āIām an avid reader, or at least I was until my son was born. Now Iām an opportunistic reader ā buses, bathtubs, brushing my teeth,ā says Malhi.
Surprises? āI often find good popular science books are as enlightening and relevant in informing my thinking and work as any academic text.ā Although he now considers himself an ecologist, he trained as a physicist with no high-level education in biology, so āthe rich detail in biology books is still a source of revelationā. Signs of Life by Ricard Sole and Brian Goodwin (Basic Books, 2000) inspires him by showing how counter-intuitive, large scale properties emerge from parts of a complex system.
The Ancestorās Tale by Richard Dawkins (Weidenfeld & Nicolson) and The Variety of Life by Colin Tudge (Oxford, 2000) are two books he loves dipping into.
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To relax? Ben Okriās In Arcadia (Orion, 2003): āOkri writes with a spiritual intensity that does it for me every time.ā