[FoRK] Annual book poll: What are you reading this holidays?

[Jeffrey Winter]

Recent:

"Power, Sex, Suicide: Mitochondria and the Meaning of Life" by Nick Lane

Probably the best general science book I've read in years.  Mitochondria

as the basis for complex life and implications of this.

"Evolutionary Dynamics: Exploring the Equations of Life" by Martin Nowak

Provides a mathematical foundation to evolution.  Starts off by deriving
natural selection from first principles.  A lot o flinear algebra.  His
grad students were behind the recent article on language evolution:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v449/n7163/abs/nature06137.html

Some of it is an extension of his seminal paper on Evolutionary Graph 
Theory:
http://www.ped.fas.harvard.edu/people/faculty/publications_nowak/nature0
5.pdf

Starting:

"Islamic Science and the Making of the European Renaissance" by George
Saliba

"Contours of the World Economy 1-2030 AD" by Angus Maddison