“Part One, Cosmos: Adams, F., & Laughlin, G. (1999). The Five Ages of the Universe: Inside the Physics of Eternity. Free Press. Albert, D.Z. (2003). Time and Chance. Harvard University Press. Carroll, S. (2010). From Eternity to Here: The Quest for the Ultimate Theory of Time. Dutton. Feynman, R.P. (1967). The Character of Physical Law. M.I.T. Press. Greene, B. (2004). The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality. A.A. Knopf. Guth, A. (1997). The Inflationary Universe: The Quest for a New Theory of Cosmic Origins. Addison-Wesley Pub. Hawking, S.W. and Mlodinow, L. (2010). The Grand Design. Bantam. Pearl, J. (2009). Causality: Models, Reasoning, and Inference. Cambridge University Press. Penrose, R. (2005). The Road to Reality: A Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe. A.A. Knopf. Weinberg, S. (2015). To Explain the World: The Discovery of Modern Science. HarperCollins.”
“Part Two, Understanding: Ariely, D. (2008). Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces that Shape Our Decisions. HarperCollins. Dennett, D.C. (2014) Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking. W.W. Norton. Gillett, C. and Lower, B., eds. (2001). Physicalism and Its Discontents. Cambridge University Press. Kaplan, E. (2014). Does Santa Exist? A Philosophical Investigation. Dutton. Rosenberg, A. (2011). The Atheist’s Guide to Reality: Enjoying Life Without Illusions. W.W. Norton. Sagan, C. (1995). The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark. Random House. Silver, N. (2012). The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail — But Some Don’t. Penguin Press. Tavris, C. and Aronson, E. (2006). Mistakes Were Made (but not by me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.”
“Part Three, Essence: Aaronson, S. (2013). Quantum Computing Since Democritus. Cambridge University Press. Carroll, S. (2012). The Particle at the End of the Universe: How the Hunt for the Higgs Boson Leads Us to the Edge of a New World. Dutton. Deutsch, D. (1997). The Fabric of Reality: The Science of Parallel Universes and Its Implications. Viking Adult. Gefter, A. (2014). Trespassing on Einstein’s Lawn: A Father, a Daughter, the Meaning of Nothing, and the Beginning of Everything. Bantam. Holt, J. (2012) Why Does the World Exist? An Existential Detective Story. Liveright Publishing. Musser, G. (2015). Spooky Action at a Distance: The Phenomenon That Reimagines Space and Time–and What It Means for Black Holes, the Big Bang, and Theories of Everything. Scientific American / Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Randall, L. (2011). Knocking on Heaven’s Door: How Physics and Scientific Thinking Illuminate the Universe and the Modern World. Ecco. Wallace, D. (2014). The Emergent Multiverse: Quantum Theory According to the Everett Interpretation. Oxford University Press. Wilczek, F. (2015). A Beautiful Question: Finding Nature’s Deep Design. Penguin Press.”
“Part Four, Complexity: Bak, P. (1996). How Nature Works: The Science of Self-Organized Criticality. Copernicus. Cohen, E. (2012). Cells to Civilizations: The Principles of Change that Shape Life. Princeton University Press. Coyne, J. (2009). Why Evolution is True. Viking. Dawkins, R. (1986). The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe without Design. W.W. Norton. Dennett, D.C. (1995). Darwin’s Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life. Simon & Schuster. Hidalgo, C. (2015). Why Information Grows: The Evolution of Order, from Atoms to Economies. Basic Books. Hoffman, P. (2012). Life’s Ratchet: How Molecular Machines Extract Order from Chaos. Basic Books. Krugman, P. (1996). The Self-Organizing Economy. Wiley-Blackwell. Lane, N. (2015). The Vital Question: Energy, Evolution, and the Origins of Complex Life. W.W. Norton. Mitchell, M. (2009). Complexity: A Guided Tour. Oxford University Press. Pross, A. (2012). What Is Life? How Chemistry Becomes Biology. Oxford University Press. Rutherford, A. (2013). Creation: How Science is Reinventing Life Itself. Current. Shubin, N. (2008). Your Inner Fish: A Journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body. Pantheon.”
“Part Five, Thinking: Alter, T. and Howell, R.J. (2009). A Dialogue on Consciousness. Oxford University Press. Chalmers, D.J. (1996). The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory. Oxford University Press. Churchland, P.S. (2013). Touching a Nerve: The Self as Brain. W.W. Norton. Damasio, A. (2010). Self Comes to Mind: Constructing the Conscious Brain. Pantheon. Dennett, D.C. (1991). Consciousness Explained. Little Brown & Co. Eagleman, D. (2011). Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain. Pantheon. Flanagan, O. (2003). The Problem of the Soul: Two Visions of Mind and How to Reconcile Them. Basic Books. Gazzaniga, M.S. (2011). Who’s In Charge? Free Will and the Science of the Brain. Ecco. Hankins, P. (2015). The Shadow of Consciousness. Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, Fast and Slow. Farrah, Straus and Giroux. Tononi, G. (2012). Phi: A Voyage from the Brain to the Soul. Pantheon.”
“Part Six, Caring: de Waal, F. (2013). The Bonobo and the Atheist: In Search of Humanism Among the Primates. W.W. Norton. Epstein, G.M. (2009). Good Without God: What a Billion Nonreligious People Do Believe. William Morrow. Flanagan, O. (2007). The Really Hard Problem: Meaning in a Material World. The MIT Press. Gottschall, J. (2012). The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Greene, J. (2013). Moral Tribes: Emotion, Reason, and the Gap Between Us and Them. Penguin Press. Johnson, C. (2014). A Better Life: 100 Atheists Speak Out on Joy & Meaning in a World Without God. Cosmic Teapot. Kitcher, P. (2011). The Ethical Project. Harvard University Press. Lehman, J. and Shemmer, Y. (2012). Constructivism in Practical Philosophy. Oxford University Press. May, T. (2015). A Significant Life: Human Meaning in a Silent Universe. University of Chicago Press. Ruti, M. (2014). The Call of Character: Living a Life Worth Living. Columbia University Press. Wilson, E.O. (2014). The Meaning of Human Existence. Liveright.”