1. Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson - The word "theorem" replaces the orgasm to the writer Stevenson. If there are any novels about science, which are close to the idols of the Ideal Scientific Roman, it is here, please, to Stevenson. He writes about everything - from computer technology, before Newton buys prisms on the market, but to start reading Stevenson, of course, it is necessary to start with "Kryptonomikon", where he - among other things (and when I write "everything", I mean ALL) - is incredible, extremely fascinating tells about the codes and cryptographs, but so that after reading the novel you yourself will want to hack into "Enigma".
2. Angels & Insects by A.S. Byatt. Byette - the book is composed of two novels and we are more interested in the first one, "Morpho Eugenia" (although translated into Russian Bayette, we are interested in everything without a residue, because it can be counted on the fingers and the fingers will be like two and a half), which tells the story of the difficult fate of Victorian naturalist William Adamson, who not only returned from the normal Amazon jungle to the English structured as a beehive community, but also married in addition to everything. The book is full of miserable people who study bugs, ants and the world around them, trying to hide from the chaos of human life in natural symmetry. The book was used to make a movie with good costumes and Christine Scott Thomas, alas, not in the main role.
3. The End of Mr.Y by Scarlett Thomas - I love Scarlett Thomas very much for the fact that she talks about the most difficult things, firstly, with fierce love, and secondly, with simplicity. Here is the theory of creationism, quantum physics, deconstructivism and the search for a reliable virtual reality. However, be prepared that you may not like the book: Thomas is ready to talk to the reader for hours about Heidegger, using the clearest constructions, but her heroine Ariel - I am not real - Manto - is not ready at all to be liked by anybody. She believes in homeopathy, fucks in the toilet and razors the world around her with Occam's razor, touching herself at the same time. Therefore, do not approach this book with logical expectations - it is a book about science in the conditional "Matrix" when no matter what pill you take, red or blue, and spoons will either bend or disappear anyway.
4. The State of Wonder by Ann Patchett - do not believe, as usual, the Russian name of the novel, it will lead you into the jungle of the checklist, where you risk slipping into a puddle of sugary saliva, or even drown in it. Of course, Patchett is inclined to Hollywood, let's say even so - to Hollywood bakery, which worked perfectly in her best novel "Belcanto" to date (he came out in the dashing nineties under the name "Hostages" and with the cover, which has remained of the series of special forces - Prufpik), but slightly let her down in The State of Wonder. However, even with this cute passion for her hippie endowment, the novel came out great and in general, it is about reproductologists, who in the Amazon jungle again explore a strange tribe, where women have an incredible ability to get pregnant and give birth after menopausal age. Of course, the novel did not do without the personal suffering of the main character - pharmacist and biologist Marina Singh - but about the bruising of pharmaceutical companies and delightful ethical problems to read, of course, much more interesting. (Also, Patchett is Donna Tart's officially recognized friend, so read it all).
5. The Last Samurai by Helen DeWitt - strictly speaking, this novel is not quite about science, there are no scientists in white coats and laboratory rats, there are no lecture halls, lectures and crazy spectacles that rule the universe. But if there is any ideal novel in the world a) about love for knowledge and b) about perfectly mad intelligent people, it is here he is. Sybil, the main character, is a single mother who brings up her son, a wunderkind, completely ignoring any method of education. The three-year-old Ludo teaches Arabic, the five-year-old Ludo reads Homer in the original, the seven-year-old Ludo knows about everything about the basics of aerodynamics, and all this time Ludo in the background is the film "Seven Samurai", which Sibylla tries to replace his father's figure and explain some basic principles of male behavior. This is a genius skewed novel for geeks, freaks and freaks, which has everything - from film theory to almost Parzivalian quest, but most importantly, it has, in addition to a love for knowledge, a real love - very unstable, inefficient and unbearable, but very, very lively.
6. Lexicon by Max Barry - and I won't be able to keep up with my favorite book, in which the poets don't look like nerds, but instead bend the rails and the will of others. It's a fantastic thriller with three great things - 1) a closed school where you learn to take over the world with words, 2) Virginia Wolfe, who is ready to spread the word, and 3) the answer to the question: "Why did you do it?