Guns, Germs and Steel
10. Guns, Germs and Steel - Jared Diamond, 1997 (first-time reading)
One-tenth of the way through my hundred books! Excellent. So this one was recommended to me by a couple of people, mostly family members, and having finished it I've immediately started recommending it to everyone else, because it's absolutely fascinating. As someone who takes a mild interest in science but doesn't have much of a serious education in it (I didn't carry on with any of the sciences past GCSE) I like that kind of popular-science book that explains everything in a fairly non-technical way. Diamond uses a lot of personal anecdotes, examples, and analogies, which keep it both interesting and accessible, but the actual ideas are even more interesting, and I have to say his theories are very convincing. It's just a great read, illuminating and entertaining, and it makes you feel like you finish it a little bit cleverer than you were when you started.
One-tenth of the way through my hundred books! Excellent. So this one was recommended to me by a couple of people, mostly family members, and having finished it I've immediately started recommending it to everyone else, because it's absolutely fascinating. As someone who takes a mild interest in science but doesn't have much of a serious education in it (I didn't carry on with any of the sciences past GCSE) I like that kind of popular-science book that explains everything in a fairly non-technical way. Diamond uses a lot of personal anecdotes, examples, and analogies, which keep it both interesting and accessible, but the actual ideas are even more interesting, and I have to say his theories are very convincing. It's just a great read, illuminating and entertaining, and it makes you feel like you finish it a little bit cleverer than you were when you started.