Suggested Reading for A Level Biologists

Books

Richard Dawkins

  • The Selfish Gene
  • The Blind Watchmaker
  • Unweaving the Rainbow
  • Climbing Mount Improbable
  • The Ancestor’s Tale

Steve Jones

  • Y: The Descent of Men
  • In the Blood: God, Genes and Destiny
  • Almost Like a Whale: The 'Origin of Species' Updated 
  • The Language of the genes

Matt Ridley

  • Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters
  • The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature
  • The Language of Genes
  • Francis Crick: Discoverer of the Genetic Code
  • Nature Via Nurture: Genes, Experience and What Makes Us Human  

James Watson

  • DNA: The Secret of Life
  • The Double Helix: Personal Account of the Discovery of the Structure of DNA

Lewis Thomas

  • The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher
  • The Medusa and the Snail: More Notes of a Biology Watcher

Charles Darwin: The Origin Of Species

Armand Marie Leroi: Mutants: On the Form, Varieties and Errors of the Human Body

Barry Gibb: The Rough Guide to the Brain (Rough Guides Reference Titles)

David S. Goodsell: The Machinery of Life

Ernst Mayr: This Is Biology: The Science of the Living World

George C. Williams: Plan and Purpose in Nature

Steve Pinker: The Language Instinct

Edward O Wilson: The Diversity of Life

Primo Levi: The Periodic Table

Richard Leaky: The Origin of Humankind

Bill Bryson: A Short History of Nearly Everything

 

Magazines and Journals

  • New Scientist
  • Scientific American
  • Nature
  • Science
  • Biological Sciences Review
  • British Medical Journal
  • Any scientific articles in newspapers (eg the Guardian on Wednesday)