Introduction to Mechanics by Kleppner and Kolenkow – my first college physics text. I aced all my high school physics homework and tests. This was a revelation.
The Whys of a Philosophical Scrivener Martin Gardner – essays on Gardner’s beliefs and disbeliefs, and the reasons for them.
Cows, Pigs, Wars, and Witches by Marvin Harris – (And all his other books). This is the first one of his I read. Harris espouses a theory of anthropology he calls “Cultural Materialism”, in which he inverts the usual process of cultural anthropology – people’s beliefs and explanations are shaped by their material needs, rather than vice versa. To understand why the Cow is sacred in India, look to the physical realities and the cost/benefits ratio, rather than at the religious beliefs. Physical reality, Harris argues, shapes religious beliefs, not the other way around.
Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science by Martin Gardner – instructive stories of how people deceive themselves and/or others with bad science. Vastly instructive.
The Feynman Lectures on Physics by Richard Feynman – Physics as a straightforward way of looking at things, and without Authority. The breezy wat Feynmann could analyze a problem or a situation from first principles gives you the inspiratioon to do so yourself, without constantly referring back to your old textbooks.
The Flying Circus of Physics – physics is, however, weirder than you thought.
Connections (and his other books and TV series, and columns) by James Burke – a look at the real way science and progress are made. Connections is not to be missed as a history of science.
Witchcraft at Salem --Chadwick W. Hansen – my first encounter with revisionist history. Hansen may be questionable at times, but his points are well-argued. Moral: always question the established wisdom.
Androcles and the Lion (and other plays and, especially, prefaces by George Bernard Shaw) – Shaw’s writing was a true revelation. He took his subject matter and reasoned it out, looking at things in unconventional ways. The prefaces to his published plays are frequently longer than the plays themselves. The preface to A&tL is an examination of the Gospels and Christianity – not at all what I expected when I picked it up.
)