Biology Reading List (Ms. Ross)

AP Biology Reading List—books with stars, ask me about any other titles.

 

Books may be read at ANY time in the year, but must be discussed with Ross by the last Monday of the grading period! (3rd nine weeks deadline - 3/6/06 and 4th nine weeks deadline -5/15/06) You may read 3 books a semester for credit.  When you read one of these books in its entirety, you may discuss it with Ms. Ross for a 100 test grade to be averaged in with your other grades for the nine weeks.  This assignment typically raises a nine weeks average by 5 or more points. If there is a book not on this list, you must have it approved by me prior to asking for extra credit - I may not find it acceptable. Ross's favorites are in green

 

 

(Books with call numbers can be found at our library, otherwise, check out city libraries and Half-Priced Books)

 

Science & Miscellaneous:

P. W. Atkins – The Periodic kingdom       541.24 ATK

Philip Ball – The Ingredients: a guided tour of the elements          546 BAL

Best American science writing 2004       501 BES 2004

David Bodanis – Secret house                    500 BOD

Stanley Coren – Sleep thieves                  612.821 COR

                          Curious minds: How a child become a scientist   509.22 CUR

Jan DeBlieu – Wind                                   551.518 DEB

A.K. Dewdney – Yes we have no neutrons:an eye-opening tour thru the twists & turns of bad science 500 DEW

Anne Fausto-Sterling – Myths of gender

Kenneth Ford – Quantum world: quantum physics for everyone    530.12 FOR

(for the artist!) Ernest Haekel—Art forms in nature

Peter Gallison – Einstein’s clocks, Poincare’s maps     529 GAL

J. Richard Gott – Time travel in Einstein’s universe     530.11 GOT

Thomas Hagar – The Life of Linus Pauling

Roger Highfield – The Science of Harry Potter        530.01 HIG

Hannah Holmes – The secret life of dust    551.5113 HOL

Scott Huler – Defining the wind: the Beaufort scale & how a 19th c. admiral turned science into poetry 551. 518 HUL

Jeff Lyons – Altered Fates                            616.042 LYO

William Maples – Dead men do tell tales

Ernst Mayr – One long argument

Sharon Bertsch McGrayne –Nobel Prize winning women in science (selected chapters)

Daniel McNeill – The Face                           611.92 MCN

Sherwin B. Nuland – How we die                 616.078 NUL

Alice Outwater – Water: a natural history   551.48 OUT

Max F. Perutx – Is science necessary?

                        - Lives of a cell                      571.6 THO

Mary Roach – Stiff: the curious life of human cadavers    611 ROA

Carl Sagan – The demon haunted world         001.9 SAG

Robert Sekuler – Star Trek on the brain       612.82 SEK

Dava Sobel – Longitude: the true story of the lone genius who solved the great scientific problem of his time  526.62 SOB

David Suzuki -  Tree, a life story                   582.16 SUZ

***Lewis Thomas – any of his collections of essays

Steven Vogel – Cat’s paws and catapults: mechanical world of nature and people   571.3 VOG

Orson Scott Card – Ender’s Game, Xenocide

 

 

 

Biochemistry:

Kenneth Maxwell – Chemicals and life

Harold J. Morowitz – Mayonnaise and the origin of life: thoughts of minds and molecules

***Eric Widmaier – Stuff of life: profiles of the molecules that make us tick       572 WID

 

Cells (mitochondria):

Lewis Thomas – Lives of a Cell

Michael Crichton – Prey                                     FIC CRI

Wm. Clark – New healers: promise and problems of molecular medicine in the 21st century 616.042 CLA

Harold Franklin – Way of a cell                      571.6 FRA

Dorion Sagan – Garden of microbial delights: a practical guide to the subvisible world  576 SAG

***Bryan Sykes – The Seven daughters of Eve   599.935 SYK

***Christopher Wills – Exons, inerons and talking genes: the science behind the Human Genome Project 616.042 WIL

***Dorian Sagan and Lynn Margulis - Microcosmos

 

DNA/genetics:

Jennifer Ackerman – Chance in the house of fate: a natural history of heredity     576.5 ACK

***Francis Crick – What mad pursuit

                        Life itself, its origin and nature                                                         577 CRI

Karl Drlica – Understanding DNA and genetic cloning: a guide for the curious     576.5 DRL

Vincent Dethier – To know a fly                                                                                                   

Henry Gee – Jacob’s ladder: History of the human genome                                 599.935 GEE

Stephen J. O’Brien—Tears of the cheetah and other stories from the genetic frontier

Anne Sayre – Rosalind Franklin and DNA                                                         B FRANKLIN

James Watson – The Double helix                                                                         572.86 WAT

            The DNA story: a documentary history of gene cloning                            575.86 WAT

***Matt Ridley – Genome: an autobiography of the species in 23 chapters

            And other books by this author

 

History of the Earth & Evolutionary theory (& simply good reading!):

***Diane Ackerman – A Natural history of the senses                                                           152.1 ACK

                               An alchemy of mind: the marvel and mystery of the brain                612.82 ACK

Fred Adams – The Five ages of the universe: inside the physics of eternity                   523.1 ADA

Richard Alley – The two-mile time machine: ice cores, abrupt climate change and our future 551.609 ALL

Ivan Amato – Stuff: the materials the world is made of                                       620.11 AMA

Joseph Amato – Dust: a history of the small and the invisible                         551.5113 AMA

Lee Berger – In the footsteps of Eve: the mystery of human origins                   599.938 BER

Jerry Bishop – Genome                                                                                         616.042 BIS

Edmund Blair Bolles – Ice finders: how a poet, a professor & a politician discovered the ice age 551.792 BOL

***Charles Darwin – The Origin of species

***Richard Dawkins – The Selfish gene (or any of his books on evolutionary theory)   576.5 DAW

Bernard Dixon – From creation to chaos: classic writings in science

Richard Fortey – Life: a natural history of the first four billion years of life on earth  576.8 FOR

Jane Goodall – In the shadow of man;  Through a window                                     559.885 LAW

Stephen Jay Gould – any of his collections of evolutionary essays

                                The flamingo’s smile  508 GOU

                                The Panda’s thumb   575.016 GOU

F. Jacob – Of flies, mice & men: the revolution in modern biology by one of the scientists who helped make it 582.801 JAC

Donald Johanson – Lucy: the beginnings of humankind                                                  569 JOH

Donald Johanson – From Lucy to language                                                                  569.9 JOH

Alison Jolly – Lucy’s legacy: sex and intelligence in human evolution                    599.938 JOL

***Evelyn Fox Keller – A Feeling for the organism

Christopher Lavers – Why elephants have big ears: understanding patterns of life     576.8 LAV

Richard Leakey and Roger Lewin – The Sixth extinction

Doug Macdougall – Frozen earth: The once and future story of ice ages                   551.792 MAC

***Lynn Margulis and Dorian Sagan - Microcosmos

            (We have the video of Microcosmos   VR 592 MIC)

Ernst Mayr – What evolution is                           576.8 MAY

David Moore – Dependent gene: the fallacy of nature/nurture                                  576.53 MOO

Daniel Quinn—Ishmael

***Matt Ridley – Genome (or his other books on modern genetics—selected chapters)  599.935 RID

            Problems of evolution                                  575 RID

Carl Sagan—Cosmos                                               520 SAG

J. Wm. Schapf – Cradle of life: discovery of earth’s earliest fossils                             576.83 SCH

Ellen Ruppel Shell – Hungry gene                    616.398 SHE

William Souder – A Plague of frogs: the horrifying true story                                     597.86 SOU

Ian Tattersall – Becoming human: evolution and human uniqueness                           599.938 TAT

Eric Widmaier – Why geese don’t get obese and why we do                                         571.1 WID

Neil DeGrasse Tyson – Origins: Fourteen billion years of cosmic evolution               523.1 TYS

Simon Winchester – The Map that changed the world                                                  550.92 WIN

 

Viruses & Disease

Gerald Astor – Disease detectives                       616.071 AST

***John Barry – Great influenza: the epic story of the deadliest plague in history           614.518 BAR

Dan Bartolotti – Hope in hell: inside the world of Doctors Without Borders               610.601 BAR

Debbie Bookchin – The Virus and the vaccine   614.59  BOO

Jennifer Lee Carroll – Speckled monster: a historical tale of battling smallpox           614.521 CAR

Emily Craig – Teasing secrets from the dead                                                               363.2562 CRA

Paul deKruf – Microbe hunters                            570.92 DEK

Rob De Salle – Epidemic                                        614.4 DES 

Robert S. Desowitz – any of his books on tropical diseases

Madeline Drexler – Secret agents: the menace of emerging infections                            614.4 DRE

Robert Gallo – Virus hunting: AIDS, Cancer, and the human retrovirus

***Laurie Garrett – The Coming Plague (selected chapters)                                                  614.4 GAR

Mark Honigsbaum – The Fever trail: in search for the cure for malaria                   616.9362 HON

***Diarmuid Jeffreys – Aspirin: the remarkable story of a wonder drug                           615.783 JEF

Arno Karlen – Man and microbes: disease and plagues in history and modern times  614.409 KAR

Gina Kolata – Flu                                                 615.518 KOL

David Koplow – Smallpox: the fight to eradicate a global scourge                              616.912 KOP

***Roger McCormick – Virus hunters of the CDC

Maryn McKenna – Beating back the devil: on the front lines with the disease detectives 614.4 MCK

Pamela Nagami – Bitten: true medical stories of bites and stings                                       617.1 NAG

Michael Oldstone – Viruses, plagues and history   614.57 OLD

Wendy Orent – Plague:Mysterious past and terrifying future… world’s most dangerous disease 614.5732 ORE

C. J. Peters – Virus hunter: thirty years of battling hot viruses around the world            616.925 PET

Richard Preston – The Hot Zone                                 614.5 PRE

 Demon in the freezer                                  616.912 PRE

 The Cobra event                                               FIC PRE

Richard Rhodes – Deadly feasts: tracking the secrets of a terrifying new plague                616.8 RHO

Fiammetta Rocco – The miraculous fever tree     616.9362 ROC

Gay Salisbury – The cruelest miles: the heroic story of dogs and man in a race against an epidemic           614.5 SAL

Philip M. Tierno – The Secret life of germs: observations and lessons from a microbe hunter     616.01 TIE

Jonathan Tucker – Scourge: the once and future threat of smallpox                                616.912 TUC

Mark Waller – Six modern plagues and how we are causing them                                     614.4  WAL

Hans Zinsser – Rats, lice and history                        614.49 ZIN

 

Animals

Diane Ackerman - The Moon by whale light & other adventures among bats, penguins, crocodilians and whales 591 ACK

Marc Bekoff – Smile of a dolphin                                        591.5 SMI

Raymond Coppinger – Dogs: a startling new understanding of canine origin, behavior and evolution    636.7 COP

Rainer F. Foelix--Biology of spiders
Roger Fouts – Next of kin: what chimpanzees have taught me about who we are           599.885 FOU

Deborah Gordon – Ants at work: How an insect society is organized                             595.796 GOR

Sue Halpern – Four wings and a prayer: encounters with monarch butterflies               595.789 HAL

Paul Hillyard – Book of the spider: from arachnophobia to the love of spiders                  595.44 HIL

Hoose, Phillip – The race to save the Lord God Bird                                                        598.72 HOO

A. Peter Klimley – Secret life of sharks                     597.315 KLI

Mark Kurlansky – Cod: biography of a fish that changed the world                               333.956 KUR

Peter Lovenheim – Portrait of the burger as a young calf                                               636.213 LOV

Francine Patterson – Education of Koko                    599.884 PAT

Gregory Paul—The Scientific American book of dinosaurs

Robert Pyle – Chasing monarch butterflies: migrating with the butterflies of passage    595.789 PYL

Phillip T. Robinson – Life at the zoo: behind the scenes with the animal doctor              590.73 ROB

Richard Schweid – Consider the eel            597.432 SCH

***Andrew Spielman – Mosquito: a natural history of our most persistent and deadly foe   595.772 SPI

Robt. Sullivan – Rats: observations on the history and habitat of the city’s most unwanted inhabitants   599.35 SUL

Gilbert Waldbauer – What good are bugs    595.717 WAL

Samantha Weinberg – Fish caught in time: the search for the coelacanth                        597.39 WEI

Marie Winn – Redtails in love: a wildlife drama in Central Park                                   598.072 WIN

Carl Zimmer – Parasite rex                            578.65 ZIM

 

Ecology

***Rachel Carson -Silent spring                        639.969 CAR

Aldo Leopold – A Sand County almanac

John Muir—My First Summer in the Sierra (selected chapters)

Jeffrey Rothfeder – Every drop for sale: our desperate battle for water in a world about to run out      333.91 ROT

Carl Safina – Song for the blue ocean: encounters along the world’s coasts and beneath the sea        333.956 SAF

Lawrence B> Slobodkin – A Citizen’s guide to ecology                                                  577 SLO

James Speth – Red sky at morning: America and the crisis of the global environment         363.7 SPE

***Jonathan Weiner  - The Beak of the finch     575 WEI

***Edward O. Wilson – The Diversity of life (or his other books on biodiversity)

                                 The Future of life     333.95 WIL

 

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