I tried out “A Short History of Nearly Everything” by Bill Bryson but I thought that book was such a snoozefest for me. I’m open to any fields/subjects. I was thinking maybe starting off with philosophy but I’m really open to anything
by BigPieceOfChikn
7 Comments
What didn’t you like about A Short History? Was it the topics, or the writing style?
“General knowledge” Is a very, *very* broad request. You could check out the **Very Short Introduction** series that’s put out by Oxford University. They’ve got several hundred books on basically any topic you can think of, from US history to infectious diseases to accounting.
A short history of the world by Gombrich is excellent
• Guns, Germs, and Steel – on evolution of human societies.
• The Selfish Gene/The Blind Watchmaker – Gene-centric view of evolution.
• The Silk Roads – Global history through trade.
• The Structure of Scientific Revolutions – Paradigm shifts in science.
• Gödel, Escher, Bach – Connections between math, art, logic. But basically about how consciousness arises from strange loops.
• The Gene – History of genetic science.
• Cosmos – Universe’s history and science.
• The Making of the Atomic Bomb – Birth of nuclear science trying history, science, politics together.
• The Wealth of Nations – Foundation of modern economics.
• The Better Angels of Our Nature – Decline of human violence and how the present is better than the past and the future is getting better.
I learned a bunch about a bunch of things reading Tools of Titans by Tim Ferriss.
If you’re starting off with philosophy, I recommend *Think*, by Simon Blackburn, as a general introduction to the subject.
Any book from Yuval Noah Harari. Interesting, easy to read.
They’re easy reads but anything by Mary Roach. Her writing style got me excited and interested in random topics. It’s very pop science.