Book recommendations for different topics

Mallus

Mallus

Mallus

Associate
Joined
14 Jun 2003
Posts
592
Location
Norwich (uni) or Brighton (home!)
Only having 6 hours of lectures a week, I have decided to do something useful with my time. Looking to take advantage of my uni library and get myself clued on up most subjects to a decent standard. The books shouldn't be too advanced as I am just starting in each area but on the other hand, shouldn't be too simple either (think first year university standard books). The main areas I would like to cover:

Psychology (in particular!)
Theology
Religion
Environmental
English literature (few must read classics please)
Physics + Chemistry (but nothing too deep involving complex calculations - more theory on how things work etc)
Law
Politics
History (huge subject I know but maybe some brief history book which covers more or less everything but not in too much detail)

Since I am doing this for my own gain and enjoyment I am trying to stay clear of boring texts. Try recommend some that you have either enjoyed or learnt a lot from. Some of my course books are written in such a boring fashion I fall asleep reading them whereas others I would read for enjoyment. Dedicating about 3 hours a day in the library doing this so all your suggestions will help! If you have read any interesting non-fictional book which you felt has taught you something please recommend it, even if its not in the list above. Hopefully will pool together a lot of recommendations covering pretty much everything I would ever want to know
 
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To be honest, if I wanted to go out and get a general understanding of everything... I'd use the internet, and wikipedia :)
 
Christopher Hibbert - The English: A Social History, 1066-1945
Laurie Garret - The Coming Plague
Charles Dickens - A Tale of Two Cities
Fyodor Dostoevsky - A Raw Youth
Alexandre Dumas - The Count of Monte Cristo
Oscar Wilde - The Picture of Dorian Gray
 
I took my degree in philosophy, which covers many areas. Dont know if you're interested in science but I read a good book giving a brief introduction to the history of science, which is written in an easy to understand way. Might be worth a try, its called 'The Structure of Scientific Revolutions' by Thomas S. Khun. I found it interesting, hope this helps :D
 
hypocrisy

the proliferation of rules, regs procedures which cannot be either managed or implemented, just ass covering legislation
 
For a history of human development then I recommend:

Guns, Germs & Steel by Jared Diamond. Not perfect, but it will give a good insight into how and why socio-economic differences exist around the world in a historical context.
 
Does anyone know how you could get your hands on the required reading/coursebooks for uni courses without having to actually do the course??
 
The Feynman Lectures on Physics volumes 1-3 are basically an undergraduate physics course. Volume 1 might be suitable for you, depending on what level your maths is at. If you've only done GCSE then it'll be far too advanced for you. If you've done A Level you should be able to cope with much of it, although if you want to do more advanced topics like Electromagnetism, Relativity or Quantum Mechanics then you're going to have to learn more maths.

If you're looking something a bit lighter, then you might consider picking up Q.E.D by Richard Feynman, and The Elegant Universe and Fabric of the Cosmos by Brian Greene. These books will give you a bit more of an idea of what modern physics is about, but don't expect to gain any real insight from them. They're very much layman's books.
 
DaveyD said:
...and wikipedia :)
Click to expand...
Wiki's generally good if you want to get a very broad overview of a topic, but like any encyclopaedia it rarely goes into depth. Some of the pages on scientific topics are frankly laughable, and I'm sure the same applies to most subjects on which there is an in-depth assembled body of knowledge.
 
My first introduction to Philosophy came from Julian Baggini's Philosophy: Key Themes, which is a very gentle introduction. Be prepared to think for yourself, though. You might also like to try The Pig That Wants To Be Eaten by the same author, which is a very different style of book in that it deals with many more specific examples than broad topics.

I've also found that the Very Short Introduction... series can be good resources. It's a series offering short introductions (duh) to a bewildering variety of topis. I very highly recommend the ones on Mathematics, Philosophy, Quantum Physics, Atheism, Christianity, Islam, Ethics, Logic and Evolution.
 
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