Last year, there was only one book on my summer reading list that you could reasonably call a beach read. This year I tried to pick a few more things that are on the lighter side. Each of these books made me think or laugh or, in some cases, do both. I hope you find something to your liking here. And if it’s not summer where you live, this list will still be here six months from now…
去年，在我的夏季讀書清單中你只能找到一本讀起來還算是輕松的。今年，我努力多挑了幾本簡單點的。這些書要么能讓我認真思考要么能讓我放聲大笑，有時兩者兼有。我希望在這里你能找到一些你喜歡的。如果你所生活的地方還沒到夏天，那你還有六個月的時間來看這份清單……

Hyperbole and a Half, by Allie Brosh.
《夸張和一半》，作者：阿莉·布洛什

The book, based on Brosh’s wildly popular website, consists of brief vignettes and comic drawings about her young life. The adventures she recounts are mostly inside her head, where we hear and see the kind of inner thoughts most of us are too timid to let out in public.
這本書的寫作基礎來源于布洛什十分受歡迎的網站，上面有大量簡短的插畫和滑稽的漫畫，描述的是她早年的生活。她所敘述的故事大多都是刻在她腦海里的，從中我們能聽到并明白她的內心想法。而這一點，我們大多數人往往過于羞澀而不敢將自己的內心想法向外界宣泄。

You will rip through it in three hours, tops. But you’ll wish it went on longer, because it’s funny and smart as hell. I must have interrupted Melinda a dozen times to read to her passages that made me laugh out loud.
這本書，最多三個小時你就能讀完。但你會希望它再多講一些，因為這本書寫得既幽默風趣又富有智慧。每當讀到令我大笑不已的部分，我總要打斷梅琳達讀給她聽。

The Magic of Reality, by Richard Dawkins.
《現實的魔法：真相》，作者：克林頓·道金斯

Dawkins, an evolutionary biologist at Oxford, has a gift for making science enjoyable. This book is as accessible as the TV series Cosmos is for younger audiences—and as relevant for older audiences. It’s an engaging, well-illustrated science textbook offering compelling answers to big questions, like “how did the universe form?” and “what causes earthquakes?”
道金森是牛津大學的教授，著名的演化生物學家。在他的筆下，科學變得生動有趣。這本書就同科學紀錄片《宇宙時空之旅》那樣好理解，老少皆宜。這是一本十分引人入勝、配圖精彩的科學手冊，對一些深奧的問題給出了十分有力的回答，比如，“宇宙是如何形成的？”、“什么引發的地震？”。

It’s also a plea for readers of all ages to approach mysteries with rigor and curiosity. Dawkins’s antagonistic (and, to me, overzealous) view of religion has earned him a lot of angry critics, but I consider him to be one of the great scientific writer of all time.
同時，這本書還極力使各個年齡段的讀者在靠近神秘的事物時，既帶著好奇心同時又不失嚴謹。道金森反宗教的態度受到了許多人憤怒的抨擊，但我認為他是從始至今最棒的科學作家之一。

What If?, by Randall Munroe.
《如果的事》，作者：蘭達爾·門羅

The subtitle of the book is “Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions,” and that’s exactly what it is. People write Munroe with questions that range over all fields of science: physics, chemistry, biology. Questions like, “From what height would you need to drop a steak for it to be cooked when it hit the ground?” (The answer, it turns out, is “high enough that it would disintegrate before it hit the ground.”)
這本書的副標題是“對荒謬的假設性問題作出的十分科學性的解答”，的確如此。人們給門羅提出的問題涵蓋了科學的各個范圍：物理學，化學，生物學。提到的問題比如說，“烹飪牛排的時候需要拋多高才合適？”（這里給出的答案是“高到在牛排落回鍋里摔成碎肉之前的高度。”）

Munroe’s explanations are funny, but the science underpinning his answers is very accurate. It’s an entertaining read, and you’ll also learn a bit about things like ballistics, DNA, the oceans, and the atmosphere.
門羅的解答很風趣，但其中所蘊含的科學很準確。這本書能給你帶來愉悅，同時你還能學到些東西，比如說，彈道學，DNA，海洋，以及大氣層等。

XKCD, by Randall Munro
《XKCD漫畫》，蘭達爾·門羅

A collection of posts from Munroe’s blog XKCD, which is made up of cartoons he draws making fun of things—mostly scientists and computers, but lots of other things too.
這本書收集了該作者與書同名的博客上的一些博文，主要是他所畫的搞笑卡通漫畫，大多是科學家，電腦，但也有很多其他的東西。

There’s one about scientists holding a press conference to reveal their discovery that life is arsenic-based. They research press conferences and find out that sometimes it’s good to serve food that’s related to the subject of the conference. The last panel is all the reporters dead on the floor because they ate arsenic. It’s that kind of humor, which not everybody loves, but I do.
其中有一處說的就是，科學家們召開新聞發布會，宣布他們發現了生命是以砷（砒霜）為基本元素構成的。科學家們認為，新聞發布會上提供與會議專題相關的食物會是一個不錯的主意。最后就是與會記者全都死在了地板上，因為他們服用了砒霜。這也是一種幽默，雖然不是所有人都喜歡，但我還蠻喜歡的。

On Immunity, by Eula Biss
《免疫》，作者：尤拉·比斯

When I stumbled across this book on the Internet, I thought it might be a worthwhile read. I had no idea what a pleasure reading it would be. Biss, an essayist and university lecturer, examines what lies behind people’s fears of vaccinating their children.
一開始我在網上看到這本書的時候，我只是認為這本書或許值得一讀。我還不知道這本書讀起來竟會讓人如此開心。比斯是名隨筆作家和大學講師。

Like many of us, she concludes that vaccines are safe, effective, and almost miraculous tools for protecting children against needless suffering. But she is not out to demonize anyone who holds opposing views. This is a thoughtful and beautifully written book about a very important topic.
她研究的是人們害怕給自己孩子接種疫苗這一背后說明的問題。和我們許多人一樣，她認為疫苗是安全有效，且幾乎是神奇的，能保護孩子免于無謂的病痛折磨。但她并沒有想要將持相反觀點的人妖魔化的意思。這本書講述了一個十分重要的主題，語言生動而縝密。

How to Lie With Statistics, by Darrell Huff
《統計數字會撒謊》，作者：達萊爾·哈夫

I picked up this short, easy-to-read book after seeing it on a Wall Street Journal list of good books for investors. I enjoyed it so much that it was one of a handful of books I recommended to everyone at TED this year.
我在《華爾街日報》向投資者推薦的書單上看到了這本書的名字，于是我就選中了它，這本書很短，讀起來也很簡單。我十分喜歡這本書，在今年的TED演講上，我向所有人推薦了它。

It was first published in 1954, but aside from a few anachronistic examples (it has been a long time since bread cost 5 cents a loaf in the United States), it doesn’t feel dated.
這本書最早出版于1954年，雖然書中有一些年代錯誤（一塊面包5美分在美國那是老早以前的事兒了），但它并不過時。

Should We Eat Meat?, by Vaclav Smil
《該吃肉嗎？》，作者：瓦科拉夫·斯米爾

The richer the world gets, the more meat it eats. And the more meat it eats, the bigger the threat to the planet. How do we square this circle? Vaclav Smil takes his usual clear-eyed view of the whole landscape, from meat’s role in human evolution to hard questions about animal cruelty.
世界越富裕，消耗的肉就越多。肉消耗多了，對地球造成的威脅就越大。我們又該如何對待這個問題? 瓦科拉夫·斯米爾通過他清晰的視角全方位審視了這個問題。從肉在人類進化過程中扮演的角色到虐待動物的殘酷性問題。

While it would be great if people wanted to eat less meat, I don’t think we can expect large numbers of people to make drastic reductions. I’m betting on innovation, including higher agricultural productivity and the development of meat substitutes, to help the world meet its need for meat.
雖然人少吃肉是件好事，但我不認為會有很多人大量減少肉食攝入。我覺得問題的關鍵在于創新，包括提高農業生產力，以及發展肉類替代品，從而滿足世界對肉類的需求。