This is only about 1% complete. Before long I'll have to add some fancy code to make it manageable.
Good ones to start with are the seminal The Selfish Gene and the little gem River out of Eden .
Dennett is in my opnion the greatest living philosopher. My favorites are Consciousness Explained , Darwin's Dargerous Idea and the collection The Mind's Eye which he and Douglas Hofstadter edited and contributed to.
If you still haven't read Gun's Germs and Steel, get right at it! Also highly recommend The Third Chimpanzee which is, of course, us!
One of the greatest living physicists with an extraordinary gift for writing. If you really want to understand modern physics, I recommend The Road to Reality, but it's hard work. There's also the somewhat easier The Emperor's New Mind which brilliantly explains much of modern science and mathematics in order to then be able to present his radical but unlikely hypothesis of how the human mind works. For physics read Penrose, for the mind read Pinker and Dennett!
His book The Language Instinct is the best single book on the nature of human language and How the Mind Works covers exactly that, brilliantly.
Hard Science Fiction is that sub-genre of Science Fiction which uses known or possible science in interesting ways to create the story. As Stephen Hawking said: It’s really the only fiction that is realistic about our true position in the universe as a whole.
My favorites are Blood Music and Moving Mars .
All of Cory's books are available free on the Web. I've bought physical copies of my favorites for the pleasure of lending and re-reading. If you want a really great fast read, check out Little Brother .
Forward is not the best writer, but his ideas are extraordinary!
Too many favorites to choose!
My favorites are Diamond Age and Snow Crash but I love all of his work!
An extraordinary and diverse writer! I particularly like Singularity Sky and Accelerando which is available as a free download. I can't believe how much I'm liking his geeky, lovecraftian "laundry" stories, beginning with The Atrocity Archives .
An extraordinary stylist. I especially like his short stories, which are always out of print because publishers never print enough. The collections of his stories are The Persistence of Vision, Picnic on Nearside and Blue Champagne. If you can find 'em, buy 'em; otherwise borrow 'em.
Vernor Vinge is God. I read everything he writes and can't believe how good it all is.
Especially The Left Hand of Darkness and The Dispossessed .
Especially his short stories and the two novels Venus Plus X and Godbody