reading list
Summer Reading Suggestions from Scientists: Harold Varmus
Posted on by Dr. Harold Varmus
Summertime! Long weekends, a vacation, the threat of boredom. Time for uninterrupted reading—on beaches or in air-conditioned bedrooms. A chance to look beyond the best-seller lists or the daily news to dive, with full concentration, into one or two books that some friend has argued might be a life-changing experience. In that spirit, here are two for which I would make that argument to almost any friend.
In the sphere of science: The Age of Wonder: The Romantic Generation and the Discovery of the Beauty and Terror of Science, by Richard Holmes (HarperCollins, 2008). Holmes is primarily a literary biographer (of Coleridge and other Romantic poets), but also an art historian and a science junkie, who has written about ballooning and women scientists. Of the many books I’ve read about the growth of the scientific enterprise, The Age of Wonder stands out for several reasons: its deep engagement with the full range of cultural and political currents in which science arises; its focus on the excitement about discovery—geographical, astronomical, chemical, biological—that permeated the late 18th and early 19th centuries; and its absorption with personal histories of people who made those discoveries. Holmes is a superb storyteller and drawn to the complexities of life (especially in Britain) that influenced the talented people—Joseph Banks, Humphry Davy, several members of the Herschel family—who made novel observations that changed our perceptions of the world and solidified the place of science.
Summer Reading Suggestions from Scientists
Posted on by Dr. Francis Collins
Now that we are in the “dog days” of summer, it’s time again to consider which books to pack (or load onto your e-reader) for your well-deserved getaway to the beach and beyond. With so many interesting titles published every year, it’s never easy to make recommendations. But I thought it might be fun to ask a few distinguished researchers to share a few of their favorite reads—both about science and other things in the world at large. Some might be classics; some might have just been published. It’s up to the guests to decide.
During the month of August, the NIH Director’s Blog will run a series of guest posts in which some of biomedical science’s most creative minds discuss one or two of the books they’ve been reading. I’m sure what they share will be informative, provocative, and possibly even provide you with a few more possibilities for your late summer reading list. So, please check out the blog next Tuesday for the first installment in our scientists’ summer reading series, which happens to be penned by an avid reader who also holds a Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Can anyone guess who it is?
