Here are some good books on general topics discussed in class.  Most of them are written for the general reader interested in science, and many have made the nonfiction best seller lists.  These are books that I think really stand out as "a good read".  I will add books to the list as we go through the semester, so consider this list just a starting off point.  Got a good book to recommend to me?  Let me know-I am always on the look out for a good book to read.

History of Geology
The Map That Changed the World, by Simon Winchester
Hens Teeth and Horses Toes, by Stephen Jay Gould
Dinosaurs in the Attic, by Douglas Preston

Milankovitch Cycles and Climate
Ice Ages - Solving the Mystery, by John Imbrie and Katherine Palmer Imbrie 

The Two Mile Time Machine, by Richard Alley

The Sun and Climate
The Role of the Sun in Climate Change, by Douglas Hoyt and Kenneth Schatten
The Little Ice Age-How Climate Made History, by Brian Fagan

The Long Summer, How Climate Changed Civlization, by Brian Fagan

The Idea of Deep Time
Time Machines, by Peter Ward
River of Time, by Peter Ward

Strange Preservation Stories...
The Mummy Congress, by Heather Pringle
The Man in the Ice, by Konrad Spindler

Wonderful Life (the story of the Burgess Shale) by Stephen Jay Gould

The Cambrian Fossils of Chengjiang, China, the Flowering of Early Animal Life, by Hou, M-G, Aldridge, R.J., Bergstrom, J., Siveter, D.L., Siveter, D.J., and Feng, X-H.
 

The role of Oxygen in the history of life

Oxygen:  The Molecule that Made the World,  by Nick Lane

Mitochondria-what they have done, what they do

Power, Sex and Suicide: Mitochondria and the Meaning of Life, by Nick Lane

Microcosmos, by Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan