Books (Optional)

Writing Technique

• Elements of Style, William Strunk and E. B. White
• On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, Stephen King

Astronomical and Physical Context

• The Physics of Star Trek, Lawrence Krauss

Evolution

• The Origin of Species, Charles Darwin
  (available as free ebook and from the UT library system)
• The Descent of Man, Charles Darwin
  (available as free ebook and from the UT library system)
• The Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins
  (available electronically from the UT library system)
• Social Conquest of Earth, E. O. Wilson
  (available as audiobook from UT library)
• The Dawn of the Deed: The Prehistoric Origin of Sex, John A. Long
• Lone Survivors: How We Came to Be the Only Humans on Earth, Chris Stringer
• The 10,000 Year Explosion : How Civilization Accelerated Human Evolution, Gregory Cochran
  (available electronically from UT library)
• Sex at Dawn: How We Mate, Why We Stray, and What It Means for Modern Relationships, Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jethá
• Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, Noah Harari

Human Population

• The Population Bomb, Paul Ehrlich
• The End of Plenty, Joel Bourne

Computers

Robots

• The Second Machine Age, Erik Bynjolfsson & Andrew McAffee
• Rise of the Robots, Martin Ford
• Inventing the Future: Postcapitalism and a World Without Work, Nick Srnicek and Alex Williams

Current Status and Near Future

• The Next 100 years, George Friedman
• Physics of the Future: How Science Will Shape Human Destiny and Our Daily Lives by the Year 2100, Michio Kaku
• The Future of the Mind: The Scientific Quest to Understand, Enhance, and Empower the Mind, Michio Kaku
• The Human Age: the World Shaped by Us, Diane Ackerman
• The Collapse of Western Civilization: A View from the Future, Naomi Oreskes, Erik Conway
• This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate, Naomi Klein
• How We Got Here: A Slightly Irreverent History of Technology and Markets, Andy Kessler

Space Travel

Future

• Our Final Hour, Martin Rees
• From Here to Infinity, Martin Rees
• The Beginning of Infinity, David Deutsch
• A Many-Colored Glass: Reflections on the Place of Life in the Universe, Freeman Dyson
• X-Events: The Collapse of Everything, John Casti
• Technophobia: Science Fiction Visions of Posthuman Technology, Daniel Dinello
• The Deep Future: The Next 100,000 Years of Life on Earth, Curt Stager

Consciousness

• Cool, Steven Quartz