1. The Double Helix by James Watson and 2. What Mad Pursuit by Francis Crick

Watson and Crick are undoubtedly the greatest double act in the history of biology. They’re the yin and yang of the discipline. The Statler and Waldorf of wooly hypotheses. Our scientific forebears have reputations which precede them and that will outlive us all. So it is nice to hear them wax lyrical on science. Somebody once said that reading a book was like borrowing someone else’s brain for a while. I’d say I agree with that. You get to think who they think, feel how they feel, and experience what they experience. Who better to read to get a handle on molecular biology malarky than the guys who discovered DNA.

These books tell the story of their fateful discovery, albeit from slightly differing perspectives. Watson and Crick each describe the circumstances in which this early cutting edge research occurred, including the controversial access they had to Rosalind Franklin’s data. These books offer an important lesson to a young scientist not covered in the curriculum: The importance that factors such as personality and ego play in the world of research.

Read these to get a perspective on how discoveries are made and to see how ego and personality play large roles in research.

3. Time, Love, Memory by Jonathan Weiner

During my first semester, a friend loaned me this book about the pioneering work of pioneering geneticists such as Thomas Hunt Morgan and the content lead me to consider for the first time what I believe to be one of the biggest practical problems faced by modern Molecular Biologists with an interest in genetics. The whole field is moving so fast that when you arrive in the lab as a newbie it can be very difficult to pick up. It’s like going into a movie halfway though and being expected to fully understand the plot, subtext and interactions between all the characters immediately.

As a student, you are dropped in the deep end of the pool and expected to learn how to swim quickly. This book provides some extremely useful historical context to the kind of work happening all over the world today. There’s a lot of interesting descriptions of the kinds of behavioural genetics experiments performed on Drosophila, and after all who doesn’t love a bit of Drosophila chat?

Read this if you’ve ever wondered where all those bizarre gene names come from.

4. Virolution by Frank Ryan

Did you know that the evolution of all life on earth is driven by a host-parasite co-evolutionary arms race? That’s an unprovable hypothesis, but a compelling case is presented for it in this text. In addition to some pretty esoteric pondering as to where life comes from, the author also provides interesting examples of viruses in action, including the fish that spontaneously get sick and die from a virus hidden in their own DNA, which becomes activated when the fish move beyond reproductive age helping to maintain a sustainable population in the ecosystem.

Read this if you’re ready to accept that viruses may actually be our buddies when it comes to evolution.

5. Cantor’s Dilemma by Carl Djerassi

This is the only piece of fiction on the list. A novel in the emerging genre of lab lit. While shows like CSI have developed an unrealistic expectation of what science can achieve and the ease with which it does it, the ever growing corpus of this genre manages to depict science in a more realistic way while retaining the drama and entertainment one expects from a good book. This book provides an interesting insight into the human aspect of research and explores some of the ethical issues that can arise for young scientists.

Read this for some academic intrigue, for a meditation on research ethics or for some quiet relaxation over a cup of tea.