Richard Dawkins's Reading List

"But the best new book I have read is Daniel Dennett’s “Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking.” A philosopher of Dennett’s caliber has nothing to fear from clarity and openness. He is out to enlighten and explain."

"Less well known, but very good in their different ways, are J. Anderson Thomson’s “Why We Believe in God(s),” a psychologically informed analysis of what J. L. Mackie called “The Miracle of Theism,”"

"Sean Faircloth’s “Attack of the Theocrats!,” a chillingly well-researched unmasking of the contemporary political threat to America’s noble secular tradition."

"The greatest novel to come out of Kenya is, in my admittedly limited opinion, one of the great novels of the English language, and it is lamentably neglected by literary connoisseurs: Elspeth Huxley’s “Red Strangers,” a saga sweeping through four generations of a Kikuyu family."

"Geraldine Elliot listened to the folk tales of the Ngoni people further south (where I lived after my family moved from Kenya), and she produced a beautiful series of children’s books which I adored. “The Long Grass Whispers,” “Where the Leopard Passes” and others are fables of animal wiles and trickery."

"“The Long Grass Whispers,” “Where the Leopard Passes” and others are fables of animal wiles and trickery, a kind of African Brer Rabbit and Brer Fox."

"I didn’t know children were expected to have literary heroes, but I certainly had one, and I even identified with him at one time: Doctor Dolittle, whom I now half identify with the Charles Darwin of Beagle days. This gentle, kindly naturalist, who could talk to nonhuman animals…"

"The obvious, and true, answer is Darwin’s “Origin,” but I didn’t read the book itself until after its message had changed my life by secondary routes."

"The obvious, and true, answer is Darwin’s “Origin,” but I didn’t read the book itself until after its message had changed my life by secondary routes."

"So I’ll go, less obviously, for a work of science fiction, Fred Hoyle’s “Black Cloud.” … I nevertheless learned more science from it, at a formative age, than one ever expects from a work of fiction."

"Both Peter Medawar and James Watson have written books on this. Called, respectively, “Advice to a Young Scientist” and “Avoid Boring People,” these are not their authors’ best books, but they offer memorable hints for success in the vocation of science."

"Both Peter Medawar and James Watson have written books on this. Called, respectively, “Advice to a Young Scientist” and “Avoid Boring People,” … Watson, in particular, has a list of quirky imperatives."

"Another first-class example of the right sort of science fiction is Daniel F. Galouye’s “Dark Universe.” Here the intuition being pumped concerns mythology and the origins of religion."

"Depending on how naïvely literalistic you are, you might be surprised to find the Bible. The King James Version, of course, and not so much on my shelves as continually off my shelves, because I open it so often: sometimes to quote it, sometimes for sheer literary pleasure — especially Ecclesiastes and the Song of Songs."

"Carl Sagan’s “Demon-Haunted World” is the best antidote I know to superstition and pseudoscience."

"Robert Axelrod’s “Evolution of Cooperation” is salutary for anybody involved in settling disputes and trying to foster cooperation. Indeed I wrote in my foreword to the revised edition: “The world’s leaders should all be locked up with this book and not released until they have read it.”"