If you liked
Books like Billions and billions
Loved Billions and billions by Carl Sagan? Here are 10 books with a similar appeal — drawn mostly from popular science, ranked by how confidently we'd recommend them next.
10 books · ranked
-
1
The Tipping Point
Gladwell asks why some ideas, products and behaviours spread like viruses while others die quietly. His answer involves three types of people (Connectors, Mavens and Salesmen), the stickiness of messages, and the importance of context. The Tipping Point introduced a vocabulary — tipping point, connectors, mavens — that became part of how we discuss social change.
-
2
A Short History of Nearly Everything
How we figured out the universe, the Earth and ourselves; vast, funny and wonderfully clear.
-
3
A Brief History of Time
Black holes, the Big Bang and the shape of the cosmos for the general reader; the bestseller that made physics fashionable.
-
4
Braiding Sweetgrass
A botanist and member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation weaves together Indigenous plant knowledge, scientific botany and memoir to argue that plants are not passive objects but beings with gifts to offer, and that reciprocity — not extraction — is the proper relationship between humans and the living world. One of the most-read works of nature writing in recent years.
-
5
On the Origin of Species
Darwin presents his evidence for natural selection — the mechanism by which species evolve through variation and survival of the fittest — drawn from his voyage on the Beagle and years of observation. The most consequential scientific book of the 19th century, it permanently changed how humans understand their place in nature.
-
6
Brown Girl in the Ring
Set in Toronto after the turn of the millennium, Brown Girl in the Ring focuses on "The Burn," the inner city left when Toronto's economic base collapsed. Young Ti-Jeanne lives with her grandmother, w
-
7
Media & culture
"The tenth edition of Media & Culture starts with the digital world you know and then goes further, focusing on what constant changes really mean. Through new infographics, cross-reference pages, and
-
8
I Have Landed
A final collection of essays from "Natural History" magazine includes writings on such subjects as Charles Darwin, the methods of science versus those of the humanistic disciplines, Nabokov's butterfl
-
9
Eight Little Piggies
Contemplative essays speaking often of the importance of the unbroken connection of modern man and our ancestors.
-
10
How computers work
How Computers Work shows you how chips, software, memory, and hardware work using detailed four-color drawings. An interactive game-like CD-ROM takes you directly inside your computer. This book is co