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Apocalyptic Planet
Field Guide to the Everending Earth
Discusses the Earth's inherent instability and susceptibility toward violent natural disasters and climate extremes, challenging beliefs about apocalyptic inevitabilities while revealing how to change humanity's place within the planet's cycles.
News and Reviews
A World in One Cubic Foot
Portraits of Biodiversity
Presents portraits of the diverse life forms that moved through one cubic foot of space over twenty-four hours in six different ecosystems around the world.
News and Reviews
Gossip
The Untrivial Pursuit
An incisive exploration of the cultural practice of gossip defines the phenomenon as an eternal and necessary human enterprise that has evolved to new levels in the Internet age, exploring the ways that gossip has had a negative impact on politics and journalism. By the best-selling author of Snobbery.
News and Reviews
The Particle at the End of the Universe
How the Hunt for the Higgs Boson Leads Us to the Edge of a New World
Examines the effort to discover the Higgs boson particle by tracing the development and use of the Large Hadron Collider and how its findings are dramatically shaping scientific understandings while enabling world-changing innovations.
News and Reviews
Drop Dead Healthy
One Man's Humble Quest for Bodily Perfection
In Drop Dead Healthy, author A.J. Jacobs attempts to become the healthiest man in the world. Structuring his life around a deluge of diets and fitness regimens that often contradict each other, he experiences the logical conclusion of our culture's health obsessions. NPR Bestseller
News and Reviews
A Man of Misconceptions
The Life of an Eccentric in an Age of Change
Athanasius Kircher, the legendary 17th-century priest-scientist, was either a genius or a raving lunatic. This fascinating portrait traces his rise, success and eventual fall.
News and Reviews
Hallucinations
An investigation into the types, physiological sources and cultural resonances of hallucinations traces everything from the disorientations of sleep and intoxication to the manifestations of injury and illness.NPR Bestseller
News and Reviews
Brain On Fire
My Month of Madness
An account of the author's struggle with a rare brain-attacking autoimmune disease traces how she woke up in a hospital with no memory of her baffling psychotic symptoms, and describes the last-minute intervention by a doctor who identified the source of her illness.
News and Reviews
The Antidote
Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking
News and Reviews
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks documents the story of how scientists took cells from an unsuspecting descendant of freed slaves and created a human cell line that has been kept alive indefinitely, enabling numerous medical and scientific discoveries.NPR Bestseller
News and Reviews
The Generals
American Military Command from World War II to Today
The Generals describes the values, strategic thinking and leadership qualities of military leaders from World War II to the present day and how the widening separation between performance and accountability has not resulted in any recent Marshalls, Eisenhowers or Pattons.
News and Reviews
Rare Earth
Why Complex Life Is Uncommon in the Universe
Argues that, while primitive organisms such as microbes are likely abundant in the universe, advanced life and multicellular organisms are incredibly rare, as they require a myriad of special circumstances to survive.
News and Reviews
A Tear at the Edge of Creation
A Radical New Vision for Life in an Imperfect Universe
A physics and philosophy professor challenges modern beliefs about the definable nature of the cosmos, arguing that all things exist because of random imperfections, primordial asymmetries and outright accidents, in a report that also cites the importance of caring for the planet.
