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.
List, cover images and links courtesy of Amazon Listmania.


	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 research and writes about scientists as they really are.
	Flowers For Algernon by Daniel Keyes A classic and very cleverly written. Stands the test of time.
	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.
	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.

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