Biology books
These Biology books are recommended by Art of Problem Solving administrators and members of the AoPS Community.
Levels of reading and ability are loosely defined as follows:
- Elementary is for elementary school students up through possibly early middle school.
- Getting Started is recommended for students grades 6 to 9.
- Intermediate is recommended for students grades 9 to 12.
- Collegiate is recommended for college and university students.
More advanced topics are often left with the above levels unassigned.
Contents
Books by subject
Botany
Elementary
- A Seed Grows : My First Look at a Plant's Life Cycle by Pamela Hickman, Heather Collins (Illustrator).
Intermediate
- Botany in a Day: The Patterns Method of Plant Identificationby Thomas J Elpel.
Ecology
Collegiate
- Foundations of Ecology : Classic Papers with Commentaries by Leslie A. Real (Editor), James H. Brown (Editor.
- A Primer of Ecology by Nicholas J. Gotelli.
- Microcosmos : Four Billion Years of Microbial Evolution by Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan.
Evolution and Population Biology
Getting Started
- Origin of Species by Charles Darwin.
Collegiate
- A Primer of Population Biology by Edward O. Wilson.
- Molecular Markers, Natural History, and Evolution by John C. Avise.
Genetics
Immunology
Intermediate
- How the Immune System Works by Lauren Sompayrac.
Collegiate
- Immunology and Evolution of Infectious Disease by Steven Frank.
- Immunobiology by C. Janeway.
Microbiology
Collegiate
- Bacterial Pathogenesis by Abigail A. Salyers.
- Principles of Virology by Flint. S. J..
Molecular Biology
Collegiate
- Molecular Biology of the Cell by Bruce Alberts.
- Molecular Cell Biology by Harvey Lodish.
Zoology
Elementary
- Encyclopedia Prehistorica Dinosaurs: The Definitive Pop-Up by Robert Sabuda (Illustrator) and Matthew Reinhard (Illustrator).
Getting Started
- Frogs: Inside Their Remarkable Word by Ellin Beltz.
Intermediate
- The Sibley Field Guit to Birds of Eastern North America by David Allen Sibley and Rich Cech
Online Resources
- PubMed Online Bookshelf a growing collection of texts. Includes past editions of several highly used undergraduate and graduate Biology texts (Alberts, Janeway).
- Public Library of Science Publishing open access peer reviewed journals. Searchable. Set up RSS feeds to receive news, top stories and tables of contents.
General Interest
- Drosophila by Nick Sapien.
- Last Chance to Seeby Douglas Adams and Mark Carwardine.
- Oxygen by Nick Lane.
- The Red Queen by Matt Ridley.
- The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins.
