I've been on a science kick lately. Specifically, biology/evolution, abiogeneesis, and cosmology.

I recently listened to Neil deGrasse Tyson's "Astrophysics for People in a Hurry," and right now I'm listening to Carl Sagan's "Cosmos." Yes, I know they are/were both liberal as the day is long, but I'm in it for the science,
not the politics. (Yes, audio books. I spend more time driving than I typically have to sit and read. I do what I must to get my book fixes. Don't judge me .)

Can anybody recommend some good books on biology or space, preferably by nerds like me that get excited about this shit? Doesn't have to be audio books.

Thanks.

Universe in a nutshell

Also look up the great courses.

I don't see how you are going to get much out of a technical audio book while driving.

Thanks.

See last line of OP

I am on my second Stephen Hawking book, I am a big fan, especially for someone who doesn't have a high understanding of the subjects. Lawrence Krause is good too, look up Fear of Physics.

One book I have mentioned on here before that I really enjoyed is "The Disappearing Spoon."  It's sort of a bunch of short stories on how the discovery of the elements and periodic table developed over time.  Not real technical, but more of a history book in a way.

Sounds great. I'll check it out.

Sagan, Pale Blue Dot.  

The single most moving and thought provoking first 4 chapters of a book that I have ever read.  The remainder of the book tends to be about the Voyager program, which is of course really cool, it is not as "moving".  



The Elegant Universe, Greene.

It will introduce you to dimensional thought and how we perceive our universe.  

Both work as audio books.

Relativity: The Special and the General Theory by Albert Einstein.

Check librivox.  They had Einsteins theory of relativity book in their with several other, heavy stuff.

Not a book but check out the Titanium Physicists podcast. I like to listen to it on long drives. Usually an episode a month that's an hour or two long. 

Coming in way late, but The Science of Discworld.

Half Discworld wizards up to the usual, half explanatory science, all twisted together.  Creation, Evolution, literature - old William of course - and the cosmos.

“As humans, we have invented lots of useful kinds of lie. As well as lies-to-children ('as much as they can understand') there are lies-to-bosses ('as much as they need to know') lies-to-patients ('they won't worry about what they don't know') and, for all sorts of reasons, lies-to-ourselves. Lies-to-children is simply a prevalent and necessary kind of lie. Universities are very familiar with bright, qualified school-leavers who arrive and then go into shock on finding that biology or physics isn't quite what they've been taught so far. 'Yes, but you needed to understand that,' they are told, 'so that now we can tell you why it isn't exactly true.' Discworld teachers know this, and use it to demonstrate why universities are truly storehouses of knowledge: students arrive from school confident that they know very nearly everything, and they leave years later certain that they know practically nothing. Where did the knowledge go in the meantime? Into the university, of course, where it is carefully dried and stored.”

The Case for Mars, by Robert Zubrin.  Very interesting discussion on the manned exploration of Mars, along with an in depth discussion of an alternative mission architecture ("Mars Direct") intended to vastly reduce both the cost and technical risk involved, leading to a permanent manned presence.  Also included potential avenues for terraforming the planet.  Some of the science will be a bit outdated, as the original proposal was from the 1990s, though sadly much of the engineering is pretty much right where it was when the book was originally published.

Mike

I like Discworld.

The Great Influenza by Barry. Goes into the many aspects of the Spanish Influence of 1918, including many of the false starts and side discoveries along the way. Fascinating and terrifying.

"Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind"
by Yuval Noah Harari

Wanders a bit in the middle but generally pretty good.

That's come up on my recommended list. Thanks.

Parallel worlds by Michio Kaku &
Redefining reality by Steven Gimbel
Should both be on audible.

Associates degree (two year) level books for somone just geting started fro high school.
Bachelors degree (or Engineering BS) level books for someone with good basic understanding.

Note the Engineering style books are NOT the same as BA (or even BS specialty like chemistry, physics, electrical & electronics) books.

One of the biggest things that happens in Engineering is how we treat tests with no failures.

The statistics blow up under conventional analysis.
How do you divide by zero failures?

Engineering assigns a failure in the next time interval.

If you tested a part for a million hours (single part or cumulative on identical parts) we assign a failure in the 1,000,000 +1 interval.
And then just use 1,000,000 hours anyway.

The choice of the confidence interval is then important in computing a boundary for the failure prediction rate.
Commercial is around 60% confidence interval (CI)
High reliability uses 90%  CI.
Very high around 97% CI.
Human life safety hits a lot of '9's.'
99.99999% CI and even higher.
The weakest point is the chosen 'Activation Energy' (Ea, E sub a) of the failure mode chosen.

Just as with Civil Engineering margins we use higher and higher reliability and confidence intervals levels depending on the 'cost' of a failure.
For the most part in the USA equipment is NOT a driver.
Human life is.

It is notoriously hard to revive the dead.