Everyone loves top ten lists and Aaron Rowe just published a great one on WIRED Science yesterday.

You can find the article here.

General Science Top Ten

With a never ending stream of tasks to which the dedication of my time was required, I didn’t manage to get through nearly as much reading over this past year as I would have hoped. That having been said, I did manage to set aside some uninterrupted time in which to get through a few books. Of those books, here are my ten favorites of 2008, in no particular order. Of course I don’t mean to imply that they we’re published in 2008, some are by no stretch of the imagination even recent publications, 2008 is just the year in which I happen to have read them.

1984 - George Orwell

Most people end up reading this classic in high school, but somehow I had managed to not read it until this year. If you’ve never read it, I would definitely recommend that you do. It really is a great book that I plan on reading again.

Flatterland: Like Flatland Only More So - Ian Stewart

If you’ve read Flatland, by Edwin A. Abbott, then you’ll know more or less what to expect. When compared to Flatland, the social commentary is minimal and the focus has shifted towards the exploration of mathematical concepts.  We follow the adventures of A. Square’s great-great-granddaughter, Victoria Line, a rebellious Flatland teenager. Victoria discovers a code in her ancestors Flatland account and, upon deciphering it, summons the Space Hopper. The Space Hopper then whisks our protagonist away to the Mathiverse where he exposes her to all of the things that, as a Flatlander, she would never have had the chance to see. While Flatterland is laid out as a story, it deals with subjects such as the fourth dimension, one and a quarter dimensions, hyperbolic space, string theory, black holes, and quantum mechanics. As such, it could be viewed as a basic primer to everything with which mathematicians and physicist have been working in recent years.

The God Delusion - Richard Dawkins

I have several Dawkins titles on my bookshelf, but this is the only one that I’ve yet had a chance to read. After having read The God Delusion, I’ve made it a priority to not only read those other titles as soon as possible, but to add to my bookshelf anything else written by Dawkins.

Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid - Douglas R. Hofstadter

This is one of those books that I kept picking up off of the shelf at the bookstore, leafing through it, reading the back cover, and then putting back on the shelf. Eventually, after having been convinced by several members over at the IHIQS forums, I bought a copy. I’m quite glad that I did.

If you go looking for this book at your bookstore, you might find it in any one of several places. I’ve seen it under math, art, and music with those in charge of stocking the shelves clearly having inferred the book’s topic from its title. You can hardly blame them, however, for not knowing exactly what the book is about when the author himself uses a 23 page preface (in the 20th anniversary edition) in an attempt to answer that very question. Hofstadter does, as implied by the title, touch on those topics, but only in such a way as to promote an understanding by his readers of the various concepts in the book. To put it concisely, the book explores how we might go about developing, or the paths that we might take to eventually achieve, the codification, or mechanization, of human intelligence. It builds a nice foundation for thought on the subject by looking at what we do and do not understand about the human mind. I would strongly recommend this book to anyone with an interest in intelligence (both human and artificial) or computer science.

Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences - John Allen Paulos

Everyone should read this book. Mathematical illiteracy is rampant but, for whatever reason, most people don’t see this as an issue. Instead, mathematical illiteracy, or innumeracy, seems to enjoy the status of a pride inspiring quality. How many times have you heard someone laughingly declare, “I can’t even balance my checkbook!” I would venture a guess that these instances far exceeds the number of times you’ve heard someone shout with pride, “Damn right I can’t read!”

My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist’s Personal Journey - Jill Bolte Taylor

This book made it’s way onto the list because I quite enjoyed the first half. I will, however, be honest in saying that I could have done without the latter half. Jill Bolte Taylor, the author, is a Harvard trained neuroanatomist who, at the age of 37, suffered a stroke cause by a ruptured blood vessel in her left hemisphere. In the book, she recalls what happened, how she felt, and the changes that she observed as she experienced the rapid deterioration of her mind. It’s a very interesting book that I recommend to anyone with even the slightest bit of interest in neuroscience.

Perfectly Reasonable Deviations from the Beaten Track - Richard P. Feynman

This book is a collection of letters taken from the files of Dr. Feynman, ordered chronologically, and published by his daughter. As it is just a collection of letters, the natural breaks in continuity come frequently, so it’s a perfect book to pick up when you’ve only a few minutes in which to read. That having been said, the way in which Dr. Feynman lived his life and interacted with others is so entertaining that you’ll likely want to read it in it’s entirety the first time that you pick it up.

Simulacra and Simulation (The Body, In Theory: Histories of Cultural Materialism) - Jean Baudrillard

While I’m quite aware that this blog hardly needs to be nerded up any more than it is, I’ll risk doing so in admitting that my inspiration to read this book came from the film “The Matrix”. If you watch closely, near the beginning of the film, this is the book in which Neo hides his illicit software. Upon looking into it, I discovered that this book was one of those upon which the Wachowski brothers had based “The Matrix”. Unfortunately, if you read this book, you’ll quickly realize that, in acknowledging it as a book upon which their film was based, the Wachowski brothers must have either grossly misunderstood the book or simply have read only the back cover. Nevertheless, the book is outstanding. Jean Baudrillard spent most of his teaching career in France and is widely considered to be one of the country’s leading intellectuals. Baudrillard uses several interesting concepts in order to develop a theory of contemporary culture.

Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman! (Adventures of a Curious Character) - Richard P. Feynman

If you’ve never heard of Dr. Richard Feynman, then this book is a perfect introduction. Dr. Feynman definitely tops the list of people whom I would love to have met at some point in my life. This book is his autobiography and served as my introduction to him. Further more, it inspired me to read every book that I could find written either by or about him. Also, if you have any interest in physics, I would recommend that you read “The Feynman Lectures on Physics“. His passion for the subject is quite obvious in the way that he taught it.

Why Beauty Is Truth: A History of Symmetry - Ian Stewart

I was inspired to read this book after having read Flatterland and being quite entertained by Ian Stewart’s style of writing. Yes, this is a book about math but, if you aren’t mathematically inclined, don’t let that discourage you. Aside from the fact that Stewart’s writting style is very non-technical, the book deals mainly with the history of mathematics and tells the stories of mathematicians from ancient Babylon to the 21st century, all of whom made fundamental contributions to the search for symmetry in mathematics.

I’m hopeful that 2009 with present me with more opportunities in which to read than did 2008, as I’ve already amassed a dauntingly large stack of books which I look forward to reading and I’m very well aware that the stack will only grow as the year progresses.

Feel free to share in the comments any recommendations that you might have!

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