommended by Paul Falkowski
The best books on Microbes, recommended by Paul Falkowski
Without them, plants and animals wouldn’t exist and even the Earth’s geology would be different. Paul Falkowski recommends the best books on microbes.
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Lifespan: Why We Age and Why We Don't Have To
by David A. Sinclair -
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Eat Like the Animals: What Nature Teaches us About the Science of Healthy Eating
by David Raubenheimer & Stephen Simpson -
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The Human Advantage: A New Understanding of How Our Brain Became Remarkable
by Suzana Herculano-Houzel -
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Long for this World: The Strange Science of Immortality
by Jonathan Weiner -
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Charlatan: America’s Most Dangerous Huckster, the Man who Pursued Him, and the Age of Flimflam
by Pope Brock
The best books on Longevity, recommended by Steven Austad
The best books on Longevity, recommended by Steven Austad
The promises of potions or techniques to achieve longevity have been with us since time immemorial, the outlandishness of some claims matched only by our willingness to believe them. And, yet, today’s scientific research does give some clues on how to live longer and healthier lives. Biologist Steven Austad, Distinguished Professor and Endowed Chair in Healthy Aging Research at the University of Alabama, recommends a range of books that give insight into longevity.
The best books on Dinosaurs, recommended by Paul Barrett
Palaeontologist and dinosaur specialist Paul Barrett says many of the 1,200 known species of dinosaur were far more complex than we once thought. Some were brightly feathered, many were at least partly warm-blooded
The best books on Birds, recommended by Jonathan Elphick
Birds are everywhere. They capture our imagination and make us wish that we, too, could soar away. Jonathan Elphick eloquently recommends the best books on the wonders of birds.
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Femmes de la préhistoire
by Claudine Cohen -
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Femmes, naissance de l'homme: Icônes de la préhistoire
by Alexandre Hurel & Florian Berrouet -
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L'homme préhistorique est aussi une femme
by Marylène Patou-Mathis -
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The Invisible Sex: Uncovering the True Role of Women in Prehistory
J. M. Adovasio, Olga Soffer and Jake Page -
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Our Human Story
by Chris Stringer & Louise Humphrey
The best books on Prehistoric Women, recommended by Thomas Cirotteau
The best books on Prehistoric Women, recommended by Thomas Cirotteau
Thanks to scientific advances, we’re finding out more and more about prehistoric people, including women and their lives during the Upper Paleolithic era. French filmmaker Thomas Cirotteau, director of the documentary and co-author of a book about Lady Sapiens, recommends books to find out more about our female ancestors, who while separated from us by tens of thousands of years, have been brought tantalizingly close by new techniques and discoveries.
The best books on Extinction and De-Extinction, recommended by Beth Shapiro
Evolutionary biologist Beth Shapiro tells us why it’s impossible to clone a mammoth, and why we might want to. She guides us through five inspiring books to get us thinking about extinction and the role genetics could potentially play in maintaining biodiversity.
The best books on Palaeontology, recommended by Richard Fortey
Palaeontologist Richard Fortey says it took tiny organisms two billion years of work to oxygenate the planet sufficiently for our kind of life, including trilobites, dinosaurs and ourselves, to evolve
The best books on Plants, recommended by Jonathan Silvertown
Internationally known ecologist says plants are grievously overlooked, because no life on earth would exist without them – essential reading on plants
The best books on Man and Ape, recommended by Helene Guldberg
It’s fashionable today to liken humans to animals but the developmental psychologist says it’s more interesting to study the ways in which we’re remarkably different from other creatures
The best books on Honeybees, recommended by Helen Jukes
Humanity has a long history of keeping bees. But what do we really know about them? Beekeeping memoirist Helen Jukes selects five books that examine both the behaviour of bees as individuals and colonies as ‘superorganisms.’
The best books on Bugs, recommended by May Berenbaum
Insects outnumber us, outweigh us, and without them ecosystems would collapse. In short, we live on their planet. The entomologist explains why we should value bugs more – even, or especially, the carrion beetles and dung feeders
The best books on Evolution and Human Cooperation, recommended by Paul Seabright
Think of Darwinian natural selection and you may think of selfish or competitive behaviour, but this is far from the whole story, says economist Paul Seabright.
The best books on Man and Nature, recommended by TC Boyle
The novelist and nature lover T C Boyle tells us about delicious dodos, angry tigers, snakes on planes and why Viagra saves rhinos.
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Biologische Untersuchungen (Die Spermien der Vogel)
by Gustaf Retzius -
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Behavioural Ecology
by J.R. Krebs (Editor), N.B. Davies (Editor) -
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Sperm Competition and the Evolution of Animal Mating Systems
by Robert L. Smith (Editor) -
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Female Control
by William Eberhard -
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Sperm Competition and its Evolutionary Consequences in the Insects
by Leigh W. Simmons
The best books on Sperm, recommended by Tim Birkhead
The best books on Sperm, recommended by Tim Birkhead
Professor Tim Birkhead is one of the pioneers of spermatology. He explains how promiscuous females can be selective about sperm, even after multiple inseminations
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The Natural History of Selborne
by Gilbert White -
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Mammals of the British Isles handbook, 4th Edition
by S Harris & D Yalden, eds. -
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Walker’s Bats of the World
by R M Nowak -
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Ecology and Conservation of Bats in Villages and Towns
by J Smit-Viergutz, M Simon & S Hüttenbügel -
5
Mammals of the South-West Pacific and Moluccan Islands
by Tim Flannery
The best books on Bats, recommended by Phil Richardson
The best books on Bats, recommended by Phil Richardson
Phil Richardson, co-founder of the Bat Conservation Trust www.bats.org.uk, says bats are remarkably like us in many ways. They are social animals with complex lives
The best books on Men and Women, recommended by Satoshi Kanazawa
The differences between men and women are innate, argues the evolutionary psychologist, and men’s relative success in the workplace a reflection of desire rather than discrimination.
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In the Name of Eugenics: Genetics and the Uses of Human Heredity
by Daniel Kevles -
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The Nazi Connection: Eugenics, American Racism, and German National Socialism
by Stefan Kuhl -
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Eugenic Nation: Faults and Frontiers of Better Breeding in Modern America
by Alexandra Minna Stern -
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The Hour of Eugenics: Race, Gender, and Nation in Latin America
by Nancy Leys Stepan -
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Heredity and Hope: The Case for Genetic Screening
by Ruth Schwartz Cowan
The best books on Eugenics, recommended by Philippa Levine
The best books on Eugenics, recommended by Philippa Levine
The term ‘eugenics’ elicits queasiness amongst those who associate it with the Nazis. But Winston Churchill, George Bernard Shaw and Margaret Sanger were among its many proponents in the interwar period. Why? Philippa Levine, professor of history at the University of Texas, explains.
The best books on Being Inspired by Science, recommended by Tom Clarke
The Science Correspondent for the Uk’s Channel 4 discusses the magical allure of science. He chooses five great books on subjects ranging from genetics to natural history and astro-physics
The best books on Science, recommended by Lewis Wolpert
The Emeritus Professor of Biology at University College, London, talks about five science books that he loves. Touches on subjects ranging from evolutionary biology and neuro-science to risk and religion