iBooks Top Science and Nature Ebooks

The bestselling Science and Nature Ebooks at Apple's iBookstore. The chart list of the most popular science and nature iBooks updated daily.

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Science and Nature Ebook Best Sellers

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The Soul of an Octopus - Sy Montgomery Cover Art

The Soul of an Octopus

The Soul of an Octopus A Surprising Exploration into the Wonder of Consciousness by Sy Montgomery

A New York Times bestseller from the author of The Good Good Pig , this “fascinating...informative” ( The Daily Beast ) book dives into the intelligence, behavior, and emotional world of the octopus—one of the ocean’s most complex and captivating creatures—and the extraordinary bonds it forms with humans. Finalist for the National Book Award for Nonfiction * New York Times Bestseller * A Huffington Post Notable Nonfiction Book of the Year * One of the Best Books of the Month on Goodreads * Library Journal Best Sci-Tech Book of the Year * An American Library Association Notable Book of the Year “Sy Montgomery’s The Soul of an Octopus does for the creature what Helen Macdonald’s H Is for Hawk did for raptors.” — New Statesman , UK “One of the best science books of the year.” — Science Friday , NPR In pursuit of the wild, solitary, predatory octopus, popular naturalist Sy Montgomery has practiced true immersion journalism. From New England aquarium tanks to the reefs of French Polynesia and the Gulf of Mexico, she has befriended octopuses with strikingly different personalities—gentle Athena, assertive Octavia, curious Kali, and joyful Karma. Each creature shows her cleverness in myriad ways: escaping enclosures like an orangutan; jetting water to bounce balls; and endlessly tricking companions with multiple “sleights of hand” to get food. Scientists have only recently accepted the intelligence of dogs, birds, and chimpanzees but now are watching octopuses solve problems and are trying to decipher the meaning of the animal’s color-changing techniques. With her “joyful passion for these intelligent and fascinating creatures” ( Library Journal Editors’ Spring Pick), Montgomery chronicles the growing appreciation of this mollusk as she tells a unique love story. By turns funny, entertaining, touching, and profound, The Soul of an Octopus reveals what octopuses can teach us about the meeting of two very different minds.

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Take Me to Your Leader - Neil deGrasse Tyson Cover Art

Take Me to Your Leader

Take Me to Your Leader Perspectives on Your First Alien Encounter by Neil deGrasse Tyson

America’s favorite astrophysicist has written the most entertaining and universally appealing book of his stellar career: a practical guide for dealing with Alien visitors, an exploration of how it might happen, and a cultural history of our fascination with extraterrestrials. “Ever since childhood,” writes Neil deGrasse Tyson, “I’ve wanted to be abducted by Aliens.” Take Me to Your Leader is the culmination of a lifetime of fascination, speculation, and the amassing of scientific data about the possibility of Aliens visiting Earth. Drawing on a wealth of depictions from history, literature, pop culture, and film, Tyson applies the universal laws of physics to make the case for what Aliens might look like, act like, how they might travel through the universe to reach us, and what they might think of us upon arrival. Should such an event occur, Tyson further offers useful etiquette tips for your first close encounter. If you’ve ever wondered why there are so many UFO sightings, or whether Aliens might already be among us, Tyson offers an informed perspective that is both factual and fun. Take Me to Your Leader is a tantalizing exploration of what would be the most mind-blowing experience of your life—the book for anyone who has ever wondered: Are we alone?

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Fungi - Lynne Boddy & Ali Ashby Cover Art

Fungi

Fungi Discover the Science and Secrets Behind the World of Mushrooms by Lynne Boddy & Ali Ashby

Discover the fascinating stories behind 300 species of fungi and understand the world of mushrooms like never before! Did you know that fungi put the fizz in champagne and the flavor in chocolate? Fungi is everywhere we look: in a forest, under the sea, and in the kitchen. In this beautiful book, leading fungal biologists Lynne Boddy and Ali Ashby bring you closer to 300 species of mushrooms and lichens through fascinating facts, mushroom datasets, and detailed illustrations. Discover some of the fastest speeds in nature, specimens that glow in the dark, and fungi that clean up oil spills. Dive deep into this fun funghi book to further explore: - The latest scientific research on this cutting-edge topic. - A global spotters guide compiled by experts. - Detailed illustrations that bring mushrooms, their habitats, and their habits to life. - A beautiful, high-specification, lifestyle design package to a core reference topic that is currently trending. Humans have had a close relationship with mushrooms for thousands of years – from using the shiitake for healing, to telling stories of enchanted fairy rings, and cooking gourmet dishes with rare specimens. Bringing together technology, medicine, food, culture, and nature, this fascinating book will open your eyes to the wonders of the hidden kingdom all around us. With tips for mushroom spotting in any habitat, species identification notes, a grow-your-own guide and more, this book is the ultimate fungi-lover's companion.

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The Demon-Haunted World - Carl Sagan Cover Art

The Demon-Haunted World

The Demon-Haunted World Science as a Candle In the Dark by Carl Sagan

"A glorious book . . . A spirited defense of science . . . From the first page to the last, this book is a manifesto for clear thought." *Los Angeles Times "POWERFUL . . . A stirring defense of informed rationality. . . Rich in surprising information and beautiful writing." *The Washington Post Book World How can we make intelligent decisions about our increasingly technology-driven lives if we don't understand the difference between the myths of pseudoscience and the testable hypotheses of science? Pulitzer Prize-winning author and distinguished astronomer Carl Sagan argues that scientific thinking is critical not only to the pursuit of truth but to the very well-being of our democratic institutions. Casting a wide net through history and culture, Sagan examines and authoritatively debunks such celebrated fallacies of the past as witchcraft, faith healing, demons, and UFOs. And yet, disturbingly, in today's so-called information age, pseudoscience is burgeoning with stories of alien abduction, channeling past lives, and communal hallucinations commanding growing attention and respect. As Sagan demonstrates with lucid eloquence, the siren song of unreason is not just a cultural wrong turn but a dangerous plunge into darkness that threatens our most basic freedoms. "COMPELLING." *USA Today "A clear vision of what good science means and why it makes a difference. . . . A testimonial to the power of science and a warning of the dangers of unrestrained credulity." *The Sciences "PASSIONATE." *San Francisco Examiner-Chronicle From the Trade Paperback edition.

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Grunt - Mary Roach Cover Art

Grunt

Grunt The Curious Science of Humans at War by Mary Roach

A New York Times Bestseller about the science of keeping human beings intact, awake, sane, uninfected, and un-infested in the extreme circumstances of war. Grunt tackles the science behind some of a soldier's most challenging adversaries—panic, exhaustion, heat, noise—and introduces us to the scientists who seek to conquer them. Mary Roach dodges hostile fire with the U.S. Marine Corps Paintball Team as part of a study on hearing loss and survivability in combat. She visits the fashion design studio of U.S. Army Natick Labs and learns why a zipper is a problem for a sniper. In a repurposed movie studio, she sees amputee actors help prepare Marine Corps medics for the shock and gore of combat wounds. At Camp Lemmonier, Djibouti, in east Africa, we learn how diarrhea can be a threat to national security. Roach samples caffeinated meat, sniffs an archival sample of a World War II stink bomb, and stays up all night with the crew tending the missiles on the nuclear submarine USS Tennessee . She answers questions not found in any other book on the military: Why is DARPA interested in ducks? How is a wedding gown like a bomb suit? Why are shrimp more dangerous to sailors than sharks? Take a tour of duty with Roach, and you'll never see our nation's defenders in the same way again.

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The Last Days of the Dinosaurs - Riley Black Cover Art

The Last Days of the Dinosaurs

The Last Days of the Dinosaurs An Asteroid, Extinction, and the Beginning of Our World by Riley Black

In The Last Days of the Dinosaurs, Riley Black walks readers through what happened in the days, the years, the centuries, and the million years after the impact, tracking the sweeping disruptions that overtook this one spot, and imagining what might have been happening elsewhere on the globe. Life’s losses were sharp and deeply-felt, but the hope carried by the beings that survived sets the stage for the world as we know it now. Picture yourself in the Cretaceous period. It’s a sunny afternoon in the Hell Creek of ancient Montana 66 million years ago. A Triceratops horridus ambles along the edge of the forest. In a matter of hours, everything here will be wiped away. Lush verdure will be replaced with fire. Tyrannosaurus rex will be toppled from their throne, along with every other species of non-avian dinosaur no matter their size, diet, or disposition. They just don’t know it yet. The cause of this disaster was identified decades ago. An asteroid some seven miles across slammed into the Earth, leaving a geologic wound over 50 miles in diameter. In the terrible mass extinction that followed, more than half of known species vanished seemingly overnight. But this worst single day in the history of life on Earth was as critical for us as it was for the dinosaurs, as it allowed for evolutionary opportunities that were closed for the previous 100 million years.

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A World Appears - Michael Pollan Cover Art

A World Appears

A World Appears A Journey into Consciousness by Michael Pollan

The Instant New York Times Bestseller "Pollan’s real genius—the word is not too strong—remains intact. That is his uncanny ability to scent the direction in which the culture is headed. He did it with food and psychedelics, and now, though A World Appears focuses on AI only intermittently, he has done it again." —Charles Finch, The Atlantic From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of How to Change Your Mind , a panoptic exploration of consciousness—what it is, who has it, and why—and a meditation on the essence of our humanity When it comes to the phenomenon that is consciousness, there is one point on which scientists, philosophers, and artists all agree: it feels like something to be us. Yet the fact that we have subjective experience of the world remains one of nature’s greatest mysteries. How is it that our mental operations are accompanied by feelings, thoughts, and a sense of self? What would a scientific investigation of our inner life look like, when we have as little distance and perspective on it as fish do of the sea? In A World Appears , Michael Pollan traces the unmapped continent that is consciousness, bringing radically different perspectives—scientific, philosophical, literary, spiritual and psychedelic—to see what each can teach us about this central fact of life. When neuroscientists began studying consciousness in the early 1990s, they sought to explain how and why three pounds of spongy gray matter could generate a subjective point of view—assuming that the brain is the source of our perceived reality. Pollan takes us to the cutting edge of the field, where scientists are entertaining more radical (and less materialist) theories of consciousness. He introduces us to “plant neurobiologists” searching for the first flicker of consciousness in plants, scientists striving to engineer feelings into AI, and psychologists and novelists seeking to capture the felt experience of our slippery stream of consciousness. In Pollan’s dazzling exploration of consciousness, he discovers a world far deeper and stranger than our everyday reality. Eye-opening and mind-expanding, A World Appears takes us into the laboratories of our own minds, ultimately showing us how we might make better use of the gift of awareness to more meaningfully connect with the world and our deepest selves.

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Molecules - Theodore Gray Cover Art

Molecules

Molecules The Elements and the Architecture of Everything by Theodore Gray

An award-winning author demonstrates how the elements of the periodic table combine to form the molecules that make up our world. Everything physical is made up of the elements and the infinite variety of molecules they form when they combine with each other. In Molecules , Theodore Gray takes the next step in the story that began with the periodic table in his bestselling book, The Elements: A Visual Exploration of Every Known Atom in the Universe . Here, he explores, through fascinating stories and trademark stunning photography, the most interesting, essential, useful, and beautiful of the millions of chemical structures that make up every material in the world. Gray begins with an explanation of how atoms bond to form molecules and compounds, as well as the difference between organic and inorganic chemistry. He then goes on to explore the vast array of materials molecules can create, including: soaps and solvents; goops and oils; rocks and ores; ropes and fibers; painkillers and dangerous drugs; sweeteners; perfumes and stink bombs; colors and pigments; and controversial compounds including asbestos, CFCs, and thimerosal. Big, gorgeous photographs, as well as diagrams of the compounds and their chemical bonds, rendered with never-before-seen beauty, fill the pages and capture molecules in their various states. As he did in The Elements , Gray shows us molecules as we've never seen them before. It's the perfect book for his loyal fans who've been eager for more and for anyone fascinated with the mysteries of the material world. Photographs by Nick Mann The Elements Trilogy The Elements (#1) Molecules (#2) Reactions (#3)

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Nonsense on Stilts - Massimo Pigliucci Cover Art

Nonsense on Stilts

Nonsense on Stilts How to Tell Science from Bunk by Massimo Pigliucci

"This crash course in critical thinking . . . includes handy rules for evaluating the confused public discourse on climate change, evolution, and even UFOs." — Discover Recent polls suggest that fewer than forty percent of Americans believe in Darwin's theory of evolution, despite it being one of science's best-established findings. Parents still refuse to vaccinate their children for fear it causes autism, though this link has been consistently disproved. And about forty percent of Americans believe that the threat of global warming is exaggerated, including many political leaders. In this era of fake news and alternative facts, there is more bunk than ever. But why do people believe in it? And what causes them to embrace such pseudoscientific beliefs and practices? In this fully revised second edition, noted skeptic Massimo Pigliucci sets out to separate the fact from the fantasy in an entertaining exploration of the nature of science, the borderlands of fringe science, and—borrowing a famous phrase from philosopher Jeremy Bentham—the nonsense on stilts. Presenting case studies on a number of controversial topics, Pigliucci cuts through the ambiguity surrounding science to look more closely at how science is conducted, how it is disseminated, how it is interpreted, and what it means to our society. The result is in many ways a "taxonomy of bunk" that explores the intersection of science and culture at large. Broad in scope and implication, Nonsense on Stilts is a captivating guide for the intelligent citizen who wishes to make up her own mind while navigating the perilous debates that will shape the future of our planet. "Brilliant . . . required reading for, well, everyone." — New Scientist

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The Elephant Whisperer - Lawrence Anthony & Graham Spence Cover Art

The Elephant Whisperer

The Elephant Whisperer My Life with the Herd in the African Wild by Lawrence Anthony & Graham Spence

When South African conservationist Lawrence Anthony was asked to accept a herd of "rogue" wild elephants on his Thula Thula game reserve in Zululand, his common sense told him to refuse. But he was the herd's last chance of survival: they would be killed if he wouldn't take them. In order to save their lives, Anthony took them in. In the years that followed he became a part of their family. And as he battled to create a bond with the elephants, he came to realize that they had a great deal to teach him about life, loyalty, and freedom. The Elephant Whisperer is a heartwarming, exciting, funny, and sometimes sad account of Anthony's experiences with these huge yet sympathetic creatures. Set against the background of life on an African game reserve, with unforgettable characters and exotic wildlife, it is a delightful book that will appeal to animal lovers and adventurous souls everywhere.

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The Order of Time - Carlo Rovelli Cover Art

The Order of Time

The Order of Time by Carlo Rovelli

One of TIME’s Ten Best Nonfiction Books of the Decade "Meet the new Stephen Hawking . . . The Order of Time is a dazzling book." -- The Sunday Times From the bestselling author of Seven Brief Lessons on Physics , Reality Is Not What It Seems , Helgoland , and Anaximander comes a concise, elegant exploration of time. Why do we remember the past and not the future? What does it mean for time to "flow"? Do we exist in time or does time exist in us? In lyric, accessible prose, Carlo Rovelli invites us to consider questions about the nature of time that continue to puzzle physicists and philosophers alike. For most readers this is unfamiliar terrain. We all experience time, but the more scientists learn about it, the more mysterious it remains. We think of it as uniform and universal, moving steadily from past to future, measured by clocks. Rovelli tears down these assumptions one by one, revealing a strange universe where at the most fundamental level time disappears. He explains how the theory of quantum gravity attempts to understand and give meaning to the resulting extreme landscape of this timeless world. Weaving together ideas from philosophy, science and literature, he suggests that our perception of the flow of time depends on our perspective, better understood starting from the structure of our brain and emotions than from the physical universe. Already a bestseller in Italy, and written with the poetic vitality that made Seven Brief Lessons on Physics so appealing, The Order of Time offers a profoundly intelligent, culturally rich, novel appreciation of the mysteries of time.

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Sapiens - Yuval Noah Harari Cover Art

Sapiens

Sapiens A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari

#1 New York Times Bestseller • New York Times Readers’ Pick: Top 100 Books of the 21st Century • The Summer Reading Pick for President Barack Obama and Bill Gates Official U.S. edition with full color illustrations throughout. From renowned historian Yuval Noah Harari comes a groundbreaking narrative of humanity’s creation and evolution—a #1 international bestseller—that explores the ways in which biology and history have defined us and enhanced our understanding of what it means to be “human.” One hundred thousand years ago, at least six different species of humans inhabited Earth. Yet today there is only one—homo sapiens. What happened to the others? And what may happen to us? Most books about the history of humanity pursue either a historical or a biological approach, but Dr. Yuval Noah Harari breaks the mold with this highly original book that begins about 70,000 years ago with the appearance of modern cognition. From examining the role evolving humans have played in the global ecosystem to charting the rise of empires, Sapiens integrates history and science to reconsider accepted narratives, connect past developments with contemporary concerns, and examine specific events within the context of larger ideas. Dr. Harari also compels us to look ahead, because over the last few decades humans have begun to bend laws of natural selection that have governed life for the past four billion years. We are acquiring the ability to design not only the world around us, but also ourselves. Where is this leading us, and what do we want to become? Featuring 27 photographs, 6 maps, and 25 illustrations/diagrams, this provocative and insightful work is sure to spark debate and is essential reading for aficionados of Jared Diamond, James Gleick, Matt Ridley, Robert Wright, and Sharon Moalem.

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Horse Crazy - Sarah Maslin Nir Cover Art

Horse Crazy

Horse Crazy The Story of a Woman and a World in Love with an Animal by Sarah Maslin Nir

In the bestselling tradition of works by such authors as Susan Orlean and Mary Roach, a New York Times reporter and Pulitzer Prize finalist explores why so many people—including herself—are obsessed with horses, riding, and the equestrian world. It may surprise you to learn that there are over seven million horses in America—even more than when they were the only means of transportation—and nearly two million horse owners. Acclaimed journalist and avid equestrian Sarah Maslin Nir is one of them; she began riding horses when she was just two years old and hasn’t stopped since. Horse Crazy is a fascinating, funny, and moving love letter to these graceful animals and the people who—like her—are obsessed with them. It is also a memoir and coming-of-age story of Nir growing up an outsider within the world’s most elite inner circles, and finding her true north in horses. Nir takes readers into the lesser-known corners of the horse world and profiles some of its most captivating figures. We meet Monty Roberts, the California trainer whose prowess earned him the nickname “the man who listens to horses,” and his pet deer; George and Ann Blair, who at their riding academy on a tiny island in Manhattan’s Harlem River seek to resurrect the erased legacy of the African American cowboy; and Francesca Kelly, whose love for an Indian nobleman shaped her life’s mission: to protect an endangered Indian breed of horse and bring them to America. Woven into these compelling character studies, Nir shares her own moving personal narrative. She details her father’s harrowing tale of surviving the Holocaust, and describes an enchanted but deeply lonely upbringing in Manhattan, where horses became her family. She found them even in the middle of the city, in a stable disguised in an old townhouse and in Central Park, when she chased down truants as an auxiliary mounted patrol officer. And she speaks candidly of how horses have helped her overcome heartbreak and loss. Infused with heart and wit, and with each chapter named after a horse Nir has loved, Horse Crazy is an unforgettable blend of beautifully written memoir and first-rate reporting.

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The Fabric of Reality - David Deutsch Cover Art

The Fabric of Reality

The Fabric of Reality The Science of Parallel Universes--and Its Implications by David Deutsch

A penetrating exploration of the new physics, including time travel, quantum computers, and the multiverse from an award-winning physicist For David Deutsch, a physicist of unusual originality, quantum theory contains our most fundamental knowledge of the physical world. Taken literally, it implies that there are many universes “parallel” to the one we see around us. This multiplicity of universes, according to Deutsch, turns out to be the key to achieving a new worldview based on four main strands: • Quantum physics and its many-universes interpretation • The theory of evolution (Darwin/Dawkins) • The theory of computation (quantum computation) • The theory of knowledge (Karl Popper), explanation and understanding The Fabric of Reality explains and connects many topics at the leading edge of current research and thinking, such as quantum computers (which work by effectively collaborating with their counterparts in other universes), the physics of time travel, the comprehensibility of nature and the physical limits of virtual reality, the significance of human life, and the ultimate fate of the universe. Here—for scientist and layperson alike, for philosopher, science-fiction reader, biologist, and computer expert—is a startlingly complete and rational synthesis of disciplines, and a new, optimistic message about existence.

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The Stranger in the Woods - Michael Finkel Cover Art

The Stranger in the Woods

The Stranger in the Woods The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit by Michael Finkel

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The remarkable true story of a man who lived alone in the woods of Maine for 27 years, making this dream a reality—not out of anger at the world, but simply because he preferred to live on his own. “A meditation on solitude, wildness and survival.” — The Wall Street Journal In 1986, a shy and intelligent twenty-year-old named Christopher Knight left his home in Massachusetts, drove to Maine, and disappeared into the forest. He would not have a conversation with another human being until nearly three decades later, when he was arrested for stealing food. Living in a tent even through brutal winters, he had survived by his wits and courage, developing ingenious ways to store edibles and water, and to avoid freezing to death. He broke into nearby cottages for food, clothing, reading material, and other provisions, taking only what he needed but terrifying a community never able to solve the mysterious burglaries. Based on extensive interviews with Knight himself, this is a vividly detailed account of his secluded life—why did he leave? what did he learn?—as well as the challenges he has faced since returning to the world. It is a gripping story of survival that asks fundamental questions about solitude, community, and what makes a good life, and a deeply moving portrait of a man who was determined to live his own way, and succeeded.

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Quanta and Fields - Sean Carroll Cover Art

Quanta and Fields

Quanta and Fields The Biggest Ideas in the Universe by Sean Carroll

The instant New York Times bestseller Quanta and Fields , the second book of Sean Carroll’s already internationally acclaimed series The Biggest Ideas in the Universe , is an adventure into the bare stuff of reality.   Sean Carroll is creating a profoundly new approach to sharing physics with a broad audience, one that goes beyond analogies to show how physicists really think. He cuts to the bare mathematical essence of our most profound theories, explaining every step in a uniquely accessible way.   Quantum field theory is how modern physics describes nature at its most profound level. Starting with the basics of quantum mechanics itself, Sean Carroll explains measurement and entanglement before explaining how the world is really made of fields. You will finally understand why matter is solid, why there is antimatter, where the sizes of atoms come from, and why the predictions of quantum field theory are so spectacularly successful. Fundamental ideas like spin, symmetry, Feynman diagrams, and the Higgs mechanism are explained for real, not just through amusing stories. Beyond Newton, beyond Einstein, and all the intuitive notions that have guided homo sapiens for millennia, this book is a journey to a once unimaginable truth about what our universe is.

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Braiding Sweetgrass - Robin Wall Kimmerer Cover Art

Braiding Sweetgrass

Braiding Sweetgrass Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer

As a botanist, Robin Wall Kimmerer has been trained to ask questions of nature with the tools of science. As a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, she embraces the notion that plants and animals are our oldest teachers. In Braiding Sweetgrass , Kimmerer brings these two lenses of knowledge together to take us on “a journey that is every bit as mythic as it is scientific, as sacred as it is historical, as clever as it is wise” (Elizabeth Gilbert). Drawing on her life as an indigenous scientist, and as a woman, Kimmerer shows how other living beings—asters and goldenrod, strawberries and squash, salamanders, algae, and sweetgrass—offer us gifts and lessons, even if we've forgotten how to hear their voices. In reflections that range from the creation of Turtle Island to the forces that threaten its flourishing today, she circles toward a central argument: that the awakening of ecological consciousness requires the acknowledgment and celebration of our reciprocal relationship with the rest of the living world. For only when we can hear the languages of other beings will we be capable of understanding the generosity of the earth, and learn to give our own gifts in return.

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The Serviceberry - Robin Wall Kimmerer Cover Art

The Serviceberry

The Serviceberry Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World by Robin Wall Kimmerer

An Instant New York Times Bestseller From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Braiding Sweetgrass , a bold and inspiring vision for how to orient our lives around gratitude, reciprocity, and community, based on the lessons of the natural world. As Indigenous scientist and author of Braiding Sweetgrass Robin Wall Kimmerer harvests serviceberries alongside the birds, she considers the ethic of reciprocity that lies at the heart of the gift economy. How, she asks, can we learn from Indigenous wisdom and the plant world to reimagine what we value most? Our economy is rooted in scarcity, competition, and the hoarding of resources, and we have surrendered our values to a system that actively harms what we love. Meanwhile, the serviceberry’s relationship with the natural world is an embodiment of reciprocity, interconnectedness, and gratitude. The tree distributes its wealth—its abundance of sweet, juicy berries—to meet the needs of its natural community. And this distribution ensures its own survival. As Kimmerer explains, “Serviceberries show us another model, one based upon reciprocity, where wealth comes from the quality of your relationships, not from the illusion of self-sufficiency.” As Elizabeth Gilbert writes, Robin Wall Kimmerer is “a great teacher, and her words are a hymn of love to the world.” The Serviceberry is an antidote to the broken relationships and misguided goals of our times, and a reminder that “hoarding won’t save us, all flourishing is mutual.” Robin Wall Kimmerer is donating her advance payments from this book as a reciprocal gift, back to the land, for land protection, restoration, and justice.

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Lifespan - David Sinclair Cover Art

Lifespan

Lifespan Why We Age—and Why We Don't Have To by David Sinclair

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “Brilliant and enthralling.”​ —The Wall Street Journal A paradigm-shifting book from an acclaimed Harvard Medical School scientist and one of Time ’s most influential people. It’s a seemingly undeniable truth that aging is inevitable. But what if everything we’ve been taught to believe about aging is wrong? What if we could choose our lifespan? In this groundbreaking book, Dr. David Sinclair, leading world authority on genetics and longevity, reveals a bold new theory for why we age. As he writes: “Aging is a disease, and that disease is treatable.” This eye-opening and provocative work takes us to the frontlines of research that is pushing the boundaries on our perceived scientific limitations, revealing incredible breakthroughs—many from Dr. David Sinclair’s own lab at Harvard—that demonstrate how we can slow down, or even reverse, aging. The key is activating newly discovered vitality genes, the descendants of an ancient genetic survival circuit that is both the cause of aging and the key to reversing it. Recent experiments in genetic reprogramming suggest that in the near future we may not just be able to feel younger, but actually become younger. Through a page-turning narrative, Dr. Sinclair invites you into the process of scientific discovery and reveals the emerging technologies and simple lifestyle changes—such as intermittent fasting, cold exposure, exercising with the right intensity, and eating less meat—that have been shown to help us live younger and healthier for longer. At once a roadmap for taking charge of our own health destiny and a bold new vision for the future of humankind, Lifespan will forever change the way we think about why we age and what we can do about it.

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The Fabric of the Cosmos - Brian Greene Cover Art

The Fabric of the Cosmos

The Fabric of the Cosmos Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality by Brian Greene

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From one of the world’s leading physicists and author of the Pulitzer Prize finalist The Elegant Universe, comes “an astonishing ride” through the universe ( The New York Times ) that makes us look at reality in a completely different way. Space and time form the very fabric of the cosmos. Yet they remain among the most mysterious of concepts. Is space an entity? Why does time have a direction? Could the universe exist without space and time? Can we travel to the past? Greene has set himself a daunting task: to explain non-intuitive, mathematical concepts like String Theory, the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, and Inflationary Cosmology with analogies drawn from common experience. From Newton’s unchanging realm in which space and time are absolute, to Einstein’s fluid conception of spacetime, to quantum mechanics’ entangled arena where vastly distant objects can instantaneously coordinate their behavior, Greene takes us all, regardless of our scientific backgrounds, on an irresistible and revelatory journey to the new layers of reality that modern physics has discovered lying just beneath the surface of our everyday world.

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Huge Numbers - Richard Elwes Cover Art

Huge Numbers

Huge Numbers A Story of Counting Ambitiously, from 4 1/2 to Fish 7 by Richard Elwes

How humanity’s long pursuit of ever-larger numbers broke the boundaries of mathematics and propelled us into the Information Age   “A charming tour”—Jordan Ellenburg, author of Shape What if, every time you wanted to write down 1,000,000, you had to draw a picture of a god? And what if that number were the biggest you had a symbol for? If you were doing math in ancient Egypt, those were the rules: anything bigger broke math.        As mathematician Richard Elwes shows in Huge Numbers , this is the strange story of math. Even today, writing down some numbers is beyond us: try it with all the zeroes in a googolplex, or an outrageous alien number like TREE(3). Safer not to try: even harnessing every particle in the universe, you wouldn’t come close. But this book is no mere bestiary of numerical monsters. It shows how, by hunting down and studying ever-bigger numbers, arithmetic has reshaped human thought and made our modern era of science and computation possible.       Where many math books celebrate abstract algebra or ineffable infinities, Huge Numbers is both more practical and far weirder. It reveals a world where most numbers remain out of reach until we discover how to chase them down and tame them, and so remake our world again.   

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Anatomy 101 - Kevin Langford Cover Art

Anatomy 101

Anatomy 101 From Muscles and Bones to Organs and Systems, Your Guide to How the Human Body Works by Kevin Langford

An all-in-one guide to the human body! Anatomy 101 offers an exciting look into the inner workings of the human body. Too often, textbooks turn the fascinating systems, processes, and figures of anatomy into tedious discourse that even Leonardo Da Vinci would reject. This easy-to-read guide cuts out the boring details, and instead, provides you with a compelling lesson in anatomy. Covering every aspect of anatomical development and physiology, each chapter details the different parts of the human body, how systems are formed, and disorders that could disrupt bodily functions. You'll unravel the mysteries of anatomy with unique, accessible elements like: • Detailed charts of each system in the body • Illustrations of cross sections • Unique profiles of the most influential figures in medical history From cell chemistry to the respiratory system, Anatomy 101 is packed with hundreds of entertaining facts that you can't get anywhere else!

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Six Easy Pieces - Richard P. Feynman, Robert B. Leighton & Matthew Sands Cover Art

Six Easy Pieces

Six Easy Pieces Essentials of Physics Explained by Its Most Brilliant Teacher by Richard P. Feynman, Robert B. Leighton & Matthew Sands

Learn how to think like a physicist from a Nobel laureate and "one of the greatest minds of the twentieth century" ( New York Review of Books ) with these six classic and beloved lessons  It was Richard Feynman's outrageous and scintillating method of teaching that earned him legendary status among students and professors of physics. From 1961 to 1963, Feynman delivered a series of lectures at the California Institute of Technology that revolutionized the teaching of physics around the world. Six Easy Pieces , taken from these famous Lectures on Physics, represent the most accessible material from the series. In these classic lessons, Feynman introduces the general reader to the following topics: atoms, basic physics, energy, gravitation, quantum mechanics, and the relationship of physics to other topics. With his dazzling and inimitable wit, Feynman presents each discussion with a minimum of jargon. Filled with wonderful examples and clever illustrations, Six Easy Pieces is the ideal introduction to the fundamentals of physics by one of the most admired and accessible physicists of modern times.  "If one book was all that could be passed on to the next generation of scientists it would undoubtedly have to be Six Easy Pieces. "- John Gribbin, New Scientist

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The Demon in the Freezer - Richard Preston Cover Art

The Demon in the Freezer

The Demon in the Freezer A True Story by Richard Preston

“The bard of biological weapons captures the drama of the front lines.”— Richard Danzig, former secretary of the navy The first major bioterror event in the United States-the anthrax attacks in October 2001-was a clarion call for scientists who work with “hot” agents to find ways of protecting civilian populations against biological weapons. In The Demon in the Freezer,  his first nonfiction book since The Hot Zone, a #1 New York Times bestseller, Richard Preston takes us into the heart of Usamriid, the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, Maryland, once the headquarters of the U.S. biological weapons program and now the epicenter of national biodefense. Peter Jahrling, the top scientist at Usamriid, a wry virologist who cut his teeth on Ebola, one of the world’s most lethal emerging viruses, has ORCON security clearance that gives him access to top secret information on bioweapons. His most urgent priority is to develop a drug that will take on smallpox-and win. Eradicated from the planet in 1979 in one of the great triumphs of modern science, the smallpox virus now resides, officially, in only two high-security freezers-at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta and in Siberia, at a Russian virology institute called Vector. But the demon in the freezer has been set loose. It is almost certain that illegal stocks are in the possession of hostile states, including Iraq and North Korea. Jahrling is haunted by the thought that biologists in secret labs are using genetic engineering to create a new superpox virus, a smallpox resistant to all vaccines. Usamriid went into a state of Delta Alert on September 11 and activated its emergency response teams when the first anthrax letters were opened in New York and Washington, D.C. Preston reports, in unprecedented detail, on the government’ s response to the attacks and takes us into the ongoing FBI investigation. His story is based on interviews with top-level FBI agents and with Dr. Steven Hatfill. Jahrling is leading a team of scientists doing controversial experiments with live smallpox virus at CDC. Preston takes us into the lab where Jahrling is reawakening smallpox and explains, with cool and devastating precision, what may be at stake if his last bold experiment fails.

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A Brief History of Time - Stephen Hawking Cover Art

A Brief History of Time

A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking

#1  NEW YORK TIMES  BESTSELLER A landmark volume in science writing by one of the great minds of our time, Stephen Hawking’s book explores such profound questions as: How did the universe begin—and what made its start possible? Does time always flow forward? Is the universe unending—or are there boundaries? Are there other dimensions in space? What will happen when it all ends? Told in language we all can understand,  A Brief History of Time  plunges into the exotic realms of black holes and quarks, of antimatter and “arrows of time,” of the big bang and a bigger God—where the possibilities are wondrous and unexpected. With exciting images and profound imagination, Stephen Hawking brings us closer to the ultimate secrets at the very heart of creation.

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Battle of the Big Bang - Niayesh Afshordi & Phil Halper Cover Art

Battle of the Big Bang

Battle of the Big Bang The New Tales of Our Cosmic Origins by Niayesh Afshordi & Phil Halper

“Excellent.”—Steven Poole, The Wall Street Journal • “Terrific.”—Liz Else, New Scientist (Best Popular Science Books of 2025 So Far) • “A brilliant overview of the state of modern cosmology.”—Alex O‛Connor, alexoconnor.com • “This will expand readers’ minds.”— Publishers Weekly • One of Smithsonian ’s Ten Best Science Books of 2025   “An intellectual feast.”—Carlo Rovelli • “A must-read.”—Sabine Hossenfelder • “Wonderfully broad and open-minded.”—Roger Penrose • “Remarkable.”—Brian Keating A thrilling exploration of competing cosmological origin stories, comparing new scientific ideas that upend our very notions of space, time, and reality.   By most popular accounts, the universe started with a bang some 13.8 billion years ago. But what happened before the Big Bang? And how do we know it happened at all? Here prominent cosmologist Niayesh Afshordi and science communicator Phil Halper offer a tour of the peculiar possibilities: bouncing and cyclic universes, time loops, creations from nothing, multiverses, black hole births, string theories, and holograms. Along the way, they offer both a call for new physics and a riveting story of scientific debate.   Incorporating insights from Afshordi’s cutting-edge research and Halper’s original interviews with scientists like Stephen Hawking, Roger Penrose, and Alan Guth,  Battle of the Big Bang compares these models for the origin of our origins, showing each theory’s strengths and weaknesses and explaining new attempts to test these notions. Battle of the Big Bang is a tale of rivalries and intrigue, of clashes of ideas that have raged from Greek antiquity to the present day over whether the universe is eternal or had a beginning, whether it is unique or one of many. But most of all, Afshordi and Halper show that this search is filled with wonder, discovery, and community—all essential for remembering a forgotten cosmic past.

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Before the Dawn - Nicholas Wade Cover Art

Before the Dawn

Before the Dawn Recovering the Lost History of Our Ancestors by Nicholas Wade

“Meaty, well-written.” — Kirkus Reviews “Timely and informative.” — The New York Times Book Review “By far the best book I have ever read on humanity’s deep history.”  —E. O. Wilson, biologist and author of  The Ants  and  On Human Nature Nicholas Wade’s articles are a major reason why the science section has become the most popular, nationwide, in the New York Times . In his groundbreaking Before the Dawn , Wade reveals humanity’s origins as never before—a journey made possible only recently by genetic science, whose incredible findings have answered such questions as: What was the first human language like? How large were the first societies, and how warlike were they? When did our ancestors first leave Africa, and by what route did they leave? By eloquently solving these and numerous other mysteries, Wade offers nothing less than a uniquely complete retelling of a story that began 500 centuries ago.

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The Shape of a Life - Shing-Tung Yau & Steve Nadis Cover Art

The Shape of a Life

The Shape of a Life One Mathematician's Search for the Universe's Hidden Geometry by Shing-Tung Yau & Steve Nadis

A Fields medalist recounts his lifelong effort to uncover the geometric shape—the Calabi-Yau manifold—that may store the hidden dimensions of our universe. Harvard geometer Shing-Tung Yau has provided a mathematical foundation for string theory, offered new insights into black holes, and mathematically demonstrated the stability of our universe. In this autobiography, Yau reflects on his improbable journey to becoming one of the world's most distinguished mathematicians. Beginning with an impoverished childhood in China and Hong Kong, Yau takes readers through his doctoral studies at Berkeley during the height of the Vietnam War protests, his Fields Medal–winning proof of the Calabi conjecture, his return to China, and his pioneering work in geometric analysis. This new branch of geometry, which Yau built up with his friends and colleagues, has paved the way for solutions to several important and previously intransigent problems. With complicated ideas explained for a broad audience, this book offers not only insights into the life of an eminent mathematician, but also an accessible way to understand advanced and highly abstract concepts in mathematics and theoretical physics. "The remarkable story of one of the world's most accomplished mathematicians . . . Yau's personal journey—from escaping China as a youngster, leading a gang outside Hong Kong, becoming captivated by mathematics, to making breakthroughs that thrust him on the world stage—inspires us all with humankind's irrepressible spirit of discovery." —Brian Greene, New York Times–bestselling author of The Elegant Universe "An unexpectedly intimate look into a highly accomplished man, his colleagues and friends, the development of a new field of geometric analysis, and a glimpse into a truly uncommon mind." —The Boston Globe "Engaging, eminently readable. . . . For those with a taste for elegant and largely jargon-free explanations of mathematics, The Shape of a Life promises hours of rewarding reading." —American Scientist

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The Elements of Euclid - The First Six Books and Propositions I-XXI of Book XI (Ilustrated Edition) - John Casey Cover Art

The Elements of Euclid - The First Six Books and Propositions I-XXI of Book XI (Ilustrated Edition)

The Elements of Euclid - The First Six Books and Propositions I-XXI of Book XI (Ilustrated Edition) by John Casey

Euclid’s Elements form one of the most beautiful and influential works of science in the history of humankind. Its beauty lies in its logical development of geometry and other branches of mathematics. It has influenced all branches of science but none so much as mathematics and the exact sciences. The book It is a collection of definitions, postulates, propositions (theorems and constructions), and mathematical proofs of the propositions. Euclid's Elements has been referred to as the most successful and influential textbook ever written. It was one of the very earliest mathematical works to be printed after the invention of the printing press and has been estimated to be second only to the Bible in the number of editions published since the first printing.

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Fatal Flaws - Jay Ingram Cover Art

Fatal Flaws

Fatal Flaws How a Misfolded Protein Baffled Scientists and Changed the Way We Look at the Brain by Jay Ingram

From the bestselling author of The Science of Why series, "a 'whodunit' about one of the most fascinating and improbable tales of medical discovery" (Jonathan A. Edlow, MD, author of  The Deadly Dinner Party : A nd Other Medical Detective Stories ).     Discovered and identified as the cause of mad cow disease only three decades ago, the prion is a protein molecule that, when misshapen in the brain, becomes fatal. Novel and controversial, prions have provoked a scientific revolution. They challenge the very foundations of biology: A disease-causing entity with no genetic material at all? A molecule capable of infecting, multiplying, and killing? This book recounts the birth of prion science and the imaginative detective work scientists have undertaken as they struggle to find the answers to devastating brain diseases from mad cow and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease to Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, Lou Gehrig's, and others.    As in each of his bestselling books, Jay Ingram here makes complex scientific concepts accessible and shows how little-known events may have profound significance. He describes the development of prion science as a rough-and-tumble affair, with rivals, eccentrics, interfering governments, and brilliantly creative people all playing salient roles. Weaving biology, medicine, human tragedy, discovery, and bitter scientific competition into his account, he reveals the stunning potential of prion science, whose discoveries may unlock the answers to some of humankind's most destructive diseases.   "The way Ingram presents the ongoing search for answers surrounding BSE and associated neurological conditions makes for an excellent read."— Quill & Quire (starred review)   "Provides a fascinating insight into the twists and turns of this new science."—Lara V. Marks, author of  Sexual Chemistry: A History of the Contraceptive Pill

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Darwin Comes to Town - Menno Schilthuizen Cover Art

Darwin Comes to Town

Darwin Comes to Town How the Urban Jungle Drives Evolution by Menno Schilthuizen

*Carrion crows in the Japanese city of Sendai have learned to use passing traffic to crack nuts. *Lizards in Puerto Rico are evolving feet that better grip surfaces like concrete. *Europe's urban blackbirds sing at a higher pitch than their rural cousins, to be heardover the din of traffic. How is this happening? Menno Schilthuizen is one of a growing number of "urban ecologists" studying how our manmade environments are accelerating and changing the evolution of the animals and plants around us. In Darwin Comes to Town , he takes us around the world for an up-close look at just how stunningly flexible and swift-moving natural selection can be. With human populations growing, we're having an increasing impact on global ecosystems, and nowhere do these impacts overlap as much as they do in cities. The urban environment is about as extreme as it gets, and the wild animals and plants that live side-by-side with us need to adapt to a whole suite of challenging conditions: they must manage in the city's hotter climate (the "urban heat island"); they need to be able to live either in the semidesert of the tall, rocky, and cavernous structures we call buildings or in the pocket-like oases of city parks (which pose their own dangers, including smog and free-rangingdogs and cats); traffic causes continuous noise, a mist of fine dust particles, and barriers to movement for any animal that cannot fly or burrow; food sources are mainly human-derived. And yet, as Schilthuizen shows, the wildlife sharing these spaces with us is not just surviving, but evolving ways of thriving. Darwin Comes toTown draws on eye-popping examples of adaptation to share a stunning vision of urban evolution in which humans and wildlife co-exist in a unique harmony. It reveals that evolution can happen far more rapidly than Darwin dreamed, while providing a glimmer of hope that our race toward over population might not take the rest of nature down with us.

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Inside Animal Minds - Mary Roach, Virgina Morell & Peter Miller Cover Art

Inside Animal Minds

Inside Animal Minds The New Science of Animal Intelligence by Mary Roach, Virgina Morell & Peter Miller

The Animal Intelligence Bundle:   "Minds of Their Own" by Virginia Morell (March 2008) "Almost Human" by Mary Roach (April 2008) "The Genius of Swarms" by Peter Miller (July 2007)   In "Minds of Their Own," Virginia Morell provides an overview of the science of animal intelligence. She introduces you to an African gray parrot named Alex, a bonobo named Kanzi, and a border collie named Betsy. Each of these animals tells us something interesting about the way they perceive and manipulate their world. The article also looks at what scientists are learning about the intelligence of dolphins and crows, beyond mere communication.   In "Almost Human," Mary Roach takes us to the savannahs of Senegal to meet a group of 34 chimpanzees, whose behavior and social structures have given scientists some important clues about the nature of their communication and intelligence.   In "The Genius of Swarms," Peter Miller looks at the collective behavior of ants, bees, and other insects for what they can tell us about social organization and how sometimes intelligence lies outside of the individual brain. This article served as the basis for his book, The Smart Swarm: How Understanding Flocks, Schools, and Colonies Can Make Us Better at Communicating, Decision Making, and Getting Things Done.

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Worlds Without End - Chris Impey Cover Art

Worlds Without End

Worlds Without End Exoplanets, Habitability, and the Future of Humanity by Chris Impey

The science of finding habitable planets beyond our solar system and the prospects for establishing human civilization away from our ever-less-habitable planetary home. Winner of the 2026 Lewis Thomas Prize Winner of the 2025 Cosmos Prize Planet Earth, it turns out, may not be the best of all possible worlds—and lately humanity has been carelessly depleting resources, decimating species, and degrading everything needed for life. Meanwhile, human ingenuity has opened up a vista of habitable worlds well beyond our wildest dreams of outposts on Mars. Worlds without End is an expertly guided tour of this thrilling frontier in astronomy: the search for planets with the potential to host life. With the approachable style that has made him a leading interpreter of astronomy and space science, Chris Impey conducts readers across the vast, fast-developing field of astrobiology, surveying the dizzying advances carrying us ever closer to the discovery of life beyond Earth—and the prospect of humans living on another planet. Since the first exoplanet, or planet beyond our solar system, was discovered in 1995, over 4,000 more have been pinpointed, including hundreds of Earth-like planets, many of them habitable, detected by the Kepler satellite. With a view spanning astronomy, planetary science, geology, chemistry, and biology, Impey provides a state-of-the-art account of what’s behind this accelerating progress, what’s next, and what it might mean for humanity’s future. The existential threats that we face here on Earth lend urgency to this search, raising the question: Could space be our salvation? From the definition of habitability to the changing shape of space exploration—as it expands beyond the interests of government to the pursuits of private industry— Worlds without End shows us the science, on horizons near and far, that may hold the answers.

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The Hummingbird Book - Lillian Q. Stokes & Donald Stokes Cover Art

The Hummingbird Book

The Hummingbird Book The Complete Guide to Attracting, Identifying,and Enjoying Hummingbirds by Lillian Q. Stokes & Donald Stokes

Attract amazing hummingbirds to your backyard! With this comprehensive, beautifully illustrated guide, you'll find it easy to attract these tiny jewel-like birds to your own yard. With this comprehensive, beautifully illustrated guide, you'll find it easy to attract these tiny, jewel-like birds to your own yard. The Stokes Hummingbird Book provides all the information you need to bring hummingbirds up close, identify them, and understand their fascinating and varied behavior. The book includes: Range maps and full-color photographs to help you identify and locate hummingbirdsInformation on how to select the proper feeders, what to use in them, when to put them up, and when to take them downAdvice on what flowers to plant to attract hummingbirds in your part of the countryAmazing facts about hummingbirds, such as how fast they fly and how much they weighGuidelines for photographing hummingbirdsComplete information on hummingbird behavior, including flight displays, breeding habits, and feedingA special section on attracting orioles, with photographs and behavior guides for each of the eight species found in North AmericaA resource list for hummingbird supplies

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Bärle's Story - Else Poulsen Cover Art

Bärle's Story

Bärle's Story One Polar Bear's Amazing Recovery from Life as a Circus Act by Else Poulsen

The award-winning zookeeper and author of Smiling Bears shares her account of rescuing and rehabilitating a bear held in a Caribbean circus. When a nineteen-year-old female polar bear named Barle is rescued from the inhumane conditions of a circus in the Caribbean and flown to safety in Detroit, zookeeper Else Poulsen—renowned throughout the world for her work rehabilitating abused bears—is on hand to meet her and help her on the road to recovery and self-discovery. Thus begins Barle's gradual introduction into the world of polar bears. Slowly she forges relationships with the other bears in the zoo and eventually mates with a young male and successfully raises a cub. By living in a caring, enriched environment focused on her welfare, Barle is able to recover from the trauma she had suffered at the circus and develop skills that are important to thriving as a polar bear. As Poulsen documents, however, not all captive bears are so fortunate. Augmented with black-and-white photographs, Barle's Story provides a rich and moving portrayal of a remarkable bear and of the author's inspiring work to help her discover her true polar bear ways. Praise for Barle's Story "This intelligent, stark, and gently humorous book makes one think that if all animals were listened to in the way that…Poulsen listens to bears, our children would inherit an infinitely kinder and safer world that the one they enjoy now." —Dr. Jill Robinson MBE, founder and CEO, Animals Asia Foundation "At once deeply heart-wrenching, heart-warming, and heartful. Read this wonderful book and share it widely." —Dr. Marc Bekoff, author of Why Dogs Hump and Bees Get Depressed

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Beyond DNA - Benjamin Oldroyd Cover Art

Beyond DNA

Beyond DNA How Epigenetics is Transforming our Understanding of Evolution by Benjamin Oldroyd

Beyond DNA is a journey through uncharted territory, advancing new ways of thinking about evolution and adaptation. For nearly a hundred years evolutionary biologists have understood that evolution proceeds by substituting better genes for less good ones. But consensus is growing that this is not the whole story: geneticists are now revealing that spores, sperm, pollen and ova are packed with personalised genetic information that plays an important role in offspring development and has lifelong effects. This epigenetic - or 'extra-genetic ' -inheritance therefore makes significant contributions to evolutionary processes. In this highly accessible book, packed with instructive examples, Benjamin Oldroyd explains how a greater appreciation of the role of epigenetics is helping to solve a multitude of previously intractable problems in evolutionary biology - puzzles as varied as why invasive plants and animals can rapidly adapt to changes in their environment, how worker bees and queen bees can develop from the same egg, and why cancer becomes more common as we age. Beyond DNA concisely explains the mechanisms that underlie epigenetics, shows how epigenetic processes can lead to adaptation, and speculates on meaty issues such as the role that epigenetics plays in human health and happiness.

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Chimpanzee Politics - Frans de Waal Cover Art

Chimpanzee Politics

Chimpanzee Politics Power and Sex among Apes by Frans de Waal

The first edition of Frans de Waal's Chimpanzee Politics was acclaimed not only by primatologists for its scientific achievement but also by politicians, business leaders, and social psychologists for its remarkable insights into the most basic human needs and behaviors. Still considered a classic, this updated edition is a detailed and thoroughly engrossing account of rivalries and coalitions—actions governed by intelligence rather than instinct. As we watch the chimpanzees of Arnhem behave in ways we recognize from Machiavelli (and from the nightly news), de Waal reminds us again that the roots of politics are older than humanity.

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Gödel, Escher, Bach - Douglas R. Hofstadter Cover Art

Gödel, Escher, Bach

Gödel, Escher, Bach An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas R. Hofstadter

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize A metaphorical fugue on minds and machines in the spirit of Lewis Carroll Douglas Hofstadter's book is concerned directly with the nature of "maps" or links between formal systems. However, according to Hofstadter, the formal system that underlies all mental activity transcends the system that supports it. If life can grow out of the formal chemical substrate of the cell, if consciousness can emerge out of a formal system of firing neurons, then so too will computers attain human intelligence. Gödel, Escher, Bach is a wonderful exploration of fascinating ideas at the heart of cognitive science: meaning, reduction, recursion, and much more.

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Silent Spring - Rachel Carson Cover Art

Silent Spring

Silent Spring by Rachel Carson

Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring was first published in three serialized excerpts in the New Yorker in June of 1962. The book appeared in September of that year and the outcry that followed its publication forced the banning of DDT and spurred revolutionary changes in the laws affecting our air, land, and water. Carson’s passionate concern for the future of our planet reverberated powerfully throughout the world, and her eloquent book was instrumental in launching the environmental movement. It is without question one of the landmark books of the twentieth century.

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The Ride of Her Life - Elizabeth Letts Cover Art

The Ride of Her Life

The Ride of Her Life The True Story of a Woman, Her Horse, and Their Last-Chance Journey Across America by Elizabeth Letts

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • The #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Perfect Horse and The Eighty-Dollar Champion presents a “heartwarming [and] engaging folk-hero biography” ( Kirkus Reviews ) of a woman who fulfilled her lifelong wish to see the Pacific Ocean by riding her horse across America. “[Letts] vividly portrays an audacious woman whose optimism, courage, and good humor are to be marveled at and admired.”— Booklist , starred review In 1954, sixty-three-year-old Maine farmer Annie Wilkins embarked on an impossible journey. She had no money and no family, she had just lost her farm, and her doctor had given her only two years to live. But Annie wanted to see the Pacific Ocean before she died. She ignored her doctor’s advice to move into the county charity home. Instead, she bought a cast-off brown gelding named Tarzan, donned men’s dungarees, and headed south in mid-November, hoping to beat the snow. Annie had little idea what to expect beyond her rural crossroads; she didn’t even have a map. But she did have her ex-racehorse, her faithful mutt, and her own unfailing belief that Americans would treat a stranger with kindness. Annie, Tarzan, and her dog, Depeche Toi, rode straight into a world transformed by the rapid construction of modern highways. Between 1954 and 1956, the three travelers pushed through blizzards, forded rivers, climbed mountains, and clung to the narrow shoulder as cars whipped by them at terrifying speeds. Annie rode more than four thousand miles, through America’s big cities and small towns. Along the way, she met ordinary people and celebrities—from Andrew Wyeth (who sketched Tarzan) to Art Linkletter and Groucho Marx. She received many offers—a permanent home at a riding stable in New Jersey, a job at a gas station in rural Kentucky, even a marriage proposal from a Wyoming rancher. In a decade when car ownership nearly tripled, when television’s influence was expanding fast, when homeowners began locking their doors, Annie and her four-footed companions inspired an outpouring of neighborliness in a rapidly changing world.

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Moonwalking with Einstein - Joshua Foer Cover Art

Moonwalking with Einstein

Moonwalking with Einstein The Art and Science of Remembering Everything by Joshua Foer

The bestselling, blockbuster phenomenon that charts an amazing journey of the mind while revolutionizing our concept of memory “Highly entertaining.” —Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker “Funny, curious, erudite, and full of useful details about ancient techniques of training memory.” — The Boston Globe An instant bestseller that has now become a classic, Moonwalking with Einstein recounts Joshua Foer's yearlong quest to improve his memory under the tutelage of top "mental athletes." He draws on cutting-edge research, a surprising cultural history of remembering, and venerable tricks of the mentalist's trade to transform our understanding of human memory. From the United States Memory Championship to deep within the author's own mind, this is an electrifying work of journalism that reminds us that, in every way that matters, we are the sum of our memories.

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Entangled Life - Merlin Sheldrake Cover Art

Entangled Life

Entangled Life How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures by Merlin Sheldrake

THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER WITH OVER ONE MILLION COPIES SOLD WORLDWIDE A “brilliant [and] entrancing” ( The Guardian ) journey into the hidden lives of fungi—the great connectors of the living world—and their astonishing and intimate roles in human life, with the power to heal our bodies, expand our minds, and help us address our most urgent environmental problems. “Grand and dizzying in how thoroughly it recalibrates our understanding of the natural world.”—Ed Yong, author of An Immense World ONE OF PEOPLE ’S BEST BOOKS OF THE 2020S • ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Time, BBC Science Focus, The Daily Mail, Geographical, The Times, The Telegraph, New Statesman, London Evening Standard, Science Friday When we think of fungi, we likely think of mushrooms. But mushrooms are only fruiting bodies, analogous to apples on a tree. Most fungi live out of sight, yet make up a massively diverse kingdom of organisms that supports and sustains nearly all living systems. Fungi provide a key to understanding the planet on which we live, and the ways we think, feel, and behave. In the first edition of this mind-bending book, Sheldrake introduced us to this mysterious but massively diverse kingdom of life. This exquisitely designed volume, abridged from the original, features more than one hundred full-color images that bring the spectacular variety, strangeness, and beauty of fungi to life as never before. Fungi throw our concepts of individuality and even intelligence into question. They are metabolic masters, earth makers, and key players in most of life’s processes. They can change our minds, heal our bodies, and even help us remediate environmental disaster. By examining fungi on their own terms, Sheldrake reveals how these extraordinary organisms—and our relationships with them—are changing our understanding of how life works. Winner of the Wainwright Prize, the Royal Society Science Book Prize, and the Guild of Food Writers Award • Shortlisted for the British Book Award • Longlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize

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Operation Paperclip - Annie Jacobsen Cover Art

Operation Paperclip

Operation Paperclip The Secret Intelligence Program that Brought Nazi Scientists to America by Annie Jacobsen

The “remarkable” story of America's secret post-WWII science programs ( The Boston Globe ), from the  New York Times  bestselling author of  Area 51 .  In the chaos following World War II, the U.S. government faced many difficult decisions, including what to do with the Third Reich's scientific minds. These were the brains behind the Nazis' once-indomitable war machine. So began Operation Paperclip, a decades-long, covert project to bring Hitler's scientists and their families to the United States. Many of these men were accused of war crimes, and others had stood trial at Nuremberg; one was convicted of mass murder and slavery. They were also directly responsible for major advances in rocketry, medical treatments, and the U.S. space program. Was Operation Paperclip a moral outrage, or did it help America win the Cold War? Drawing on exclusive interviews with dozens of Paperclip family members, colleagues, and interrogators, and with access to German archival documents (including previously unseen papers made available by direct descendants of the Third Reich's ranking members), files obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, and dossiers discovered in government archives and at Harvard University, Annie Jacobsen follows more than a dozen German scientists through their postwar lives and into a startling, complex, nefarious, and jealously guarded government secret of the twentieth century. In this definitive, controversial look at one of America's most strategic, and disturbing, government programs, Jacobsen shows just how dark government can get in the name of national security. "Harrowing...How Dr. Strangelove came to America and thrived, told in graphic detail."  —Kirkus Reviews

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Transformer - Nick Lane Cover Art

Transformer

Transformer The Deep Chemistry of Life and Death by Nick Lane

From the renowned biochemist and author of The Vital Question, an illuminating inquiry into the Krebs cycle and the origins of life. “Nick Lane’s exploration of the building blocks that underlie life’s big fundamental questions—the origin of life itself, aging, and disease—have shaped my thinking since I first came across his work. He is one of my favorite science writers.”—Bill Gates What brings the Earth to life, and our own lives to an end? For decades, biology has been dominated by the study of genetic information. Information is important, but it is only part of what makes us alive. Our inheritance also includes our living metabolic network, a flame passed from generation to generation, right back to the origin of life. In Transformer, biochemist Nick Lane reveals a scientific renaissance that is hiding in plain sight —how the same simple chemistry gives rise to life and causes our demise. Lane is among the vanguard of researchers asking why the Krebs cycle, the “perfect circle” at the heart of metabolism, remains so elusive more than eighty years after its discovery. Transformer is Lane’s voyage, as a biochemist, to find the inner meaning of the Krebs cycle—and its reverse—why it is still spinning at the heart of life and death today. Lane reveals the beautiful, violent world within our cells, where hydrogen atoms are stripped from the carbon skeletons of food and fed to the ravenous beast of oxygen. Yet this same cycle, spinning in reverse, also created the chemical building blocks that enabled the emergence of life on our planet. Now it does both. How can the same pathway create and destroy? What might our study of the Krebs cycle teach us about the mysteries of aging and the hardest problem of all, consciousness? Transformer unites the story of our planet with the story of our cells—what makes us the way we are, and how it connects us to the origin of life. Enlivened by Lane’s talent for distilling and humanizing complex research, Transformer offers an essential read for anyone fascinated by biology’s great mysteries. Life is at root a chemical phenomenon: this is its deep logic.

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The Theory That Would Not Die - Sharon Bertsch McGrayne Cover Art

The Theory That Would Not Die

The Theory That Would Not Die How Bayes' Rule Cracked the Enigma Code, Hunted Down Russian Submarines, & Emerged Triumphant from Two Centuries of C by Sharon Bertsch McGrayne

"This account of how a once reviled theory, Baye's rule, came to underpin modern life is both approachable and engrossing" ( Sunday Times ).   A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice Bayes' rule appears to be a straightforward, one-line theorem: by updating our initial beliefs with objective new information, we get a new and improved belief. To its adherents, it is an elegant statement about learning from experience. To its opponents, it is subjectivity run amok. In the first-ever account of Bayes' rule for general readers, Sharon Bertsch McGrayne explores this controversial theorem and the generations-long human drama surrounding it.   McGrayne traces the rule's discovery by an 18th century amateur mathematician through its development by French scientist Pierre Simon Laplace. She reveals why respected statisticians rendered it professionally taboo for 150 years—while practitioners relied on it to solve crises involving great uncertainty and scanty information, such as Alan Turing's work breaking Germany's Enigma code during World War II.   McGrayne also explains how the advent of computer technology in the 1980s proved to be a game-changer. Today, Bayes' rule is used everywhere from DNA de-coding to Homeland Security. Drawing on primary source material and interviews with statisticians and other scientists,  The Theory That Would Not Die  is the riveting account of how a seemingly simple theorem ignited one of the greatest controversies of all time.

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Stars and Planets - Ian Ridpath Cover Art

Stars and Planets

Stars and Planets by Ian Ridpath

A compact, comprehensive guide to looking at stars and planets for readers from around the world. The clearest, most accessible guide to observing the night sky. Authoritative text, crystal-clear charts, and a systematic approach make the DK Handbook of Star and Planets the perfect beginner's guide to the night sky. A highly visual introduction explains the basic concepts of astronomy and gives advice on the best methods and equipment for observation, including binoculars and telescopes. Each of the planets in the solar system is described and illustrated in detail, with images taken from space probes as well as from the ground, showing them as you can expect to see them. More than 160 star charts were made especially for this book by the Royal Greenwich Observatory. There is a separate, detailed chart for each of the 88 constellations, adding up to a complete atlas of the sky. The text for each constellation reveals its history and mythology and lists notable stars, galaxies, nebulae, and other objects. Alongside the constellation profiles is a month-by-month guide, including a set of charts and a user-friendly text guide that picks out the highlights above your head each month. Complete with jargon-free text written by one of the foremost popularizers of astronomy and an authority on the history of constellations, the DK Handbook of Stars and Planets is the perfect introduction to stargazing.

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Reactions - Theodore Gray Cover Art

Reactions

Reactions An Illustrated Exploration of Elements, Molecules, and Change in the Universe by Theodore Gray

In  Reactions, bestselling author Theodore Gray demonstrates, through stunning, never-before-seen images and illustrations, how molecules interact and change in ways that are essential to our existence.  With  Reactions , Theodore Gray completes the journey through the chemical world that began with the tour de force  The Elements  and continued with  Molecules.  In  The Elements  Gray showed us a never-before-seen photographic view of the 118 elements in the periodic table. In  Molecules , he showed us how the elements combine to form the matter that makes up our world. At last, we've arrived at the final step in the chemical process.  Reactions   begins with a recap of elements and molecules and the goes on to explain the concepts that characterize a chemical reaction, including energy, entropy, and time. Gray introduces us to his favorite reactions, from those characterized by ignition and explosion, to photosynthesis, to "The Boring Chapter" in which he dives deep into reactions like paint drying, grass growing, and water boiling.  Reactions  is the spectacular finale of the three-act chemical drama that Gray has illustrated for us over the years in his engaging, entertaining, and inimitable way.

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Radical Life Extension - Kristopher Borer Cover Art

Radical Life Extension

Radical Life Extension by Kristopher Borer

Aging is the leading cause of death, yet it remains largely unchallenged. Radical Life Extension confronts it directly, exploring three parallel strategies: biostasis, which preserves the body after death; replacement, which restores function through new tissues and organs; and advanced bioengineering, which produces therapies to slow and reverse aging. Cutting through hype and false promises, this book explains why most longevity strategies fall short, which approaches have a real chance of success, and what it will take to turn possibility into reality. It offers a clear, technically grounded view of the science, along with a practical answer to a pressing question: how can individuals help bring about a future without aging.

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Cosmos - Carl Sagan & Ann Druyan Cover Art

Cosmos

Cosmos by Carl Sagan & Ann Druyan

Renowned astronomer Carl Sagan’s classic bestseller that “dives into the past, present, and future of science, dealing with the mind-staggering enormity of the cosmos in which we exist” (Associated Press)—with an Introduction by Ann Druyan and a Foreword by Neil deGrasse Tyson “Sagan dazzles the mind with the miracle of our survival, framed by the stately galaxies of space.”— Cosmopolitan THE INSPIRATION FOR THE FOX MINISERIES COSMOS: POSSIBLE WORLDS , HOSTED BY NEIL DEGRASSE TYSON AND STARRING SETH MACFARLANE AND SIR PATRICK STEWART In clear-eyed prose, Carl Sagan reveals a jewel-like blue world inhabited by a life form that is just beginning to discover its own identity and to venture into the vast ocean of space. Featuring full-color illustrations, Cosmos retraces the fourteen billion years of cosmic evolution that have transformed matter into consciousness, exploring such topics as the origin of life, the human brain, Egyptian hieroglyphics, spacecraft missions, the death of the Sun, the evolution of galaxies, and the forces and individuals who helped shape modern science.

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Breath - James Nestor Cover Art

Breath

Breath The New Science of a Lost Art by James Nestor

THE MILLION COPY NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER, FEATURING NEW MATERIAL "I highly recommend this book." —Wim Hof “A fascinating scientific, cultural, spiritual and evolutionary history of the way humans breathe—and how we’ve all been doing it wrong for a long, long time.” —Elizabeth Gilbert "This book is amazing. “ — Joe Rogan No matter what you eat, how much you exercise, how skinny or young or wise you are, none of it matters if you’re not breathing properly. There is nothing more essential to our health and well-being than breathing: take air in, let it out, repeat twenty-five thousand times a day. Yet, as a species, humans have lost the ability to breathe correctly, with grave consequences. Journalist James Nestor travels the world to figure out what went wrong and how to fix it. The answers aren’t found in pulmonology labs, as we might expect, but in the muddy digs of ancient burial sites, secret Soviet facilities, New Jersey choir schools, and the smoggy streets of São Paulo. Nestor tracks down men and women exploring the hidden science behind ancient breathing practices like Pranayama, Sudarshan Kriya, and Tummo and teams up with pulmonary tinkerers to scientifically test long-held beliefs about how we breathe. Modern research is showing us that making even slight adjustments to the way we inhale and exhale can jump-start athletic performance; rejuvenate internal organs; halt snoring, asthma, and autoimmune disease; and even straighten scoliotic spines. None of this should be possible, and yet it is. Drawing on thousands of years of medical texts and recent cutting-edge studies in pulmonology, psychology, biochemistry, and human physiology, Breath turns the conventional wisdom of what we thought we knew about our most basic biological function on its head. You will never breathe the same again.

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