大地之上 - A fine balanced by Rohinton Mistry (Indian-born Canadian). Rate: 9, I do not remember what is the last time I read such a moved book

现代医学小史 - A Short History of Medicine by Frank Gonzalez-Crussi (Mexican). Rate: 7

Ingenious Patents Rate: 5, this book has many vague descriptions and even flaws about the mechanisms of great inventions…quickly skimed through within a day

Evolving ourselvese by Enriquez and Gullans Rate: 8. The main concept of this book is to argue that Darwin’s theory of origin is no longer hold true in modern society, where a lot of human activities drive unnatural selection and non-random mutation. The only thing I dislike is a few chapters are slightly overlapped and redundant. A book I will recommend to people with any background (especially, kids into science); a book I will revisit again and again.

Regenesis: how synthetic biology will reinvent nature and ourselves by Geogy Church and Ed Regis.

• Biosynthetic bacterium by Craig venter in the early 21th: Chemically assemble a 1.08 million base pair Mycoplasma mycoides and transplant it into an M. capricolum recipient cell. The new synthetic genome took over the old M. capricolum cell and turned it into M. mycoides.
• Biofuel used in Airplane Boeing 747: jatropha oil/algae-derived biofuel
• Corn-based ethanol

人类群星闪耀时 by Stefan Zweig. Rate: 10，Small decisions that rewrote the world history. Very fun to read, finished in a week.

无字史记 Rate:10, Out of Africa, Human sapiens evolutionary and migration history based on molucular evidence.

The unwinding: An inner story of the New America

Counselling For Toads: A psycological adventure by Robert de Board. Rate: 10 (highly recommended, a psychological book for the publics, reading it is very good for mental health). The book talks about the child ego state, which contains emotions of affection, anger, sadness, and fear; peple in the parent ego state apears to be judgemental, angry, and severe. They accuse someone, find them guilty and then, quite logically, punish them; lastly, the adult ego state is the rational, unemotional way we have of behaving. “In adult ego state, people are not driven by the old vioces from our parents or swarmped by the feeling of our childhood.” I think most of people are shifting among the three ego states at a daily basis, depending on which role we are playing in the society. It’s actually hard to be consistent with the adult ego state, when deals with friends, kids, the boss, or the partner.

另一个美国 (The Other American) by Micheal Harrington. I do not have a rate for this book. It is more like a reporter to me, revealing an astonishingly great number of normal American, like me (a poor PhD student), living under poverty and unfair allocation of resources. The book was written in 1962, but most of problems discussed in the book still exit and could project to a even worse direction.

众病之王 (The Emperor of All Maladies) by Siddhartha Mukherjee. A great book illustrates how physicians describe and treat cancer at different historical stages, backing from “Onkos” (means “mass” and “burden” in acient Greek) to nowadays deeper understandings about this type of inevitable diseases. A person good at history is usually a better predictor of future. The book gives me numerous insights of how surgery, x-ray therapy, chemo-therapy, and genetic diagosis develop for fighting cancers across centuries. Some discoveries are just accidental, some medicines that saved millions of lives are just accelerated by positive politic propaganda and welfare. For numerous people who are suffering cancers right now, I think Dr. Mukherjee provides them with a good answer about what they are really fighting for.

人生海海 - 麦家 看完书，怔住了，久久说不出话，像是经历了一生的酸甜苦辣一样那么疲惫。

如何制造一个人 by Philip Ball. Rate: 8. It is a good scientific book for both non-scientist and scientist, despite being a little lengthy in the first three chapters. At many paragraphes, the ideas are repeated given. Still, this book makes me have a deeper thought about the conflicts between ethics and modern genetic advances and tries.

大河湾 by V.S.Naipaul. Rate: 9. This book illustrates several foreigners’ lives in Africa. These new colonizers or temporary residents have somewhat mixed feelings of living in this turbulent, corrupt while rising African country with rich opportunities. Many things happended in this novel remind me of my own experience as a foreigner student in a totally different country.

毕斯沃斯先生的房子 by V.S.Naipaul. Could not finish the book. The hero’s behaviors is not sound to me.

哲学-科学-常识 by 陈嘉映. Rate: 9. As a philosophy-science book, this book sucessfully solved my long-lasting question: why did science orginate from the western world; why today’s highest academic degree is named as Doctor of Philosophy? What are the key events and people that boost the trainsition from philosophy to natural science? The book gradually adress these questions by tracing back to acient Greek philosophers Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. This book is a must read to every PhD student.

人间失格 by 太宰治. Rate: 10. 日本作家对人物的心理描写出神入化，像讲故事一样的用诙谐幽默的笔法刻画出叶藏这个复杂的人物。读完太宰治的年谱会发现，这本他自杀前一个月完成的小说其实是自传性的，记载了他本人酒池肉林，颠沛流离的一生。

Born A Crime by Trevir Noah. Rate: 7.

挪威的森林 by 村上春树. Rate: 5. 不是很喜欢这本书，纵然荤段子贯穿全文，深深的压抑感还是跃然纸上。村上是个好的storyteller，一个一个角色的死亡让故事变得尤其“震撼”，让读者心生对爱情的“敬畏”。如果木月和直子没有自杀，本书的带给人的教育意义大概和街边的黄色书籍无异。

为什么世界不会失控 by Adrian Bejan. Rate: 8. 从物理的角度分析了生命与演化。非常启智的一本书，虽然书中大量的公式看起来有点费劲。

西方哲学史 - 罗素

生命中不能承受之轻 - 米兰·昆德拉

The simple path to wealth - JL Collins

天文学入门