Can I take this opportunity to put in a personal endorsement of Amazon? Before anyone says anything, no, I don't work for them, though judging by the amount I spend there I probably ought to have share options. In fact, I'm such a valued customer they even sent me a vacuum flask as a Christmas present. Their selection is huge, the delivery (usually) excellent, and the web site is a masterpiece of clarity (Just like this one). If you're in the UK, try Amazon.co.uk, but if you live in America, or just like high postal rates, the number is Amazon.com

Well, I bet you're asking, what are the formative books that have shaped my life? Read on...

Animal Liberation by Peter Singer

What a book! I'm not exactly sure what possessed me to pick it up, but I'd heard it was something of a classic for the Animal Rights movement. It begins by a philosophical explanation of why we accord rights to individuals, and concludes that this is based not on any intrinsic qualities based on the possession of a soul or a high intellect, but simply that of any sentient being -- the ability to feel pain. This must be the case, because any other distinction leads to contradictions as to special-case humans (for instance, the mentally handicapped) who would not otherwise receive better treatment than higher animals. If you accept this premise, then you have little choice but to extend compassionate treatment to at least the most advanced animals, and disqualify any scientific experiment that we would not be prepared to subject humans to.

The book proceeds to discuss the appalling treatment that animals have to endure in both the laboratory and the factory farm. It argues that animal experimentation is largely pointless -- re-running experiments to prove points that have already been well-established, or work that is so abstract as to have no practical benefits.

Often when you talk to animal lovers, it's clear they're just simply dotty about cats and dogs -- they only want to save the cute ones. Peter Singer is logically consistent enough to bypass that argument, even professing not to particularly like animals at all!

So am I a vegetarian? Umm, no. But it's only because I'm weak-willed and lack integrity, not because I'm unconvinced of the arguments. I find the whole subject of animal rights a very difficult one to bring up, even amongst people used to discussing philosophy; there's an attitude of "Don't want to think about it!" that's common when it comes to changing your diet.

The Blank Slate by Steven Pinker

Steven Pinker is something of a pinup hero for me, so I tend to read his books with the fervour and unquestioning attitude usually reserved for religious texts. But, I can't help it -- he's just too damn good! Everything he writes is scholarly, intriguing and decisively argued, and this one is no exception.
The title is a reference to a quote from John Locke, indicating that humans are born without a fixed human nature. It is therefore our environment and not our genes that determine not just the differences between people, but even the fundamentals of our behaviour. This is the doctrine that Steven Pinker wishes to tackle, and he takes on head-first what he considers to be the three Great Myths of the standard Social Science model:

• The Ghost in the Machine. The idea that there is a separate "us" controlling our actions.
• The mind-body schism. Mind and body are two fundamentally different entities, with little or no connection.
• The Noble Savage. Human nature is essentially benign, but is corrupted by society. Primitive peoples have more peaceful, co-operative lives.

The evidence is assembled and produced from various sources -- studies of identical twins reared apart, adopted children compared with natural siblings, anthropological research of different cultures and comparative brain studies.

The truth is, biology influences us a lot more than environment and upbringing. I understand why this is hard for some people to agree with, as a former believer in The Blank Slate myself. Where Pinker argues that conservatives have basically got the correct view of human nature and socialists have it wrong, I want to object too; but I can't disagree with the logic.

If you're an avid fan of evolutionary psychology like me, you won't find anything in here that's particularly controversial. But for most people, this book is bound to shake up some deeply held, semi-conscious beliefs.

Read this book for a proper understanding of human nature.

Story by Robert McKee

This recommendation is specifically for all you budding writers out there. If you've ever had any interest at all in screen writing, or just want to understand why some movies fail, this is a great book. It is not, however, a great read, and in fact the best I can say about the writing style is that at least it's transparent. No matter: the essence of a good story is not the dialogue, but the dramatic structure, and this is the book to show you how to create it. The author has his own website at www.mckeestory.com, which is a good place to check out for tips on selling a screenplay, and also gives some info on McKee's screenwriting courses.

The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins

Whenever I get into those supposed "meaningful" conversations about LUE (Life, The Universe & Everything), this is the first book I bring up to dazzle people with my erudition. As I'm usually drunk when I try and explain it I doubt it has the required effect, so here's a sober attempt to do it justice.
The book's central thesis is nothing more than an effort to reinterpret Natural Selection, taking as its starting point a Gene's Eye view of Evolution. Individual organisms wither and die, but our genetic code is immortal, passed on through generations. The bodies we currently inhabit are nothing more than highly elaborate survival machines for DNA. The logical consequence of this is that genes that are altruistic and promote the interests of others at the expense of itself are unlikely to survive the onslaught of Evolution, whereas those that ruthlessly promote themselves will fare rather better. Hence the title, The Selfish Gene. In truth, the argument is more subtle than I've explained it here, and Dawkins goes on to explain how limited altruism still can play a role via an extension of game theory and The Prisoner's Dilemma to animals (if that's Greek to you, then definitely read this book). The author is not the died-in-the-wool genetic determinist he is sometimes portrayed as, although it has to be said that his style is abrasive and sarcastic, and not to everyone's taste. Needless to say I find him hysterically funny, although I'm sure some of the comedy is unintended. One to impress people at dinner parties with.

The End of History and The Last Man by Francis Fukuyama

Hmm. This book was pilloried by the critics when it came out, but I'm going to stick my neck above the parapet and praise it anyway. I read The End of History as an idealistic politics undergraduate, and it's had a profound effect on my thinking ever since. The basic premise is thus: With the collapse of Communism, Liberal Democracy has taken on all-comers in the ideological world, especially during the turbulent 20th Century , and emerged triumphant. History as a battle of competing world views is effectively over. A democratic free market system is quite simply the most satisfactory way to organize a society's political and economic structures. Perhaps what put some off the theory was the philosophical baggage that came with it. Fukuyama attempts to justify his belief with the aid of a particular interpretation of Hegel's master/slave dialectic (and if you don't know what that is, I won't even begin to explain).
Those critics who say the theory has already been disproved have not understood it (take your bow, Jeremy Paxman). The author acknowledged that some states would fall by the wayside, but over the next hundred years, the clear trend that has already started towards classic liberal values would continue unchecked.
A masterpiece of analysis of our pessimism, like The Selfish Gene, the argument is both stronger and subtler than it's given credit for. Time and again, Fukuyama acknowledges valid criticism from both the left and right, but still manages to make his own vision distinctive. Even if you don't end up agreeing with him, this book will make you think.

Weaving the Web by Tim Berners-Lee

First off, this is not a fully-featured biography of the creator of the World Wide Web; anyone looking for the personal story of how One Man Changed the World will be sorely disappointed. Essentially the book has two parts - how the Web was made, and the author's current job and predictions for the future. Much of the former revolves around the drafting of technical standards, such as HTML, http and URLs, and it would be fair to say that here the details are not shyed away from. What came as a shock to me is the extent of the rivalries in the early days. Tim is too well-mannered to bitch, but he clearly despises the Netscape founders for attempting to usurp the Web (interesting to read a story of Microsoft as the Good guys!)
Where the book does succeed is capturing the beauty of the web; data stored in a completely unordered fashion, linked only by virtue of its connections to other data. Fascinating to think that this technology is just over ten years old, and one man created it almost single-handedly.

Don't agree with what I've said? write in!