Paul Ruffle's Book List

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My Book List

Here are some of the books that I have read and enjoyed in the last few years.
Cover images and links courtesy of my Amazon Listmania 1 | Listmania 2.


	Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson A fascinating but sometimes disturbing insight into the man who led the way to bring us technology blended with lifestyle.		Quantum Man: Richard Feynman's Life in Science by Lawrence Krauss An excellent account of Feynman's life, both personal and in science.
	Exultant: Destiny's Children Book 2 by Stephen Baxter Not much of a continuation of the first book in this series, but a good yarn, although the conclusion was somewhat predictable.		Feynman by Jim Ottaviani What could be more cool? Feynman's life as a graphic novel. Brilliant artwork.
	John Adams by David McCullough A sweeping account about one of the most distinguished of America's founding fathers.		Cycles of Time: An Extraordinary New View of the Universe by Sir Roger Penrose Not for the faint-hearted, as Penrose does not shy away from including some maths, but well worth the effort to understand his ideas.
	A Week in December by Sebastian Faulks A wry and cynical story about a group of slightly connected Londoners in the lead up to the financial meltdown.		Cracking the Einstein Code: Relativity and the Birth of Black Hole Physics by Fulvio Melia A very lucid account of how Roy Kerr found the solution to Einstein's equations for spinning black holes.
	The Grand Design: New Answers to the Ultimate Questions of Life by Stephen Hawking After a promising start very disappointing. Hawking expects us to take his word for it that he is right.		Our Kind of Traitor by John le Carré The master has not lost his touch. As up-to-date as ever with more than a nod to certain politicians now in government.
	Surface Detail by Iain M. Banks A slightly disturbing Culture novel where civilisations wage digital war over hell itself.		What Do You Care What Other People Think?: Further Adventures of a Curious Character by Richard P Feynman An excellent sequel to Surely You're Joking Mr Feynman. His account about the Challenger enquiry is excellent.
	From Eternity to Here: The Quest for the Ultimate Theory of Time by Sean Carroll Entropy and the arrow of time in great detail lead to an interesting new slant on what happened at the Big Bang.		The Principles of Quantum Mechanics by Paul Dirac Probably the best introduction to Quantum Mechanics.
	All for Poor Jack by Steve Tilston A very interesting historical story about cod fishing. What more can I say?		Remarkable Creatures by Tracy Chevalier A fascinating true account about female friendship and fossil hunting in 19th century England.
	Firstborn: A Time Odyssey Book Three by Arthur C. Clarke Excellent conclusion to the Time Odyssey trilogy.		Revolution in the Head: The Beatles' Records and the Sixties by Ian MacDonald An invaluable resource, despite MacDonald's negative view of a number of recordings that most of us consider brilliant.
	Pattern Recognition by William Gibson Fashion, viral marketing, stealth publicity, mysterious on-line footage and a lot more are combined in this cyber thriller. Excellent plot with clever twists and better written than his earlier stuff.		The Aftermath by Ben Bova Swashbuckling in space really. A good add-on to the Rock Rats trilogy.
	The Road Ahead by Christabel Bielenberg A slightly disappointing sequel to The Past is Myself. Christabel Bielenberg's post-war life in Ireland is especially dull.		Lake Views: This World and the Universe by Steven Weinberg Not quite as good as I hoped it would be, as several of the essays are a bit repetitious. I found Weinberg's pro-Israel stance a bit off putting, but then he is an American. Saved by the final essay on God and religion.
	Blood and Iron by Tony Ballantyne A good sequel to Twisted Metal, but despite the intervention of humans, we still don't quite know how this robot world came into being.		The Road by Cormac McCarthy An apocalyptic road story that might be depressing, but provides insight into what we are all capable of (good and bad) when things are really, really bad.
	The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution by Richard Dawkins A welcome relief from his rant in the God Delusion. Excellent examples of evolution taking place right now.		Transition by Iain M. Banks A clever plot weaved around the many worlds hypothesis. My copy did not have the "M" in the author's name. Maybe he could not decide if it was SF or mainstream.
	The Strangest Man: The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Quantum Genius by Graham Farmelo An illuminating portrait of Britain's greatest physicist, and shame on Bristol for not giving their son the recognition he deserves!		Engleby by Sebastian Faulks Brilliant and disturbing. Faulks research for "Human Traces" obviously gave him more ideas.
	Solar by Ian McEwan McEwan does his physics research and does not flinch from using it within this well crafted tale about the foibles of one, untypical in my experience, scientist.		Flowers For Algernon by Daniel Keyes Simpleton Charlie Gordon has an IQ of 68 and can't even beat the laboratory mouse Algernon at maze-solving. A classic and very cleverly written. Stands the test of time.
	Twisted Metal by Tony Ballantyne An interesting story of a robot world that has forgotten its origin, despite Ballantyne knowing very little about physics or chemistry.		Matter by Iain M. Banks Another brilliant Culture novel, this time about the shellworld Sursamen, the layers of which are inhabited by different species, all unknowingly threatened by a very sinister entity.
	Non-Stop by Brian Aldiss Aldiss at his best with the classic starship ark story of forgotten origins.		Man Plus by Frederik Pohl Biological engineering turns man into a monster on Mars.
	A Most Wanted Man by John le Carré Le Carré as brilliant as ever and never lost for exploring the contradictions of the flawed and the hopeful.		Testament of Youth: An Autobiographical Study of the Years 1900-1925 by Vera Brittain One of the most moving books I have ever read. An eulogy for a lost generation.
	Gateway by Frederik Pohl A story of a man's guilt at letting something terrible happen in the pursuit of riches.		Fountains of Paradise by Arthur C. Clarke A good yarn based on building a space elevator, but not as good as Clarke's earlier work.
	A Fall Of Moondust by Arthur C. Clarke I remember reading my Dad's copy of this as a young lad. Still a brilliant book.		The Razor's Edge by W. Somerset Maugham One of Maugham's best books. It takes a little getting into but is well worth it.
	Reinventing Gravity: A Physicist Goes Beyond Einstein by John W. Moffat A good account of what may be wrong with current theories of dark matter and dark energy.		Astronomical Spectroscopy: An Introduction to the Atomic and Molecular Physics of Astronomical Spectra by Jonathan Tennyson Only for astronomers, but the best text book on spectroscopy that I have come across.
	Quantum: Einstein, Bohr and the Great Debate About the Nature of Reality by Manjit Kumar A superb account and description of the development of quantum mechanics.		The Galaxies of the Local Group by Sidney van den Bergh Another good text for astrophysicists.
	Quantum Leaps by J Bernstein A small book for dipping into the author's reminiscences.		Down the Bright Way by Robert Reed Humanity travels the Bright an ancient pathway between the stars. Another many worlds story.
	The Well of Stars by Robert Reed A pretty good sequel to Marrow, which was brilliant.		Expedition to Earth by Arthur C. Clarke Short stories from the master including "The Sentinel" which was the embryonic storyline for 2001: A Space Odyssey.
	The Universe in a Mirror: The Saga of the Hubble Space Telescope and the Visionaries Who Built It by Robert Zimmerman No better can you get a sense of both the successes and failures of NASA.		The Black Hole War: My Battle with Stephen Hawking to Make the World Safe for Quantum Mechanics by Leonard Susskind The first half gives the best explanation of the second law of thermodynamics I have ever read. Not so sure about the latter half but well worth reading.

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