Best books… Adam Rutherford
The geneticist, author and presenter of Radio 4’s Inside Science chooses his favourite books. His book, How to Argue With a Racist: History, Science, Race and Reality, is published this week by W&N, priced £12.99
A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes, 2019 (Mantle £16.99). Peculiar fact: I tried and failed to become a classicist before settling on genetics, but I still consume as much classical literature as I can. Haynes is the nation’s great muse, and her latest is a retelling of the story of Troy told from the perspective of Helen and the women of The Iliad, and it is beautiful.
The Idea of the Brain by Matthew Cobb, 2020 (Basic Books £30). A working scientist, who is also a historian and an exceptional writer, Cobb is a rare jewel. His latest is a typically erudite, thrilling and thorough exploration of the most complex thing in the known universe, the one you are using right now to understand these words.
Difficult Women by Helen Lewis, 2020 (Jonathan Cape £16.99). Helen Lewis is one of the very few journalists whose every word I will read. Her debut book is “a history of feminism in 11 fights”, and makes the very solid point that the acquisition of rights for women has not always come from those who one would necessarily like – for example, the arch-eugenicist and Nazi sympathiser Marie Stopes.
Say Why to Drugs by Dr Suzi Gage, 2020 (Hodder & Stoughton £16.99) “Have you ever taken drugs?” is the opening sentence of Gage’s compelling and comprehensive guide to mind-altering substances. The answer, by the way, is yes, and has been for thousands of years, because alongside heroin, marijuana, LSD, khat and so on, that coffee you’re drinking, or the Chablis you might sup tonight, they’re drugs too. Essential.
The Body: A Guide for Occupants by Bill Bryson, 2019 (Doubleday £25). Isn’t it odd that the UK’s best science writer is a quietly spoken non-scientist from Iowa? It’s been 17 years since his masterpiece A Short History of Nearly Everything, but this is his return to science, and it is magnificent.