Alice Roberts: ‘By the time I’d finished Richard Dawkins I’d left faith behind’
The TV presenter and author on the evolutionary biologists who inspired her, the genius of George Eliot – and fun with Frog and Toad
TL;DR
- Early memories include Sheila K. McCullagh's 'The Village with Three Corners' and Arnold Lobel's 'Frog and Toad' stories.
- Richard Dawkins's 'The Selfish Gene' profoundly impacted her teenage years, leading to a rejection of her Anglican faith and an embrace of humanism.
- Stephen Jay Gould's advice on communicating complex ideas without 'dumbing down' influences her writing.
- Darwin's 'On the Origin of Species' is a constant reread for its biological insights.
- George Eliot's 'Middlemarch' was a late discovery that profoundly impressed her with its character complexity and challenge to prejudices.
- Current reading includes works on Roman history, contemporary fiction, AI, and 'The Three-Body Problem.'
- 'The Little Book of Humanism' is a comfort read she helped compile.