On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin. He really hit a home run there. It is a bit dry and maybe not fully on-theme with this post but I absolutely adore this book and will never stop shamelessly promoting it. For any who haven’t read and are interested it is a very dry collection of factoids that led Darwin to believe in the concept of ‘descent with modification’ to describe the various plants and animals he observed in his wide and glorious travels. His father Erasmus probably influenced him heavily.