Science · Similar reads
Books like The Selfish Gene
The best books like The Selfish Gene are Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst, and The Gene: An Intimate History. The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins is about evolution, genetics, natural selection. If that's what drew you in, here are 12 books that share its DNA — each summarized on Superbook, and ready to chat with in the app.
- Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
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Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
Yuval Noah Harari · History
Sapiens traces the full arc of human history from the emergence of Homo sapiens in Africa roughly 70,000 years ago to the present.
Both dig into evolution.
Read the summary → - Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst
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Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst
Robert M. Sapolsky · Science
Behave is Robert Sapolsky's attempt to explain why humans do what they do — the violence, the altruism, the tribalism, the heroism — by working through every layer of biology that contributes to a single act.
Both dig into evolution.
Read the summary → - The Gene: An Intimate History
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Siddhartha Mukherjee · Science
The Gene is Siddhartha Mukherjee's account of the gene — what it is, how it was discovered, and what humanity has done and might yet do with that knowledge.
Shares evolution and genetics with The Selfish Gene.
Read the summary →
- A Brief History of Time
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Stephen Hawking · Science
A Brief History of Time is Stephen Hawking's attempt to explain the biggest questions in physics — where the universe came from, how it behaves, and where it might be going — to readers with no scientific training.
A kindred science read.
Read the summary → - Guns, Germs, and Steel
05
Jared Diamond · Science
Guns, Germs, and Steel is Jared Diamond's attempt to answer a question posed to him by a Papua New Guinean politician named Yali: why did Europeans end up with so much cargo — wealth, technology, power — while other peoples had comparatively little?
A kindred science read.
Read the summary → - Climbing Mount Improbable
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Richard Dawkins · Science
Climbing Mount Improbable is Richard Dawkins's response to the persistent intuition that complex biological structures — the vertebrate eye, insect wings, spider webs — are too improbable to have evolved by chance.
Shares evolution and natural selection with The Selfish Gene.
Read the summary → - Life Ascending
07
Nick Lane · Science
Life Ascending is Nick Lane's examination of what he calls evolution's ten greatest inventions: the origin of life itself, DNA, photosynthesis, the complex cell, sex, movement, sight, hot blood, consciousness, and death.
Shares evolution and natural selection with The Selfish Gene.
Read the summary → - Nature via Nurture: Genes, Experience, and What Makes Us Human
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Nature via Nurture: Genes, Experience, and What Makes Us Human
Matt Ridley · Science
Matt Ridley's central argument is that the nature versus nurture debate has been framed wrong for over a century.
Shares evolution and genetics with The Selfish Gene.
Read the summary → - On the Origin of Species
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Charles Darwin · Science
On the Origin of Species, published in 1859, is the book in which Charles Darwin presented the theory of evolution by natural selection to the general reading public.
Shares evolution and natural selection with The Selfish Gene.
Read the summary → - The Blind Watchmaker
10
Richard Dawkins · Science
The Blind Watchmaker is Richard Dawkins's argument that natural selection — cumulative, non-random selection acting on random variation — is sufficient to explain the apparent design in biological organisms.
Shares evolution and natural selection with The Selfish Gene.
Read the summary → - The Extended Phenotype
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Richard Dawkins · Science
The Extended Phenotype is Richard Dawkins's most technical and, by his own account, most important book.
Shares evolution and genetics with The Selfish Gene.
Read the summary → - The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution
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The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution
Richard Dawkins · Science
The Greatest Show on Earth is Richard Dawkins's systematic presentation of the evidence for evolution by natural selection.
Shares evolution and natural selection with The Selfish Gene.
Read the summary →
Books like The Selfish Gene: quick answers
What are the best books like The Selfish Gene?
The best books like The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins are Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari, Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst by Robert M. Sapolsky, The Gene: An Intimate History by Siddhartha Mukherjee, A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking, Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond, plus 7 more below. Each was chosen for themes it shares with The Selfish Gene, such as evolution, genetics, natural selection.
What should I read after The Selfish Gene?
A natural next read after The Selfish Gene is Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari. Both dig into evolution. Other strong choices are Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst by Robert M. Sapolsky, The Gene: An Intimate History by Siddhartha Mukherjee, A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking.
What books are similar to The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins?
The Selfish Gene centers on evolution, genetics, natural selection. Books with a similar feel include Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari, Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst by Robert M. Sapolsky, The Gene: An Intimate History by Siddhartha Mukherjee, A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking, Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond, Climbing Mount Improbable by Richard Dawkins — all free to read and chat with on Superbook.
