Subject Knowledge: Great books for biology teachers
Reading great books is the only shortcut to improving subject knowledge. Here, I compile a selection of books that have helped me develop as a teacher and are accessibly written. It isn’t a complete list of my favourites, and I’m sure there are many great books I’m yet to read.
Great Books
Human ecophysiology & evolution
- On Fertile Ground: A Natural History of Human Reproduction
- A Story of Us: A New Look at Human Evolution
- I, Mammal: The Story of What Makes Us Mammals
Evolution
- Song of the Dodo: Island Biogeography in an Age of Extinction
- Improbable Destinies: How predictable is evolution?
- Arrival of the Fittest: Solving Evolution’s Greatest Puzzle
- The Tangled Tree: A Radical New History of Life
- How Birds Evolve: What Science Reveals about Their Origin, Lives, and Diversity
Ecology
- Song of the Dodo: Island Biogeography in an Age of Extinction
- Spillover: The powerful, prescient book that predicted the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic
- Eager: The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter
- Rebirding: Rewilding Britain and its Birds
- Parasite Rex: Inside the Bizarre World of Nature’s Most Dangerous Creatures
- Lives of Weeds: Opportunism, Resistance, Folly
- The Story of N: A Social History of the Nitrogen Cycle and the Challenge of Sustainability
- Crossings: How Road Ecology Is Shaping the Future of Our Planet
Biochemistry / Molecular Biology
- The Vital Question: Energy, Evolution, and the Origins of Complex Life
- Power, Sex, Suicide: Mitochondria and the Meaning of Life
- Oxygen: The Molecule that Made the World
- Transformer: The Deep Chemistry of Life and Death (good if you teach Krebs cycle 16-18)
Botany
- The Life of a Leaf
- The Emerald Planet: How Plants Changed Earth’s History
- The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate: Discoveries from a Secret World
- Woodlands
- Lives of Weeds: Opportunism, Resistance, Folly
Genetics & Inheritance
- Superior: The Return of Race Science
- She Has Her Mother’s Laugh: The Powers, Perversions, and Potential of Heredity
Systems Thinking
Consciousness, cognition, intelligence
- Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness
- Metazoa: Animal Life and the Birth of the Mind
- Planta Sapiens: Unmasking Plant Intelligence
Human Biology
- The Species Seekers: Heroes, Fools, and the Mad Pursuit of Life on Earth
- The Invention of Nature: The Adventures of Alexander von Humboldt, the Lost Hero of Science
Marine Biology & Fisheries
Teaching Biology
- Biology Made Real: Ways of Teaching that Inspire Meaning Making
- Difference Maker: Enacting Systems Theory in Biology Teaching
- Teaching Meaning: What Works When Telling Isn’t Enough
Deeper Texts
Systems theory and biology
- Acting with the World: Agency in the Anthropocene
- Gaian Systems: Lynn Margulis, Neocybernetics, and the End of the Anthropocene
- Evolution from a Thermodynamic Perspective: Implications for Species Conservation and Agricultural Sustainability
