An Introduction to Climate, by Trewartha and Horn. I loved this book so much that I purchased two versions: The final 1980 version, and the older 1968 4th edition. It has almost everything a person might want to read about how climates differ, which is actually a lot - they don't just get colder from equator to pole, but vary in beautiful and systematic ways across entire continents. Trewartha's system for classifying these climates is easy to learn, and the maps he provide in the covers are lovely and engaging.
It might seem preferable to read the later version for better images and updated material. But the 1968 version, where he discusses each of his 14 climate types individually, is rich with memorable quotes capable of transporting the reader to strange and distant realms. For example, in his section on the Savannah climate:
“The winter months, or dry season, extend, with a slight variation, from April to November. They are, as I have said, pleasant and healthy in the extreme. Now the traveller and hunter of big game make their appearance; the deciduous trees are leafless; the grasses dry, yellow, and ready for the chance spark or deliberate act which, with the aid of a steady breeze, will turn vast expanses of golden grasslands into so many hideous, bare deserts of heat-tremulous black. All nature seems to be at a standstill, hibernating. The rivers are low. Where, but a few short months since, wide, watery expanses rushed headlong toward the sea . . . there now remain but tranquil, placid channels, flowing smilingly at the bottom of steep, cliff-like banks. . . .
“With October the heat becomes very great... and then Nature arises like a strong man in anger and looses the long pent-up voice of the thunder and the irresistible torrents of the early rains... the change is startling; the paths and roadways choke themselves with a rich clothing of newly sprung grasses, whilst the trees, the extremities of whose twigs and branches have been visibly swelling, now leap into leaf and blossom. The mosses, which for months past have looked like dry, bedraggled, colourless rags, regain once more their vivid, tender green. Now the forest throws off its puritanical greyness and, with an activity and rapidity beyond belief, decks itself in flowers of a thousand gorgeous shades of colour, from chrome-yellow and purple to grateful mauve...
"April comes, and suddenly Nature holds her hand. The swollen rivers and inundated plains shake themselves free from the redundant waters. The grasses have now reached a formidable height. The rains now cease, and the land begins to dry up. Rich greens turn to copper, and brown, and yellow, and little by little, with the advent of May, the winter returns with its sober greyness.”
For anyone uninterested in the particulars of Trewartha's system, these descriptions of Earth's fascinating climates can actually be found online for free in a still earlier version of his book, where he organizes his material in the earlier Koeppen system. I grabbed the above quote from page 272, and there are many more at https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.261708/page/n271/mode/2up
Not sure if these should be in the other categories but each one built on my understanding of the others, so I'll list them together:
Who We Are and How We Got Here by David Reich. Summarises the latest archeo-genetics findings and lays out the origins of the modern races, ethnicities and castes. Also demonstrates that violent population replacements were a lot more common in prehistory than the post-war archaeology establishment had previously acknowledged.
War in Human Civilisation by Azar Gat. The definitive account of warfare in human history, with a strong focus on evo-theory and game theory considerations. Argues that group conflict has been the main driver of progress throughout history. Also gives a perspective on 20th century geopolitical conflict and the causes of the current peace that's outside the orthodoxy but persuasive.
Wages of Destruction by Adam Tooze. Fantastically detailed economic account of the Third Reich. Extremely challenging to conventional accounts of WW2, imo.
A Farewell to Alms and the Sun also Rises by Gregory Clark. Details the Malthusian nature of most pre-industrial societies, and the second book argues that those Malthusian pressures have resulted in significant selection effects on some populations.
The Descent of Man by Darwin. Origin of Species is a fun read but wont offer many new ideas to a modern reader. The Descent of Man is stuffed with ideas that were new to me and that I found interesting at least. When I first read it as a teenager a lot of it just seemed weird or ridiculous, but a lot of Darwin's more fringe hypothesis have been supported by the books above, so it's a great read if you already understand some of the context of how pre-war/ late 19th century people understood the world, and the ways it might actually have been more accurate than the common modern perspective.
Not to sound dramatic, but taken together those books outline a world view that'll be very alien, and maybe disturbing, to anyone born in the post-war West, but that used to common before the war and that I at least find persuasive on it's own terms.
The Nature and Aesthetic of Design + The Nature and Art of Workmanship David Pye
These two books can be read in either order, but they are a two volume set, so you ought to read both of them. There is nothing difficult about the language, but the ideas take a lot of thinking to absorb. It is about how we design and make anything -- the concepts work for software design as well as for the woodworking and architecture examples that the book relies on. David Pye was Professor of Furniture Design at the Royal College of Art, London and the maker of some of the most beautiful wooden boxes I have ever seen which still come up for sale on auctions in the UK from time to time.
Books on subjects that do not fit in above
An Introduction to Climate, by Trewartha and Horn. I loved this book so much that I purchased two versions: The final 1980 version, and the older 1968 4th edition. It has almost everything a person might want to read about how climates differ, which is actually a lot - they don't just get colder from equator to pole, but vary in beautiful and systematic ways across entire continents. Trewartha's system for classifying these climates is easy to learn, and the maps he provide in the covers are lovely and engaging.
It might seem preferable to read the later version for better images and updated material. But the 1968 version, where he discusses each of his 14 climate types individually, is rich with memorable quotes capable of transporting the reader to strange and distant realms. For example, in his section on the Savannah climate:
“The winter months, or dry season, extend, with a slight variation, from April to November. They are, as I have said, pleasant and healthy in the extreme. Now the traveller and hunter of big game make their appearance; the deciduous trees are leafless; the grasses dry, yellow, and ready for the chance spark or deliberate act which, with the aid of a steady breeze, will turn vast expanses of golden grasslands into so many hideous, bare deserts of heat-tremulous black. All nature seems to be at a standstill, hibernating. The rivers are low. Where, but a few short months since, wide, watery expanses rushed headlong toward the sea . . . there now remain but tranquil, placid channels, flowing smilingly at the bottom of steep, cliff-like banks. . . .
“With October the heat becomes very great... and then Nature arises like a strong man in anger and looses the long pent-up voice of the thunder and the irresistible torrents of the early rains... the change is startling; the paths and roadways choke themselves with a rich clothing of newly sprung grasses, whilst the trees, the extremities of whose twigs and branches have been visibly swelling, now leap into leaf and blossom. The mosses, which for months past have looked like dry, bedraggled, colourless rags, regain once more their vivid, tender green. Now the forest throws off its puritanical greyness and, with an activity and rapidity beyond belief, decks itself in flowers of a thousand gorgeous shades of colour, from chrome-yellow and purple to grateful mauve...
"April comes, and suddenly Nature holds her hand. The swollen rivers and inundated plains shake themselves free from the redundant waters. The grasses have now reached a formidable height. The rains now cease, and the land begins to dry up. Rich greens turn to copper, and brown, and yellow, and little by little, with the advent of May, the winter returns with its sober greyness.”
For anyone uninterested in the particulars of Trewartha's system, these descriptions of Earth's fascinating climates can actually be found online for free in a still earlier version of his book, where he organizes his material in the earlier Koeppen system. I grabbed the above quote from page 272, and there are many more at https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.261708/page/n271/mode/2up
Not sure if these should be in the other categories but each one built on my understanding of the others, so I'll list them together:
Who We Are and How We Got Here by David Reich. Summarises the latest archeo-genetics findings and lays out the origins of the modern races, ethnicities and castes. Also demonstrates that violent population replacements were a lot more common in prehistory than the post-war archaeology establishment had previously acknowledged.
War in Human Civilisation by Azar Gat. The definitive account of warfare in human history, with a strong focus on evo-theory and game theory considerations. Argues that group conflict has been the main driver of progress throughout history. Also gives a perspective on 20th century geopolitical conflict and the causes of the current peace that's outside the orthodoxy but persuasive.
Wages of Destruction by Adam Tooze. Fantastically detailed economic account of the Third Reich. Extremely challenging to conventional accounts of WW2, imo.
A Farewell to Alms and the Sun also Rises by Gregory Clark. Details the Malthusian nature of most pre-industrial societies, and the second book argues that those Malthusian pressures have resulted in significant selection effects on some populations.
The Descent of Man by Darwin. Origin of Species is a fun read but wont offer many new ideas to a modern reader. The Descent of Man is stuffed with ideas that were new to me and that I found interesting at least. When I first read it as a teenager a lot of it just seemed weird or ridiculous, but a lot of Darwin's more fringe hypothesis have been supported by the books above, so it's a great read if you already understand some of the context of how pre-war/ late 19th century people understood the world, and the ways it might actually have been more accurate than the common modern perspective.
Not to sound dramatic, but taken together those books outline a world view that'll be very alien, and maybe disturbing, to anyone born in the post-war West, but that used to common before the war and that I at least find persuasive on it's own terms.
Invitation to a Banquet by Dunlop. A primer on Chinese food and Chinese history in one, legible to a western reader!
Two books on emotion - How Emotions Are Made, and Seven And A Half Lessons About The Brain, Lisa Feldman-Barrett
The Nature and Aesthetic of Design + The Nature and Art of Workmanship David Pye
These two books can be read in either order, but they are a two volume set, so you ought to read both of them. There is nothing difficult about the language, but the ideas take a lot of thinking to absorb. It is about how we design and make anything -- the concepts work for software design as well as for the woodworking and architecture examples that the book relies on. David Pye was Professor of Furniture Design at the Royal College of Art, London and the maker of some of the most beautiful wooden boxes I have ever seen which still come up for sale on auctions in the UK from time to time.