Economist Tyler Cowen recently argued that, if you want to learn business management, the best books to read aren’t business management books. Rather, they’re books about sports and musical groups. I have no idea if this is true, or for how many people it’s true. (Presumably, different people will benefit from reading different sorts of books.) But it got me wondering: what are the best non-science books to read if you want to become a better scientist?
We have a couple of old posts on this. Brian, who spent years working in the private sector, has an old post on the best business books for academics. (notably, none of them are about sports or musical groups…) I have an old post on readings in philosophy of science for ecologists. And in an old comment thread here (sorry, can’t find it now), a commenter stumped for reading lots of history of science. But surely many of you have learned a lot about how to be a good scientist from books in other fields besides business, philosophy, and history of science. So the metaphorical floor is yours! Looking forward to your suggestions.
p.s. At the risk of derailing my own thread before it even starts, I can tell you some books that haven’t helped me become a better scientist, even though you might’ve thought they would: biographies (and autobiographies) of scientists. Scientists who have biographies are always too singular for me to draw any lessons from them. Nor do scientific biographies inspire me to emulate (or not emulate) their subjects. Charles Darwin, E. O. Wilson, Paul Erdős, Ada Lovelace, Charles Babbage, George Price, Claude Shannon, John von Neumann, Robert Trivers, various other famous 20th century evolutionary biologists…nothing I’ve read about any of them has influenced my own approach to science. YMMV, of course.
Dynamic Ecology 
I think it really depends on what kind of book one likes to read! I like scifi and fantasy, so I’m biased, but I do believe these books help one become a better scientist, in different ways, and inspire one to do so.
Scifi can be inspiring in exploring different ways how science can (or cannot) be used and what for. I love one sentence from Frank Herbert’s “Dune”: “The highest function of ecology is understanding consequences”. (Not gonna write who said in the book as to not give spoilers!) And it really makes a lot of sense, especially thinking of conservation science.
High fantasy, on the other hand, can also be inspiring in how a group of people can work together. After all, many high fantasy novels, from Lord of the Rings to Dragonlance, have a group of people working together (more or less) to a common end (more or less), using their different skills towards reaching their goal – sort of like we do in a research project.
And in general, reading books by great writers can improve one’s own writing, so any book by someone who really knows how to write?
(By the way, I have once written a post, in Portuguese, on what the anime Saint Seiya teaches us about doing science, in case anyone’s interested: https://anotherecoblog.wordpress.com/2020/09/28/o-que-cavaleiros-do-zodiaco-nos-ensinam-sobre-fazer-ciencia/ )
Reading Terry Pratchett’s fantasy novels has definitely influenced me as a person. Including how I approach my job as a scientist.
I am an avid reader, I love sci-fi/fantasy but I also enjoy a good non-fiction book. I have read a few over the years that I feel help me in my work life.
Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration: This book is written by Ed Catmull, he was the former head of Pixar. This book is all about the history of Pixar and how they stumbled their way to a collaborative, creative and productive company. It has helped me be a better leader, and many of the topics he discusses in this book are applicable to the scientific process and project management.
Vesper Flights: by Helen Macdonald. This is a series of short essays that discuss the natural world, but Helen is a poet and each essay portrays nature in a much more personal way. It’s inspiring to me to see how non-scientists value the outside world. What can I do as a scientist to communicate more about the beauty in what I do?
Levar Burton Reads is a podcast where Levar Burton reads you short stories. Some of them are sci-fi/fantasy, a few dystopian, and these are my favorite. At the end of each story, Levar shares his thoughts about the story and how it relates to his life and the world at large. I always learn something about how people influence the future, how it’s important to think about how your work impacts others and how it can change the world, how we need to ensure our focus is on long term solutions for environmental problems, and so much more.
Kevin Hearne’s Seven Kennings Series: https://www.goodreads.com/series/198650-the-seven-kennings It’s a trilogy, one of the best fantasy series I have read in a long time. This series has reminded me of the resilience and limitations of nature, how much a forest can fill you with awe and respect, the obstacles people put in our own way and how we prevent others from changing the world when we are too selfish. This series also examines how wonderful collaboration between people can be (Pavel mentioned this as well).
I could go on, I think any book can help you be a better scientist and a better person. It’s all about how much we are willing to learn from other peoples stories and how brave we have to be to enact change.
I think there’s a general answer to your question, and a specific one.
In general, I agree that a grounding in the philosophy and history of science is very useful. Sadly this never really featured in my university’s biology syllabus, but where I’ve picked it up on the side I’ve really profited. For example, I guest auditioned in the philosophy department’s theory of knowledge lecture, which helped me better understand how we develop knowledge. As concerns the history of science, I regret that we are often so focussed on the current state of knowledge that we rarely cite a paper or book older than 20 years, let alone 50. My feeling is that I and many others of my young colleagues don’t really have an understanding of how we got to where we are: which debates shaped our theoretical knowledge and when and how important breakthroughs were achieved. I find biographies helpful here – not so much to learn about the scientist as a person (though that is interesting too), but to learn about their time and the questions the scientific community was dealing with then.
Adding to general recommendations: books about communication and leadership skills. Public speaking, teaching, managing a team, networking, even graphic design – all of these are skills that are often an integral part of our work, but which are usually better learnt from non-scientists.
On to the specific answer: I think many scientists can benefit from gaining at least a working knowledge in fields that offer a different perspective on their subject of study, including but not limited to business, art, engineering, or the humanities. For example, as an ecological modeller working on sustainable agriculture, I read a lot of computer science books and blogs (to improve my software development skills) and a lot of theology (to help me understand how our world view shapes our ethics and our attitude to nature). This has helped me widen my own perspective, engage better with relevant people from other backgrounds, and think more holistically about the questions I’m working on.
Heads Up Baseball by Ken Ravizza
Just replace every reference to players/the game with scientist/science; it’s gold. It will help you focus on the process of doing good science every day, not the outcomes (grants/papers/prestige) which are out of your control. Rick Karban says you should be happy if 2 out of 7 projects “work”. No one understands failure like a big leaguer, where the best hitters strike out two-thirds of the time.
Ooh, surprised I didn’t know about that one! That’s going straight to the top of my reading list.
Books about writing.. by writers … provide a valuable perspective. Science is storytelling after all. Annie Dillard’s The Writing Life. Ursula LeGuin’ collection Dreams Must Explain Themselves. I have assigned her essay The Question I Get Asked Most Often (it is in that collection) to graduate classes to, I think, good effect.
ETA the question she was asked most often is “where do you get your ideas from?” Highly relevant to doing science.
Ooh, good suggestion, I’m going to steal it!
I find Maria Popova very inspirational on how to think and how to be a person. Her blog The Marginalian, formerly called Brain Pickings, is fantastic.
Her book, Figuring, is incredible, and features a lot of scientists – Rachel Carson, Maria Mitchell, Richard Feynman, Johannes Kepler – but also artists and writers.
Great discussion topic!
There are science-adjacent books and then non-science books, and I’ll start with the first category.
Science-adjacent:
Roger Pielke’s The Honest Broker: Making Sense of Science in Policy and Politics. (This has been the most useful book in my career for navigating the science/policy nexus and the “what is truth” question.)
Wendell Berry’s Life is a Miracle: An Essay Against Modern Superstition. (This book is a response to E.O. Wilson’s “Consilience”.) Much else by Berry has been helpful over my career as well.
Stephanie Kaza’s The Attentive Heart. A beautifully-written book about perceiving and understanding nature. (A well-trodden genre, I know, but this one stuck with me.)
Some other usual suspects include John McPhee’s Encounters with the Archdruid and Edward Abbey’s The Monkeywrench Gang.
Non-science:
Like so many here, I read a lot of sci-fi. The most influential books in that genre, in my reading experience, include:
The works of Kim Stanley Robinson. The Ministry for the Future is the one that got so much attention because it’s about a climate-induced future, but many of his novels address the challenges and struggles of science and society.
James White’s Sector General series (several novels and many stories). White was raised in Belfast in the time of the troubles and wrote eloquently about how scientific exploration – in his case through medicine – can bring together disparate peoples (or in his case human and alien species).
Robert Charles Wilson’s Spin. This is the first book in a trilogy, and takes a deeply humanistic approach to the tension between science, industry, and government in the face of the unknown.
All of these books are beautiful reads as well.
Some kind of ergodic or experimental literature. It’s always good to be reminded that form is a convention, and you shouldn’t be afraid to write in a completely different style if it helps the narrative you’re trying to convey.
I’m not going to say that everyone would write better scientific prose if they read Ulysses, but I’m also note entirely sure its not on average true.
“I’m not going to say that everyone would write better scientific prose if they read Ulysses, but I’m also note entirely sure its not on average true.”
Now I’m wondering what scientific prose would be like if every scientist read, say, Proust. Or Melville. Or Dickens. Or… 🙂
What is ergodic literature?
Literature that keeps returning to the same conclusions over and over, no matter how long research continues [rimshot]
[audience laughter]
Thank you, I’m here all week. 🙂
New term to me too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ergodic_literature
Basically a fancy word for hard to read literature as best I can tell.
As a student aspiring to become a scientist and avid reader, I enjoy sci-fi/fantasy horror hybrids. Anything that provokes critical thinking, ethical reasoning, creative problem solving.
Neuromancer by William Gibson
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
Alien by Alan Dean Foster
Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer
I could go on and on!
This isn’t quite what you were asking, but a specific book I’ve been reading* is Quit, which has led me to think about a lot of things that are related to the process of science, including what I wrote about here: https://dynamicecology.wordpress.com/2024/02/05/quitting-as-a-virtue/
* I haven’t finished the book yet — I put it down and never picked it back up. But I haven’t quit Quit! I really do want to get back to it. Part of that is because almost all of the books I read these days are just for fun. If cozy mysteries help someone become a better scientist, I’m all set!
I am looking for new fun reading material and will happily accept any cozy mystery recommendations you have!
Here are some cozy mystery series I’ve read/listened to recently:
* Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman
* Perveen Mistry by Sujata Massey
* Lady Sherlock by Sherry Thomas
* Emily Wilde by Heather Fawcett
* Secret Staircase by Gigi Pandian
* Flavia DeLuce by Alan Bradley
* Pentecost and Parker by Stephen Spotswood
* Veronica Speedwell by Deanna Raybourn
* Her Majesty the Queen Investigates by SJ Bennett (but, annoyingly, the most recent book isn’t available in the US!)
* Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear
And then here are some where I’ve either read only the first in the series or it’s not a series:
* Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone
* The Sunset Years of Agnes Sharp (which includes a wonderful tortoise)
* Killers of a Certain Age
* The Rose Code & The Alice Network by Kate Quinn
* Glory Be by Danielle Arceneaux
Next on my list: Mr. Churchill’s Secretary by Susan Elia MacNeal.
And then some that aren’t mysteries but that I liked a lot:
* Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi
* Peach Blossom Spring by Melissa Fu
* The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barberry
* Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt
* We Don’t Know Ourselves by Fintan O’Toole — non fiction, so different than all the others, but I loved it!
Okay, I’ll stop there. 🙂
Thanks! I tried the first book in the Flavia DeLuce series and couldn’t get into it. I will look forward to trying some of these others. You read a lot of these!
We should do a poll about audiobook listening speeds — there’s a controversial topic!
Pingback: Hoisted from the comments: non-science books for becoming a better scientist | Dynamic Ecology
Discussing statistics/experimental design, with both scientists and non-scientists, has been one of the things I’ve struggled with the most throughout my graduate career. I suppose this is natural and gets better over time, and with comfortability in the topic. Any who, reading “The Lady Tasting Tea: How Statistics Revolutionized Science in the Twentieth Century by David Salsburg” really opened my eyes and has helped with understanding statistics on a more accessible level (honestly, thought it would be an incredibly boring topic but was surprised to greatly enjoy the book)!
Ooh, can’t believe I’d never heard of that one! That’s going on my reading list.