Books like The Weather Machine: A Journey Inside the Forecast

01

The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming

David Wallace-Wells · Science

The Uninhabitable Earth is David Wallace-Wells's catalog of what climate change will do to human civilization if carbon emissions continue on or near their current trajectory.

A kindred science read.

02

Chaos: Making a New Science

James Gleick · Science

Chaos: Making a New Science, published in 1987, tells the story of how a loose network of scientists working across meteorology, mathematics, biology, and physics in the 1960s and 1970s developed chaos theory — the study of systems that are deterministic but unpredictable because tiny differences in initial conditions produce wildly different outcomes.

A kindred science read.

03

The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood

James Gleick · Science

The Information traces the history of information — as a concept, a technology, and a way of understanding the universe — from the talking drums of West Africa through the telegraph, the printing press, the telephone, and into the digital age.

A kindred science read.

04

A Short History of Nearly Everything

Bill Bryson · Science

A Short History of Nearly Everything is Bill Bryson's attempt to understand the scientific story of everything — from the Big Bang to the emergence of modern humans — by spending three years talking to scientists and reading science history.

A kindred science read.

05

Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software

Charles Petzold · Science

Code is Charles Petzold's explanation of how computers work, built from first principles.

Both dig into technology.

06

Livewired: The Inside Story of the Ever-Changing Brain

David Eagleman · Science

David Eagleman's argument is that "hardwired" is the wrong metaphor for the brain.

Both dig into technology.

07

The Code Book: The Science of Secrecy from Ancient Egypt to Quantum Cryptography

Simon Singh · Science

Simon Singh's The Code Book traces the history of cryptography from Caesar's cipher through the breaking of Enigma to the mathematics of public-key encryption and the looming possibility of quantum cryptography.

Both dig into technology.

08

The Distracted Mind

Adam Gazzaley and Larry D. Rosen · Science

The Distracted Mind brings together two distinct research traditions — cognitive neuroscience and psychology of technology — to explain why modern humans find sustained attention so difficult and what can be done about it.

Both dig into technology.

09

The Fate of Food: What We'll Eat in a Bigger, Hotter, Smarter World

Amanda Little · Science

The Fate of Food is Amanda Little's reporting on how food production is being reshaped by climate change and by the technologies that farmers, scientists, and food companies are deploying to respond.

Both dig into technology.

10

The Master Algorithm

Pedro Domingos · Science

The Master Algorithm is Pedro Domingos's survey of machine learning — the field of computer science that creates algorithms capable of learning from data — organized around a central speculative thesis: that there exists, or may be found, a single master algorithm from which all learning can be derived.

Both dig into technology.

11

The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains

Nicholas Carr · Science

The Shallows is Nicholas Carr's argument that the internet — and the way we habitually use it, skimming hyperlinked text, watching short videos, checking feeds — is reshaping the neural circuits responsible for deep reading and sustained concentration.

Both dig into technology.

12

Weapons of Math Destruction

Cathy O'Neil · Science

Weapons of Math Destruction is mathematician and data scientist Cathy O'Neil's investigation of how algorithms — statistical models used to make decisions about people's lives — can perpetuate and amplify inequality rather than reduce it.

Both dig into technology.