This book is the ultimate gift and read for autodidacts and bookworms, serving as a gateway to fantastic books of a variety of levels. Experts are chosen to introduce their field in a short paragraph, and then recommend a multitude of books to cover the subject, with a quick introductory summary of each.
There are fifteen hundred books representing over fifty topics, under the main headings of aspects of society, language and literature, the arts, science and technology, and history. Education, religion, feminism, architecture, classical music, sport, medicine, geometry, plants, and ancient history are just a sample of the available subjects covered.
Richard Dawkins heads evolution, and chooses, among others, Darwin’s “Origin Of Species”, Cronin’s “The Ant And The Peacock”, Leakey’s “The Origin Of Humankind” and his own “The Blind Watchmaker”. The entirety of the mathematics section is represented by Ian Stewart, from numbers to geometry to applied mathematics, and a few of his own works also pop up.
Language and literature covers language, classical literature, English literature, American literature, third-world literature, genre fiction (horror, fantasy, romantic fiction, et cetera), children’s literature and women and literature.
I really enjoyed making my way through this book, as it provides a way of fixing obvious short-comings (I have never once read a book on sport, and my knowledge of history outside of Australia or fantasy medieval realms is also rather lacking). The recommended texts get straight to the point of a facet of the over-all subject, therefore providing you with an easy starting place for your self-imposed study.
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