Here's an Idea -- What Are Your Favorite 'Big Idea' Books?

I'm not a wide-ranging reader anymore. With the passing years, I've pretty much finished reading most genre fiction, no contemporary bios, no cookbooks, and no works intended for readers outside my Adult age group. I hang around in the literary fiction, historical bio, and modern physics for the layperson end of the pool. But then I realized, after having just discovered there's a label for it, I like "Big Idea" books.

Books like:

William H Calvin's The River That Flows Uphill
Douglas Hofstadter's Godel, Escher, Bach
Some of Michio Kaku's "The Future of. . .(name a science discipline)" more speculative works
The Information: A History, A Theory, A Flood by James Gleick, also his Chaos: Making a New Science

And now I'm reading my LTER book which looks like it's going to be my newest favorite "Big Idea" book: Life on the Edge: The Coming of Age of Quantum Biology.

What about you? Got any "Big Ideas" you want to share?

Many years ago I got a lot of pleasure from Capra's The Tao of Physics and The Turning Point.

>2 Jim53:
Haven't read those but I've heard of the first book.

It occurred to me that some historians are Big Idea writers, more so than one finds in reading historical biographies. I'm thinking of Barbara Tuchmann and wondering if Doris Kearns Goodwin falls into the Big Idea category. I've only read her book on Lincoln and his cabinet.

That quality of telling a story with a point that's centered on a theme and that synthesizes unconnected dots into a new design can be a Big Idea.

Some books have the potential of the Big Idea but somehow fall short. Skloot's The Immortal life of Henrietta Lacks, the widely read story of the family descended from the posthumous donor of the HeLa cells that proliferate in medical and biological research is one that to my mind missed its chance.

>1 Limelite:

I like Michio Kaku's documentaries, is that like going to the movie rather then reading the novel for class?

The best part of the information: a history was the chapter on Ida Lovelace and Babbage. It makes me want to read more about her, and there's been a few biographies released since The Information was written that I want to check out.

My Husband read out loud some of Brian Greene's book, I think it was Fabric of the cosmos, but it was so dense I don't think I could ever read it. Some ideas just seem too big for me.

I think there are big idea books whose ideas, at least to me, are hard to explain, but seem worthwhile exploring. Would Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance count as a big idea book?

>4 wifilibrarian:

You ask some good questions. And hard ones. Don't you think if we can listen to CD books and count it as a read that we can listen to and watch documentaries from Big Idea people and count that as a "meeting of the minds"? I do. Otherwise, what are our relationships with the Great Courses recordings? Popcorn?

If you want to read more about Ada Lovelace, please take a look at Benjamin Woolley's The Bride of Science: Romance, Reason, and Byron's Daughter, reviewed by PW here. It's a very readable but not a "talk down to" biography.

Brian Greene is one of my favorite writers of books on modern physics. But I'm a shameless slut when it comes to reading in this subject. My most favorite writer in this arena is Lisa Randall. She has two grand books to her credit. There are many more whom I like, but I don't want to list them because I'd probably overlook one. Michio Kaku and Neil de Grasse Tyson are two of the heirs to Carl Sagan and his style of popularizing modern physics. Perhaps try them on for size?

The thorniest subject you bring up is whether metaphysical and near-spiritual approaches to science should be among the "Big Ideas." Here I am prejudiced against the question because I have a gut feeling that metaphysical approaches to the paradoxes of, say, certain quantum properties are really just muddled thinking by people wanting to enforce classical approaches to those behaviors by pinning down what conflicts with their classical frame of reference. I feel that way of dealing with the near incomprehensible is a product of minds that don't really comprehend the science and are trying to anthropomorphize physics to align with their view of the world, which is untestable. It reminds me of the idea, once popular, that thunder was produced by the gods' wrath. I'm not sympathetic.

Now, I think we can't exclude all philosophical thought from Big Ideas. Philosophy, of course, being the Whole Idea behind Big Ideas long before the scientific method provided a testable way to describe our world. What do you think?

I don't think what I've said here is very clear; I'm not communicating well -- it's my own muddled thinking. Sadly, it's the best I can do before breakfast.

>limelite

Thanks for your reply, it's very well communicated, much more so than mine.

I was trying to be funny, but I like that you think documentaries can be valuable. We've seen a bit of de Grasse Tyson, but for anyone who's read Brian Greene I would think it could be a bit tedious or dumbed down. Do you find that?

I hope listening to audiobooks counts for as much as reading them. I do most of my "reading" by listening to audiobooks. I find it a lot easier to absorb denser material by listening to it - to let it flow over me and to be able to repeat it several times to try to better understand the subject.

Thanks for the recommendations. I will check them out.

I think you raise excellent points, if I understand correctly I think you're referring to metaphysical proponents and their use or misuse of science to help promote their ideas. Science, specifically quantum physics, has been adopted by the metaphysical and self-help set. I'm thinking of that movie Down the rabbit hole, which does a good job of bringing all these self help ideas together. Where they probably overstep is idea that we can apply the science of quantum theories and quantum physics to our world, even our thoughts.

Isn't the theory of everything trying to find a solution to why the general laws of physics don't apply when you get down to the quantum level, and vice versa? The metaphysical set, which I have a soft spot for, seem to ignore this fact. The science isn't even there to apply to their theories.

Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance was just an example of a book I wondered if would fit this category of big idea. But it seems like big idea books are science, often phyiscs related. Books that are good at explaining important scientific ideas to the layman, does that sound right? Or do you have a philosophy or metaphysical book that'd be worthy of "big idea" status? Despite it's name, and from what I remember, Zen wasn't that metaphysical. It's main trust was quality is subjective.

I think one of the reasons I like science fiction is I can learn about the "big ideas" while being entertained, whereas reading straight non-fiction is a lot more difficult. Time travel paradoxes, multiple dimensions have been done quite well in a couple of sci-fi movies I've seen lately. Coherence and Predestination are worth checking out if you like sci-fi. And big budget wise, Interstellar had some interesting ideas even if some are still much more fiction than science. I thought the science they learned when trying to model the black hole for the film was fascinating. http://www.wired.com/2014/10/astrophysics-interstellar-black-hole/

A Brief History of Time I thought would make everything clear for the layman, but it was still well over my head and turned me off reading Stephen Hawking's other "simple" book, The Universe in a Nutshell.

If a big idea book is one that does a good job of explaining overarching concepts or trends of activity then these might meet your definition:

Infrastructure: A Field Guide to the Industrial Landscape -basically an explanation of the how and why of just about anything you see in the world around you that has anything to do with technology. Good pictures and text.

War - Dyer's book is a good overarching history/discussion of this activity.

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions - Kuhn's book has it's supporters and detractors but, as someone who has spent his life in this arena of human endeavor, I still think it is the best short summary of the issue I have read.

All Aboard! The Railroad in American Life - A good one volume book on the way the railroad impacted/shaped the American cultural landscape.

and all three of Tufte's books

The Visual Display of Quantitative Information
Envisioning Information
Visual Explanations

All of his books focus on the art of converting data into information via graphical means.

A History of Warfare presented a good view into why we resort to war as a solution, in what contexts, from ancient history up to the present.

>6 wifilibrarian:

Wish I could say I've watched Tyson's TV show, but confess the only time I do watch him is when he's on Bill Mahr. True confession over.

It's hard for me to discuss TOE (theoretical physics) and metaphysics in the same breath because I don't understand metaphysics at all. It's a gap in my comprehension like sociology is for me, too. But I think if philosophy is the first "school" of Big Ideas, folks will believe then "Zen" has to be included in that category. But is it really a philosophy? I'll have to leave that to students of Pirsig's book. I'm not one of them. I got my Socrates, Aristotle, and Plato by reading Durant, later, like you, by listening to recordings of their writings and later still to listening to the Great Courses discuss their meaning. So, yeah, I'm a fan and a disciple of recorded books.

The unified field theory (what is sometimes called Theory of Everything) is really at its most basic, just the idea that there is an underlying explanation of how Nature works that needs no further underlying explanation. Brian Greene is a leading physicist in string theory, and he thinks it may be that last underlying theory. Maybe why you find him "hard" is because his orientation when he writes books is -- if you will -- one step beyond quantum theory. Wonder if they've made any sci-fi films about string theory? Not sure how a director would make that entertaining. I couldn't. It's too much like taking cod liver oil by mouth.

>7 Cecrow:

I'm sorry you found Hawking's book tough going. I don't know how old you are or what your career path has been, but if you want to take another stab at it when you're older, try it in small bites. I bought the book when it was first published when I visited Princeton U. book store. Being there must have put me in the mood, 'cause I stayed up late into the night and read it cover to cover, I was so excited by it.

I haven't read "Hist. of War." Thanks for the link. If there was ever a need to understand something, war is the subject, I guess.

>8 alco261:

Thanks for the book list. I know I'd like Kuhn's book. The RR book appeals to me on several levels, one of them is it sounds like it may be revealing how we Americans got to be the people we are. So much of our formative influences seem to revolve around transportation. Look how most Americans feel about their cars. Not quite as crazy as their feelings for their guns. Now THAT is a subject I'd like somebody to write a Big Idea book about.

Wish I could say something about Tufte's books but I'm totally ignorant of them. I imagine, though, that if you haven't read "The Information" you'll enjoy it.

Even though I didn't care for the way Jared Diamond formatted or organized his book (repetitiveness) I think Guns, Germs, and Steel is one of those Big Idea books. Your thoughts?

I'm not sure of exactly what a big idea book is--must it have to do with science? If so, then Einstein's Space and Van Gogh's Sky, Wholeness and the Implicate Order, and The Fabric of the Cosmos are very much in line with most of the other books mentioned here. It's been a long time since I read the first so won't absolutely vouch for it, though I adored it at the time and it's particularly interesting for being a collaboration between a physicist & a psychologist. The other two are rewarding, though heavy going.

Oh, and The Principles of Psychology and, of course, The Interpretation of Dreams.

In fiction, perhaps His Master's Voice. And, though probably best read before one's early 20's, The Magic Mountain. (I suspect you're well over that age--'with the passing years' sounds like the words of someone well into middle age at least, though at a stretch it might be said by an exceptionally world-weary person in his 40's--but still if you've not read it it could set you musing & so be worth a go.)

>12 bluepiano:

As a fan of literary fiction and so-called "important" authors, like Thomas Mann, I believe that the way we insert Big Ideas as painlessly as possible into our everyday lives is mostly accomplished through reading fiction. One of my favorite novels is Buddenbrooks. Haven't attempted "Mountain" but want to.

I don't think all the Big Idea books are science; it just seems that scientists are the ones tackling the Big Questions. But I think books about why mankind seems to have a basic need for beauty in his life and ways of expressing that need by creating it in his world is probably a subject that qualifies as a Big Idea. I read a small book, The Divine Proportion by H E Henley about the relationship between mathematics and aesthetics. But I guess we're skirting science again.

Germs, Guns, and Steel is a good book and I think it meets your criteria. The book on the same subject which I enjoyed even more was Plagues and Peoples.

>14 alco261:

Well, on that rec, I shall have to add "P & P" to my mental TBR pile. My tree and e-book TBR piles are tilting dangerously.

As a kid, I remember reading a book about scientists and doctors who discovered the causes of diseases, mostly the jungle variety, like yellow fever. Wish I could remember the title. It's embarrassing because while I know the book made a huge impression on me and formed me, I can't remember the title of a work that had a lot to do with who and what I became.

Ring a bell anybody?

Maybe The Microbe Hunters?

I am reading The Chlorine Revolution, it is officially about the development of clean water supplies but it is the est coverage of the development of germ theory that I have seen.

>16 alco261:

That's it! Thanks.

Not sure if all of these qualify, but my list would include:

A People's History of the United States - Howard Zinn

The Doors of Perception and Heaven and Hell - Aldous Huxley (anything by this author, really - including his fiction)

Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance - Noam Chomsky

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and Lila - Robert M. Pirsig

Everything Bad is Good for You: How Today's Popular Culture is Actually Making Us Smarter by Steven Johnson

Mystery Train: Images of American in Rock 'N' Roll Music - Greil Marcus

Rock and the Pop Narcotic - Joe Carducci

As the list progresses, it moves from subjects of general to subcultural importance, but these are all books that articulated ideas that were important to me (and it's my list, so there you go).

>11 Limelite: ff.

Guns, Germs, and Steel is on my TBR list for this year, so we'll see how it stacks up for me against the titles I've listed above.

>19 artturnerjr:

Glad you listed those because I had been thinking about the idea that Big Ideas can be personal epiphanies, too. I was hesitant to entertain it since my original thinking was more on lines of Big Ideas for All Mankind. As a fan of both their personalities when I read about them after sampling some of their works, I think Will and Ariel Durant's approach to the humanities in their series, "The Story of Civilization" (in all its mega-sized volumes) is a personal epiphany Big Idea for me.

I'm glad also, because I haven't read any (but "Zen" I skimmed for reasons previously stated) that you mention. I'm aware that Zinn's book is a progressive take on American history, comprising a reoriented view of the subject to be less white male centric. That has to be a good thing. Always meant to read it; thanks for the reminder.

I wrote a review of "GG&S," as I think I already said elsewhere on LT, but warn people away from reading it until they've read and formed their own conclusions about Diamond's book. Then go take a look at my response and we can wrangle over our opinions. ;^)

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions is the most important book, as a scientist, that I ever read. Must reading for serious scientists.

Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny, by Robert Wright, author of The Moral Animal, also excellent. Nonzero is about the tedious, fitful, but inexorable rise of the human condition. Supremely well written, Wright makes complex and unconventional ideas accessible. His conclusion: civilizations rise and fall but each one gets it a little better.

Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, by Jared Diamond, about five factors that contribute to the decline of the human condition: environmental degradation, climate, friends leaving, foes arriving, dysfunctional governance. This book is a rich collection of stories of many settings, the Anasazi, The Easter Islanders, The Middle East, where he examines the consequences of these five factors. All five were part of the sad story of the Greenland Norse, a settlement that survived for 500 years before they all disappeared. The same five conditions are also present in a story about Montana ranchers. I've read four of Jared Diamond's books including Guns, Germs and Steel and Collapse was the most rewarding.

Indian Givers: How the Indians of the Americas Transformed the World, by Jack Weatherford. The Inca cultivated hundreds of varieties of potato, but only a few fed the population explosion in Europe. New World silver that Spain mined to pay its debts became the lifeblood of a new merchant economy, eclipsing the feudal system. U.S. government buildings emulate Greek and Roman architecture, but inside them the federated system of government more closely resembles the Six Nations of the Iroquois. The Post-Columbian rise of western civilization flowed from these and many other New World riches. Riches that no one expected and few notice.

Mastery by Robert Greene, author of 48 Laws of Power and The Art of Seduction, all excellent, but Mastery is a kind of summit of his works. Ambition meets life's work -- that is both the subject and Greene's achievement.

The Art Of Worldly Wisdom by Baltasar Gracian, a rich collection of aphorisms by a recalcitrant Jesuit Priest in 1600s Spain. He might have subtitled it (if he were a little more recalcitrant): things you need to know but won't find in the Bible. A sample:

Live practically. Even knowledge has to be in style, and where it is not it is wise to affect ignorance. ...adapt yourself to the present, even though the past appears better. But this rule does not apply to kindness, for goodness is for all times.

See what I mean? This from number 121, I picked it at random. This book is a goldmine. Deserves slow, repeated reading.

"A Pictorial History of American Labor" by William Cahn. It seems we're repeating history. Many Americans are facing the same issues that laborers faced after The Civil War (the beginning of the industrial revolution).

Some of my favorite "big idea" books:

The Sunflower by Simon Wiesenthal -- on the possibility and limits of forgiveness. It challenges the legitimacy of what I had always thought of as the Christian concept of forgiveness.

The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins -- an interesting take on the driving force of evolution. Somewhat dated, but a leap forward in our understanding of the processes of species development none the less.

The Swerve by Stephen Greenblatt -- popular history, but a valiant attempt to follow the rise of empiricism following the rediscovery of Epicurus's De rarum natura. I don't know if it is true you can claim the American Revolution might not have happened without it, but he makes an enthusiastic case for it.

And one purely personal: Landscape and Memory by Simon Schama. I'm not sure it qualifies as a "big idea" book but it forever altered my view on how we inhabit geography, and how it, it turn, inhabits us.

Agree about GGS!

I'm enjoying Fallen Leaves: Last Words on Life, Love, War, and God by Will Durant. It's his reflections of reading and writing about history for his entire life.

My computer burped and suddenly a whole lot of new posts.

Impressive list of books everyone's mentioned. It got me thinking about what books should be included in a Library for the Sustenance of Humanity, a digitized collection of Big Ides necessary to transport a civilization to new worlds so that it doesn't have to re-invent the wheel. Wouldn't that be an interesting mental game? Sort of like 'which 5-10 books would you rescue in a house fire' and 'which 5-10 books would you take to a desert island.'

Only this time, you wouldn't be picking books for yourself, you'd be picking them for humanity so that it would have the best and most vital Deep Thoughts of the Great Thinkers' BIG IDEAS preserved for future generations whether in a Doomsday scenario or an intra-gallactic exploration one.

So -- You are the Director of the Intragallactic Exploratory and Settlement Commission, chairing the sub-committee, "Mankind's Necessities for the Continuation of Civilization and Learning." You can digitize only 20 Big Idea Books since the beginning of human writing. What are they?

I hope they won't all be technical manuals, how-to, and self-help books! Let's assume those are already digitized. Or happily destroyed in some asteroid belt. Anyway, please post your selections. Don't worry if you can't think of 20. Worry if you can think of many more than 20!

I'm seeing Will Durant's name come up a lot here. H.P. Lovecraft (a favorite of mine) was an admirer of his - he used to recommend Durant's The Story of Philosophy to friends. Onto the list it goes!

>20 Limelite:

I'm aware that Zinn's book is a progressive take on American history, comprising a reoriented view of the subject to be less white male centric. That has to be a good thing. Always meant to read it; thanks for the reminder.

My pleasure. That's a book that changed my worldview as profoundly as anything I've ever read; I cannot recommend it highly enough.

I wrote a review of "GG&S," as I think I already said elsewhere on LT, but warn people away from reading it until they've read and formed their own conclusions about Diamond's book. Then go take a look at my response and we can wrangle over our opinions. ;^)

Okay, will do. :)

>29 artturnerjr:

I think I was 15 or 16 when I read The Story of Philosophy. To this day, I think that was the book that formed my adult thinking mind. Until then, I was a child. Your opinion of Zinn's "History" strikes a similar chord. Tells me I mustn't falter in my vow to read it!

Look forward to hearing what you think of "GG&S." Happy reading!