The Life of The Cosmos
Lee Smolin
Oxford Press, 1997
Professor Smolin makes a strong case for his theory of cosmological selection as the answer to the question of how the very particular relational values of our universe, exact to many decimal places, were arrived at and sustained; (the alternatives being a combination of infinite-worlds and the anthropic principle, or a Cosmic Designer.) The result is an awesome vsion of 'the universe' sprouting billions of new universes throughout it's matrix.

In The Beginning
The Birth of the Living Universe
John Gribbin
Back Bay, 1993
Is the Universe alive? Does it evolve? Are there other Universes? John Gribben, an astrophysicist from Cambridge University,now a full time science writer, says yes.

The Holographic Universe
Michael Talbot
Harper Collins,1991
Michael talbot mines the rich vein of the holographic metaphor for novel and exciting provisional explorations of the universe and the nature of reality. Fascinating, inspiring, and quite readable.

Consilience
The Unity of Knowledge
Edward O. Wilson
Knopf, 1998
The master has given us another very stimulating work, this time an effort to begin unifying the various streams of human knowledge, now compartmentalized to the point where we can say they are not even on speaking terms. An intriguing and important thesis, and a pleasure to read.

The Third Culture
Beyond The Scientific Revolution
John Brockman
Simon Schuster,1995

A bevy of leading edge scientists discuss their work- and each others. Very, very interesting. Includes: George C. Williams, Stephen Jay Gould, Richard Dawkins, Brian Goodwin, Steve Jones, Niles Eldridge, Lynn Margulis, Marvin Minsky, Roger Schank, Daniel C. Dennett, Nicholas Humphrey, Francicso Varela, Steven Pinker, Roger Penrose, Martin Rees, Alan Guth, Lee Smolin, Paul Davies, Murray Gell-Man, Stuart Kauffman, Christopher G. Langton, J.Doyne Farmer, and W.Daniel Hillis.

Out of Control
The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World
Kevin Kelly
Back Bay, 1993
If you haven't read Out of Control yet, do it now, before all the weird stuff starts happening and you are left mouth agape, astonished and uncomprehending. Well, that's the impression you get on reading this thoroughly fascinating survey of evolution and swarm technology and other lurkers at the border regions of biolife, a-life, and chaos. Easily readable for the non-scientist.

The End of Science
Facing The Limits of Knowledge in the Twilight of The Scientific Age
John Horgan
Addison-Wesley, 1996
Hard to believe perhaps, but this book is not a hoax.In fact, written by a staff writer for Scientific American, it is lucid, thorough and up to date- at least from the perspective of someone enclosed entirely in the current cannon of science. In other words, that such intelligent writing can be so blind and unimaginative overall is in itself enlightening. The next revised version of Thomas Kuhn's "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" should definitely mention this work as a classic of the narrowmindedness associated with the closure of paradigms; a closure which is a sure sign that others, less myopic, are already seeing the elements of the new descriptions of reality on the horizon. Here, by the way, is a real-audio discussion between John Horgan and George Johnson, author of Fire in The Mind (above) on the subject of this book. And here is Stuart Kauffman with John Horgan at HotWired Threads.

The Cosmic Serpent
DNA and the Origins of Knowledge
Jeremy Narby
Tarcher/Putnam, 1998
This is a fascinating account of a crucial convergence of Amazonian shamanism and molecular biology, in which new light is cast on the nature of our biosphere, that is, our DNA-world. Thought-provoking and very highly recommended.

Lifelines
Biology Beyond Determinism
Steven Rose
Oxford, 1998
"My task is to offer an alternative vision of living systems, a vision which recognizes the power and role of genes without subscribing to genetic determinism, and which recaptures an understanding of living organisms and their trajectories through time and space as lying at the centre of biology. It is these trajectories that I call lifelines."- Steven Rose, from the discussion at Edge.org.

Vital Dust
Life As a Cosmic Imperative
Christian De Duve
Harper-Collins, 1995
While current cannon insists that life arose from some fortuitous accidents, and further evolved by the selection of further accidents, C.DeDuve argues that "life is an obligatory manifestation of the combinatorial properties of matter". Vital dust treats the evolution of life on Earth because this is the theater of life we know, though the thrust of this work is to demonstrate that the emergeance of complexity and self organizing entities up to and including humans is an intrinsic property of the universe itself.

At Home in the Universe
The Search for the Laws of Self Organization and Complexity
Stuart Kauffman
Oxford Paperback, 1995
Stuart Kauffman is at the Santa Fe Institute; his work involves discovering the spontaneous self-organization principles of nature which underlie the manifestation of forms and systems including the most complex: life and human beings. Slightly more technical and mathematically based than Mr. DeDuve's "Vital Dust", it's a good companion volume for understanding where we are now in this exciting new science.

The Quark and The Jaguar
Murray Gell-Man
Simon and Schuster, 1994
Entertaining and enlightening, The Quark and The Jaguar demonstrates Murray Gell-Mann's legendary range and depth of subject matter deployed in illustrating the issues and notions of the new sciences of compexity- which he has dubbed "plectics". Mr. Gell-Mann is known as the discoverer of the quark, more recently he helped found the Santa Fe Institute, designed to facilitate cross-disciplinary research in chaos, complexity, and non-linear studies. The title refers to the theme of the book, which is the question,'what happens between the quark and the jaguar?'.

The Web of Life
A New Scientific Understanding of Living Systems
Fritjof Capra
Anchor Books, 1996
Fritjof Capra, writer of "The Turning Point" and "The Tao of Physics", turns his attention to the new sciences of living systems. A good tour.

The Conscious Universe
The Scientific Truth of Psychic Phenomena
Dean Radin
Harper/Edge, 1997
Radin extensively surveys the PSI research of the last years, covering consciousness fields, meta-analysis, the SRI and PEAR work for corporations and government, and is not afraid of suggesting new theories to account for experimental evidence. If you've heard about remote viewing, or the consciousness-field experiements during Lady Diana's funeral, this is the place to find out about all the latest developments, and do some thinking about the implications.

The Emporer's New Mind
Concerning Computers, Minds, and the Laws of Physics
Roger Penrose
Penguin (Oxford)1989
Roger Penrose is a mathemetician and a physicist, known for, among many other things, his work with Stephen Hawking on black holes. This volume lays the groundwork for Shadows of the Mind, and together represent Penrose's assault on the hitherto taboo subject of the human mind itself -I mean taboo to mathematicians and physicists, of course, too fuzzy. Penrose's work is impressive, although non-physicists may find it pretty dense at times.

Shadows of The Mind
A Search for the Missing Science of Consciousness
Roger Penrose
Oxford, 1994
The seat of consciousness: quantum fields maintained in microtubulin stacks in the cytoskeletal structure of cells? This is the leading edge of convergeance between consciousness and quantum science; this is a hip topic. Penrose is a 'hard' scientist though, and this is the work that underlies alot of the fuzzybuzz out there.

The Spiritual Universe
Fred Alan Wolf
1996
A more popularized- and easier to read, extrapolation from the convergeance of quantum studies and consciousness studies. Not as rigorous as one might wish.

Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth
Lovelock, James E.
Oxford University Press, 1979, 1987
Lovelock's original exposition of the Gaia Hypothesis. See review of the Gaia Hypothesis at this site

The Ages of Gaia
A Biography of Our Living Earth
Lovelock, James E.
W.W. Norton & Co. 1988
An updated presentation of the Gaia Hypothesis, in light of research done in the intervening years since publication of "A New Look at Life on Earth" in 1979. See review of the Gaia Hypothesis at this site

Healing Gaia
Lovelock, James E.
London: Gaia Books,1991
A large format book, heavily illustrated with schematisations of Gaian processes. Very helpful in understanding how it all works as one. Perhaps misleadingly titled. A good reference.

Microcosmos
Lynn Margulis and Dorian Sagan,
Simon & Schuster, 1991 (Touchstone Books)
Lynn Margulis, a leading microbiologist, shares the mantle of introducing the Gaia Hypothesis with James Lovelock. Understanding Gaia begins with understanding the microbial universe which constitutes the vast preponderance of life by weight and volume on the planet earth. Microcosmos deals with these tiniest lifeforms, discovering the origins or multicellular life, and the dynamics of the gaian environment. Enlightening and entertaining, fast reading and punchy.

The Biophilia Hypothesis
edited by Stephen R. Kellert and Edward O. Wilson
Island Press 1994
See review of The Biophilia Hypothesis at this site.

Vitality, Energy, Spirit
A Taoist Sourcebook
Thomas Cleary
Shambala, 1991
Thomas Cleary has translated a number of ancient Chinese sources, Taoist and Buddhist. His I Ching(Shambala, 1986) is not to be missed. Vitality , Energy, Spirit, is composed of crystal Cleary translations of primary Taoist texts regarding The Tao, early Chi-Kung and other Taoist yogas, and society in general. Beautiful.

Emotional Intelligence
Daniel Goleman
X press 1995
Dan Goleman is a science editor with the New York Times. Before that, he was an editor at Psychology Today. I met him in the late sixties, when he taught a course at Harvard in Vipassna Meditation; I was one of his students. Dan had been with the Neem Karoli Baba in India, along with Richard Alpert (Ram Dass) and others. So Dan brings a lot to this critical subject; I found this fascinating reading.

The Cosmic Serpent:
DNA and the Origins of Knowledge
Jeremy Narby
Tarcher/Putnam, 1998
This is a fascinating account of a crucial convergence of Amazonian shamanism and molecular biology, in which new light is cast on the nature of our biosphere, that is, our DNA-world. Thought-provoking and very highly recommended.

Their Sacred, Healing, and Hallucinogenic Powers
Richard Evans Schultes and Albert Hoffman
McGraw Hill 1979; now: Healing Arts Press, 1992
This generously illustrated book is a major jewel; weaving from cultural history to chemistry, from the botanical to exstasis and the human spirit. I can't say enough, so I won't try. Here's something from the back cover:
"Carefully researched, beautifully written, and abundantly illustrated, this book reminds us that the use of psychedelic plants has been a fundamental part of human experience for millenia."- Michael R. Aldrich,Ph.D., Curator, Fitz Hugh Ludlow Library.

The Sacred Mushroom Seeker
Essays for R.Gordon Wasson
Edited by Thomas Riedlinger
Dioscorides Press 1990
A wealth of good writings about the life and studies of the fascinating founder of ethnomycology, Gordon Wasson. Subjects include Maria Sabina and Carlos Casteneda, and contributors include Albert Hoffman, Richard Schultes, and Jonathan Ott- many stories, many voices. Very interesting.

One River
Explorations and Discoveries in the Amazon Rainforest
Wade Davis
Simon & Schuster,1996
Both a rich and fascinating account of Amazonian exploration and an illuminating meditation on the life of Mr Wade's mentor, Richard Schultes. From the back jacket:
"Beautifully and meticulously written, One River captures as no other book the adventure of ethnobotany, and in so doing portray's a true hero of science, Richard evans Schultes, one of the last great explorer naturalists."- Edard O. Wilson, Harvard University.
"Wade Davis, one of our most lyrical nature writers, has written the definitive book about the South American rainforest...One River is a spellbinding account of magical places, plants, and people." - Andrew Weil.

Earth in The Balance
Ecology and The Human Spirit
Al Gore
Houghton Mifflin, 1992
Earth in the Balance is one of the most thoughtful, articulate, and hard-hitting surveys of the human predicament vis a vis nature. Mr Gore speaks eloquently about the need to heal our "disfunctional relationship with the earth". A classic and important work, engaging and easy to read. (10 years on, one must wonder what happened to Mr. Gore's passion.)

The Case against the Global Economy
Jerry Mander, Edward Goldsmith
X press 1996
This is a colection of in-depth analyses by different authors of various aspects of "globalization". A very rewarding resource. Recommended highly.

One World, Ready or Not
The Manic Logic of Global Capitalism
William Greider
Simon & Schuster 1997
The Leviathan behind Gatt and Nafta.

Our Stolen Future
Are We Threatening Our Fertility, Intelligence and Survival?- A Scientific Detective Story
Coleburn, Dumanoski, and Meyers
Dutton, 1996
This is an investigation into a type of pollution the importance of which can hardly be overstated: long lived hormone-mimicing compounds which derail, among other things, all organisms'- including humans'- sexual development. A must read.

The Way: An Ecological World View
Goldsmith, Edward.
Shambhala,1993.
A bit dense, but very worthwhile if you can handle it.