I tend to read in jags.  I'll go for months without reading anything, then will suddenly get an urge and read 3 or 4 books in the space of weeks.  I've been going through one of those reading jags this summer and have several books to recommend.

My preferences run toward non-fiction, so if you’re a John Grisham sort of reader you may not find my list all that interesting…

Your Inner Fish (Shubin 2008) – Dr. Shubin is a paleontologist who found himself teaching comparative anatomy at the University of Chicago.  One of his many claims to fame is the discovery of a 375 million year old fossil fish dubbed the Tiktaalik [http://tiktaalik.uchicago.edu/meetTik.html].  This critter has a head like an amphibian, but the rest of its body plan is far more fish-like.  It is a transitional fossil.

            Starting with the Tiktaalik, Shubin takes the reader on a journey of comparative anatomy, physiology and genetics that ties all life on Earth into an easy to grasp evolutionary package, and he manages to do it without talking down to his readers or losing them in a pile technical jargon.

The Drunkard's Walk (Mlodinow 2008) – If there were one book that folks in these troubled times should be required to read, it's this one.  There is no more mistreated field in science than statistics and it's largely because we humans want to believe that everything has meaning and accidents don't happen- that we really do have a statistically significant chance at the lottery, if we just keep playing the same number…

            Dr. Mlodinow is a physicist who teaches at CalTech, was a fellow at the Max Planck Institute, and has co-authored a book with Stephen Hawking, but his credits also include writing for MacGyver and StarTrek:TNG.  It's probably this eclectic resume that gives Mlodinow the skill set to tackle the fundamental disconnect between the way things happen in our world and the way we often interpret them.  He looks at everything from roulette wheels and baseball statistics, to the stock market and demonstrates quite convincingly how each is less about skill, than it is about randomness, normal distributions and standard deviations.  And he does it with far more elegance and accessibility than I can do justice to in any review I might try to write.

Living With Bugs (DeAngelis 2009) – This is less a sit down and read cover to cover book than it is a primer on not panicking.  There are a lot of bugs out there and a lot of folks selling stuff to spray on them.  The pest management industry puts a lot of time and energy into trying to make us feel icky about insects and the net consequence is an environment full of chemicals that are just as icky, if not more so.

            Dr. DeAngelis is an entomologist and professor emeritus at Oregon State University.  He knows a bit about pest management.  Living With Bugs takes a look at the most common "bugs" likely to turn up in one's home and provides a critique of the choices that are out there, focusing on, as DeAngelis puts it, "the least-toxic solutions."

The Dangerous World of Butterflies (Laufer 2009) –  Dr. Laufer is a journalist who's spent most of his career reporting on political conflicts in Iraq, and Eastern Europe.  Laufer's previous book, an examination issues related to American Soldier's in Iraq, had left him worn out.  During a book signing event, he was asked what his next book would be about.  He jokingly answered, "flowers and butterflies".  The remark did not go unnoticed and soon Laufer is invited to a butterfly sanctuary in Nicaragua where he discovers that even the world of butterflies is full of politics, intrigue, criminality and violence.

            Because Laufer is a journalist, rather than a scientist, he avoids the pitfalls that come with being too close to the subject.  If anything, he's too objective.  I come to many of these issues with my own set of opinions and I found myself wanting him to take a side.  He has a frustrating knack for empathy, even for poachers, thieves and Bill O'Reilly.  But never in a way that made me want to put the book down and not pick it up again.

Next in the pile River of Doubts (Millard 2005) which, according to the back cover, is an account of Teddy Roosevelt's grand adventure to an unmapped part of the Amazon Wilderness after his final electoral defeat in 1912.

I also read Forty Years Afield (Contreras 2009), but given that I am one of many in his cast of characters for the memoir, I feel my bias would show in any review…