Topnotch science books

Here's an excerpt from an article Ian McEwan wrote on good prose in science books:

Steven Pinker's application of Darwinian thought to Chomskyan linguistics in The language Instinct, is one of the finest celebrations of language I know. Among many other indispensable "classics", I would propose E. O. Wilson's The Diversity of Life on the ecological wonders of the Amazon rain forest and on the teeming micro-rganisms in a handful of soil; David Deutsch's masterly account of the Many Worlds theory in The Fabric of Reality; Jared Diamond's melding of history with biological thought in Guns, Germs and Steel; Antonio Damasio's hypnotic account of the neuroscience of the emotions in The Feeling of What Happens; Matt Ridley, unweaving the pposition of nature and nurture in Nature via Nurture; and recently, the philosopher Daniel Dennett, conscious of Hume as well as Dawkins, laying out for us the memetics of faith in Breaking the Spell.

My two favourite science "classics" are: Soul of the White Ant by Eugene Marais and of course The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins.

I think I'll be reading Steven Pinker's book next.

Another list of good science books.