Focus on books any professional scientist or engineer should read. Key topics include the core of getting things done in our profession: the scientific method and the engineering process, formulation of laws and theories, proof and analysis, experiment design and measurement, etc. Textbooks and classroom material on the topics of doing, understanding, managing, and teaching science and engineering are welcome. In engineering, this list prefers books on software engineering. There is much to learn from the past, so this list should include histories of science and engineering, biographies and auto-biographies, and selected letters and logbooks focusing on science and engineering. This list should also include key material on the ethics and politics of science, and warning against and chronicles of important failures.

The mention of grown-ups aims to avoid listing here introductions to or histories of science and engineering aimed at children or young adults. Instead, this list focuses on material aimed at professionals or at people with the degree of understanding and critical thinking expected at university level.

This list should not include what is not commonly accepted as science, from astrology to religion, from intelligent design to homeopathy. Similarly, pseudo-science books such as Freakonomics are not a good fit for this list. Last, books of popular science not written by scientists or engineers should be kept to a minimum.