Biology

1. The Selfish Gene - Richard Dawkins

2. Why Elephants have Big Ears - Chris Lavers
3. The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat - Oliver Sacks
4. The Double Helix - James Watson
5. Mutants - Amand Marie Leroi
6. Darwin's Ghost - Steve Jones
7. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
8. Phantoms in the Brain - V. S. Ramachandran
9. The Ancestor's Tale - Richard Dawkins
10.The Blind Watchmaker - Richard Dawkins

Journals

Biological Science Review

Nature

New Scientist

The Biologist

Catalyst

Business Studies
1. How to Get Rich - Felix Dennis
2. Losing my Virginity: the Autobiography - Richard Branson
3. Liar's Poker - Michael Lewis
4. One up on Wall Street - Peter Lynch
5. Jack: Straight from the Gut - Jack Welch
6. Good to Great - Jim Collins
7. The World is Flat - Thomas Friedman
8. Leading Change- John Kotter
9. The Effective Executive - Peter Drucker
10.Marketing, management and strategy - Doyle & Stern

Journals

The Harvard Business Review

The Financial Times

Chemistry
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.

A short history of nearly everything - Bill Bryson

Bad science - Ben Goldacre
A Devils chaplain - Richard Dawkins
The Ten Most Beautiful Experiments - George Johnson
Atkins' molecules - Peter Atkins
Galileos finger: the ten great ideas of science - Peter Atkins
Molecules at an exhibition: portraits of intriguing materials in everyday
life - John Emsley
8. The Periodic Kingdom: a journey into the land of the chemical elements Peter Atkins
9. Mendeleyevs dream: the quest for the elements - Paul Strathern
10.Uncle Tungsten: memories of a chemical boyhood - Oliver Sacks

Journals

New Scientist

Chemistry Review

Economics
1.
2.
3.
4.

What you need to know about Economics - George Buckley

The Undercover Economist Tim Harford
Predictably Irrational Dar Arierly
The Bottom Billion: Why the poorest countries are failing and what can be
done about it Paul Collier
5. Poor Economics: barefoot hedge-fund managers, DIY doctors and the
surprising truth about life on $1 a day - Abhijit V Banerjee and Esther Duflo
6. The trouble with markets: saving capitalism from itself - Roger Bootle
7. Thinking fast and slow Daniel Kahneman
8. Globalization and its discontents - Joseph E Stiglitz
9. Free to Choose - Milton Friedman and Rose D Friedman
10.The general theory of employment, interest and money - John Maynard
Keynes

Journals

The Economist

Economics Today

The Economic Review

The Financial Times

English
The study of English Literature is reading; so, in addition to the 10 books
listed below, here's a link to: top tens of pretty much everything (courtesy
of The Guardian). There's always more; one book always leads to another.
There's also the WELLINGTON 100 - 100 books that take this list of 10 as
their starting point.
1. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
2. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
3. 1984 by George Orwell
4. Hard Times by Charles Dickens
5. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
6. Tom Jones by Henry Fielding
7. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
8. The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing
9. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
10.The French Lieutenants Woman by John Fowles

Journals

London Review of Books

New York Review of Books

Guardian Review

Classics
1. Imperium Robert Harris
2. The Naked Olympics Tony Perrottet
3. Pompeii Mary Beard
4. Persian Fire Tom Holland
5. The Dream of Rome Boris Johnson
6. Ovid: Metamorphoses translated by A. Melville
7. The twelve Caesars Suetonius
8. The Odyssey Homer translated by E. Rieu
9. The Aeneid Virgil translated by David West
10.The Classical world Robin Lane Fox

Journals

Omnibus magazine

Mary Beard (in the Times/TLS)

Peter Jones (in the Spectator)

Geography
1. Never eat shredded wheat: the geography we've lost and how to find it
again - Christopher Somerville
2. Notes from a small island - Bill Bryson
3. Planet of slums - Mike Davis
4. Wild swans - Jung Chang
5. Sea change: Britain's coastal catastrophe - Richard Girling
6. The tipping point - Malcolm Gladwell
7. How bad are bananas? Mike Berners-Lee
8. The truth about markets - John Kay
9. The new Asian hemisphere - Kishore Mahbubani
10.Dead aid: Why aid is not working and how there is another way for Africa Dambisa Moyo

History
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.

The diary of a young girl - Anne Frank

All quiet on the Western Front Erich Maria von Remarque
A Day In The Life Of Ivan Denisovich Alexander Solzhenitsyn
Hitler Norman Stone
Wild Swans Jung Chang
Cold War Jeremy Isaacs and Taylor Downing
The pursuit of history John Tosh
A Peoples Tragedy Orlando Figes
New Worlds, Lost Worlds: The Rule of the Tudors 1485-1603 - Susan
Brigden
10.The Crusades: The War For The Holy Land - Thomas Asbridge

History of Art and Architecture

1. Art: a beginner's guide - Laurie Schneider Adams
2. Mirror of the world: a new history of art - Julian Bell
3. 1001 paintings to see before you die - Stephen Farthing
4. Ways of seeing - John Berger
5. The shock of the new - Robert Hughes
6. An outline of European architecture - Nicolas Pevsner
7. Caravaggio: a life sacred and profane - Andrew Graham-Dixon
8. Citizens: a chronicle of the French revolution - Simon Schama
9. High art lite: the rise and fall of British art - J Stallabrass
10.The ten books on architecture - Vitruvius

Journals

The Burlington Magazine

Oxford Art Journal

Leadership
1. How to Lead - Jo Owen
2. On leadership - Harvard Business Review
3. Good to Great: why some companies make the leap and others don't - Jim
Collins
4. Leading by Example - Harvard Business Review Press
5. Motivating People - Harvard Business School Press
6. Trust: how we lost it and how to get it back - Anthony Seldon
7. Winning! - Clive Woodward
8. Handbook of leadership theory and practice: an HBS centennial colloquium
on advancing leadership - Nitin Nohria and Rakesh Khurana
9. Multipliers: how the best leaders make everyone smarter - Liz Wiseman
and Greg McKeown
10.Leadership: The Power of Emotional intelligence - Daniel Goleman

Mathematics
History and biography
1. Fermats Last Theorem Simon Singh
2. The man who loved only numbers: the story of Paul Erdos and the search for
mathematical truth Paul Hoffman

Puzzles and problem solving

3. Mathematical Puzzles and Diversions Martin Gardner
4. How to solve it George Polya

General interest
5. Mathematics: a very short introduction Timothy Gowers
6. Taking chances with probability John Haigh

Academic texts
7. Mathematics: from the birth of numbers Jan Gullberg
8. A concise introduction to pure mathematics Martin Liebeck
9. Godel, Escher, Bach: an eternal golden braid Douglas R Hofstader
10. Mind-bogglingly weird social satire and multidimensional geometry
Flatland: a romance of many dimensions Edwin Abbott

Journals & blogs

The website of Ben Goldacre (you should also read his book, Bad
Science)

A monthly supply of good school-level puzzles

A journal of articles and puzzles

This is a series of cartoons, not a journal, but all mathematicians

find at least something here that they love and so, therefore, will
you.

Music
1. Music: a very short introduction Nicholas Cook
2. Listen to this Alex Ross
3. The making of music: a journey with notes James Naughtie
4. This is your brain on music Daniel Levitin
5. Musicophilia: tales of music and the brain Oliver Sacks
6. The best of jazz Humphrey Lyttelton
7. A life in letters - Mozart
8. The classical style Charles Rosen
9. A guide to musical analysis Nicholas Cook
10.Rethinking music Mark Everist and Nicholas Cook

Music (Top 10 Listens)

1. Bach Brandenburg Concerto no. 2
2. Handel Water Music
3. Mozart Symphony no. 40
4. Beethoven Symphony no. 5
5. Mendelssohn violin concerto
6. Wagner Prelude to Tristan und Isolde
7. Rachmaninov Piano Concerto No. 2
8. Elgar Enigma Variations
9. Stravinsky The Rite of Spring
10.

John Adams Short Ride in a Fast Machine

Philosophy
1. Can a robot be human? 33 perplexing philosophy puzzles - Peter Cave
2. The life you can save: how to play your part in ending world poverty Peter Singer
3. The Myth of Sisyphus - Albert Camus
4. Philosophy: the basics - Nigel Warburton
5. The problems of philosophy - Bertrand Russell
6. On the genealogy of morals: a polemic: by way of clarification and
supplement to my last book, Beyond good and evil - Friedrich Nietzsche
7. A introduction to the philosophy of religion - Brian Davies
8. Wittgenstein's poker: the story of a ten minute argument between two
great philosophers - David Edmonds
9. The sovereignty of good - Iris Murdoch
10.Logic: an introduction to elementary logic - Wilfred Hughes

Journals

The Philosophers Magazine

Dialogue: a Journal of Religion and Philosophy

Religion
1.
2.
3.
4.

Mere Christianity - C S Lewis

Buddha: A Story of Enlightenment - Deepak Chopra
A history of Christianity - Diarmaid MacCulloch
Jesus, interrupted: revealing the hidden contradictions in the Bible - Bart
Ehrman
5. The Prophet Muhammad: a biography - Barnaby Rogerson
6. Saints and Sinners: a history of the popes - Eamon Duffy
7. Letter to a Christian nation: a challenge to faith - Sam Harris
8. Confessions - St Augustine
9. The complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English - Geza Vermes (Ed.)
10.The modern theologians: an introduction to Christian theology since 1918 David Ford and Rachel Muers

Journals

The Philosophers Magazine

Dialogue: a Journal of Religion and Philosophy

Physical Education
1. More than a game: sport in our time - Sebastian Coe, David Teasdale,
David Wickham
2. Acquiring skill in sport - John Honeybourne
3. Sport and the British: a modern history - Martin Holt
4. Mind games: inspirational lessons from the world's biggest sports stars Jeff Grout and Sarah Perrin
5. British sport: a social history - Dennis Brailsford
6. Mind gym: an athlete's guide to inner excellence - Gary Mack and
David Casstevens
7. The evolution of English sport - Neil Wigglesworth
8. Curious customs and festivals: a guide to local customs and festivals
throughout England and Wales - Martin Green
9. Sports history: a practical guide - Martin Polley
10.The Victorians and Edwardians at play - John Hannavy

Physics
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.

A short history of nearly everything - Bill Bryson

Quantum theory cannot hurt you: a guide to the universe - Marcus Chown
The new world of Mr Tompkins - George Gamow and Russell Stannard
The canon: the beautiful basics of science - Natalie Angie
Atom - Piers Bizony
Why does E=mc2? (and why should we care?) - Brian Cox and Jeff Forshaw
Quantum: a guide for the perplexed - Jim Al-Khalili
Big bang: the most important scientific discovery of all time and why you
need to know about it - Simon Singh
9. Sophies world - Jostein Gaarder
10.Surely youre joking Mr Feynman! - Richard P. Feynman

Politics
1. Animal Farm - George Orwell
2. Politics: a very short introduction - Kenneth R. Minogue
3. Who runs this place? The anatomy of Britain in the 21st century - Anthony
Sampson
4. Blair - Anthony Seldon
5. The Prime Minister: The Office and its Holders since 1945 - Peter Hennessy
6. American caesars: lives of the US presidents from Franklin D. Roosevelt to
George W. Bush - Nigel Hamilton
7. The whites of their eyes: the Tea Party's revolution and the battle over
American history - Jill Lepore
8. Global transformations - David Held, Anthony McGrew, David Goldblatt and
Jonathan Perraton
9. Political thought from Plato to NATO - Brian Redhead
10.The Shield of Achilles: war, peace and the course of history - Phillip Bobbitt

Well-being
1. Tuesdays with Morrie: an old man, a young man and life's greatest lesson Mitch Albom
2. Bounce: how champions are made - Matthew Syed
3. The miracle of mindfulness: the classic guide to meditation by the world's
most revered master - Thich Nhat Hanh
4. The happiness hypothesis: putting ancient wisdom and philosophy to the
test of modern science - Jonathan Haidt
5. Emotional intelligence - Daniel Goleman
6. The resilience factor: 7 essential skills for overcoming life's inevitable
obstacles - Karen Reivich and Andrew Shatt
7. Philosophy for life and other dangerous situations - Jules Evans
8. Mans search for meaning: the classic tribute to hope from the Holocaust Viktor Frankl
9. A users guide to the brain: perception, attention and the four theaters of
the brain - John Ratey
10.The pursuit of happiness - Darrin McMahon