There's more to life than work...
...as I'm sure you all know. Traditionally in this section of the web page people describe what the enjoy doing outside of work hours. That's too long to list here, so let me say that I also enjoy swimming in the surf, bushwalking, debate, working on my old Queenslander, and, as anyone who knows me could tell you, reading. Just about any topic will do, particularly if I can read on a hot day, sprawled out in a squatters chair in the breeze, with a cold drink beside me, and a thousand demented lorikeets in the background...
Aside from the physical sciences, another long-standing intellectual passion of mine is natural history, particularly the evolutionary, paleontological and anthropological branches ... oh, and chemistry ... and, of course, history, and in fiction ... well, you get the idea.
When I first wrote this back in the mid-90s, I recommended a bunch of books that are now quite dated, so for slightly more recent fun reads try:
• Any—if not all—of the books by Randall Munroe
• The First Fossil Hunters: Paleontology in Greek and Roman Times", by Adrienne Mayor. This is a thought-provoking hypothesis that's fun to read through—but as is so often the way in science—the hypothesis appears not to be supported by the facts, as Witton & Hing point out in their polite, but no less devastatingly forensic, paper.
• Endless Forms Most Beautiful: The New Science Of Evo Devo And The Making Of The Animal Kingdom by Sean B. Carroll
• Holy Sh*t: A Brief History of Swearing, by Melissa Mohr
• Catastrophes and Lesser Calamities: The Causes of Mass Extinctions by Tony Hallam
and—OK admittedly old but it has dated very well indeed—
• ABC Et Cetera: The Life & Times of the Roman Alphabet, by Alexander & Nicholas Humez
Pick some of them up, they will probably change your Weltanschauung. (Which sounds rude, but it isn't.)
