neil degrasse tyson's eight books every intelligent person should read

his answer from the 2011 reddit AMA, in the order he gave it. free, all of it

The Bible

The System of the World (Isaac Newton)

newton's principia, book three. not the obvious pick. his point: the universe runs by rules, not moods. worth the math you skip anyway

On the Origin of Species (Charles Darwin)

darwin's argument, paraphrased: read this and you get how related you are to literally everything alive

Gulliver's Travels (Jonathan Swift)

The Age of Reason (Thomas Paine)

The Wealth of Nations (Adam Smith)

The Art of War (Sun Tzu)

sun tzu's reasoning per tyson: turning killing into an art is still a human skill worth understanding

machiavelli's the one people quote without reading. free, all of it, on gutenberg

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