Matt Ridley Book Recommendations

The Selfish Gene

by Richard Dawkins

"Turned evolutionary biology on its head and was written like a great detective story." - Matt Ridley (Source)

The Double Helix

A Personal Account of the Discovery of the Structure of DNA

by James D. Watson Ph.D.

"An astonishing literary achievement, and it was about the greatest scientific discovery of the 20th century." - Matt Ridley (Source)

Freezing Order

A True Story of Money Laundering, Murder, and Surviving Vladimir Putin's Wrath

by Bill Browder

"Fascinating and frightening." - Matt Ridley (Source)

Alchemy

The Dark Art and Curious Science of Creating Magic in Brands, Business, and Life

by Rory Sutherland

"Buy this book. I loved it. It’s full of great insights." - Matt Ridley (Source)

Unravelling the Double Helix

The Lost Heroes of DNA

by Gareth Williams

"Uncovers those who almost found the secret of life." - Matt Ridley (Source)

The Origin of Species

by Charles Darwin

"[Changed] science and [reached] the public." - Matt Ridley (Source)

The Ultimate Resource 2

by Julian Lincoln Simon

"[The author] is really the god of this subject in many ways." - Matt Ridley (Source)

The Skeptical Environmentalist

Measuring the Real State of the World

by Bjørn Lomborg

"Most of the environmental trends in the world are getting better not worse." - Matt Ridley (Source)

What Technology Wants

by Kevin Kelly

"Realises that there’s an inexorability about the way technology changes and that it’s almost as if technology has its own agenda." - Matt Ridley (Source)

The Bottomless Well

The Twilight of Fuel, The Virtue of Waste, and Why We Will Never Run Out of Energy

by Peter Huber

"Points out that the cheaper energy gets the more we use." - Matt Ridley (Source)

Whole Earth Discipline

Why Dense Cities, Nuclear Power, Transgenic Crops, Restored Wildlands, and Geoengineering Are Necessary

by Stewart Brand

"Describes how one of the things he did was spawn a back-to-the-land movement with people growing their own vegetables and forming communes." - Matt Ridley (Source)

The Hockey Stick Illusion

by A W Montford

"A great piece of detective work on a key scientific blunder." - Matt Ridley (Source)

What You Want

by Constantine Phipps

"A delightful verse novel about philosophy." - Matt Ridley (Source)

One Summer

America, 1927

by Bill Bryson

"A charming account of the events of 1927 in America." - Matt Ridley (Source)

Into the Silence

The Great War, Mallory, and the Conquest of Everest

by Wade Davis

"The account of the 1920s Everest expeditions." - Matt Ridley (Source)

Cuckoo

Cheating by Nature

by Nick Davies

"Mixes hard science with soft nature in a satisfying way." - Matt Ridley (Source)

p53

The Gene that Cracked the Cancer Code

by Sue Armstrong

"[A fabulous chance] to eavesdrop on science in the making." - Matt Ridley (Source)

The Vital Question

Energy, Evolution, and the Origins of Complex Life

by Nick Lane

"A brilliant new analysis of the origin of life, by the man who has himself done more than anybody to crack the problem." - Matt Ridley (Source)

Rubicon

The Last Years of the Roman Republic

by Tom Holland

"Outstanding." - Matt Ridley (Source)

Dynasty

The Rise and Fall of the House of Caesar

by Tom Holland

"It’s fascinating on how, inch by inch, Augustus and his successors surreptitiously turned a republic into an autocracy." - Matt Ridley (Source)

The Martian

A Novel

by Andy Weir

"I loved the fact that the hero never once implies that it’s courage, spirit and faith that saves him [...] just lots of practical tinkering and problem-solving: Science the crap out of it." - Matt Ridley (Source)

My Family and Other Animals

by Gerald Durrell

Matt Ridley recommended this book in a "What Should I Read Next" interview. (Source)

The Fabric of Civilization

How Textiles Made the World

by Virginia Postrel

"A fascinating, surprising and beautifully written history of technology, economics, and culture, told through the thread of textiles." - Matt Ridley (Source)