A Short History of Nearly Everything

Written by Bill Bryson

Format: Hardcover, 560 pages
Publisher: Broadway
On Sale: May 6, 2003
Price: $32.00
ISBN: 978-0-7679-0817-7 (0-7679-0817-1)

Shortlisted, by Britain’s Royal Society, for the prestigious “Aventis Prize for Science Books.”

Bill Bryson is one of the world’s most beloved and bestselling writers. In A Short History of Nearly Everything, he takes his ultimate journey–into the most intriguing and consequential questions that science seeks to answer. It’s a dazzling... Read more >

A Short History of Nearly Everything: Special Illustrated Edition

Written by Bill Bryson

Format: Trade Paperback, 624 pages
Publisher: Broadway
On Sale: October 5, 2010
Price: $28.00
ISBN: 978-0-307-88515-9 (0-307-88515-1)

This new edition of the acclaimed bestseller is lavishly illustrated to convey, in pictures as in words, Bill Bryson’s exciting, informative journey into the world of science.

In A Short History of Nearly Everything, beloved author Bill Bryson confronts his greatest challenge yet: to understand—and, if possible, answer—the oldest, biggest questions we... Read more >

This New Ocean
The Story of the First Space Age
Written by William E. Burrows

Format: Trade Paperback, 752 pages
Publisher: Modern Library
On Sale: November 5, 1999
Price: $22.00
ISBN: 978-0-375-75485-2 (0-375-75485-7)

It was all part of man's greatest adventure--landing men on the Moon and sending a rover to Mars, finally seeing the edge of the universe and the birth of stars, and launching planetary explorers across the solar system to Neptune and beyond.
        
The ancient dream of breaking gravity's hold and taking to... Read more >

Darwin
A Graphic Biography
Written by Eugene Byrne
Illustrated by Simon Gurr

Format: Trade Paperback, 100 pages
Publisher: Smithsonian Books
On Sale: February 5, 2013
Price: $9.95
ISBN: 978-1-58834-352-9 (1-58834-352-9)

Darwin: A Graphic Biography is an expedition into the physical and intellectual adventures of Charles Darwin. Presenting Darwin’s life in a smart and entertaining graphic novel, the book attempts to not only educate the reader about Darwin but also the scientific world of the 1800s.

The graphic novel captures a young... Read more >

The Science of Leonardo
Inside the Mind of the Great Genius of the Renaissance
Written by Fritjof Capra

Format: Trade Paperback, 352 pages
Publisher: Anchor
On Sale: December 2, 2008
Price: $18.00
ISBN: 978-1-4000-7883-7 (1-4000-7883-0)

Leonardo da Vinci's scientific explorations were virtually unknown during his lifetime, despite their extraordinarily wide range. He studied the flight patterns of birds to create some of the first human flying machines; designed military weapons and defenses; studied optics, hydraulics, and the workings of the human circulatory system; and created designs... Read more >

The Tao of Physics
An Exploration of the Parallels between Modern Physics and Eastern Mysticism
Written by Fritjof Capra

Format: Trade Paperback, 368 pages
Publisher: Shambhala
On Sale: September 14, 2010
Price: $17.95
ISBN: 978-1-59030-835-6 (1-59030-835-2)

Here is the book that brought the mystical implications of subatomic physics to popular consciousness for the very first time–way back in 1975. This special edition celebrates the thirty-fifth anniversary of this a classic. It includes a new preface by the author, in which he reflects on the further discoveries and... Read more >

The Web of Life
A New Scientific Understanding of Living Systems
Written by Fritjof Capra

Format: Trade Paperback, 368 pages
Publisher: Anchor
On Sale: September 15, 1997
Price: $17.00
ISBN: 978-0-385-47676-8 (0-385-47676-0)

A Library Journal Best Scientific & Technical Book 1996.

The author of The Tao of Physics and The Turning Point explores the shift from linear thinking to systems thinking in the sciences. The web of life is the "interrelationships and interdependencies of psychological, biological, social, and cultural phenomena." Capra explores how to... Read more >

Shadows
Unlocking Their Secrets, from Plato to Our Time
Written by Roberto Casati

Format: Trade Paperback, 240 pages
Publisher: Vintage
On Sale: August 10, 2004
Price: $13.00
ISBN: 978-0-375-70711-7 (0-375-70711-5)

A remarkable exploration of how shadows have forever fascinated us: their extraordinary hold on our fears and imagination; their importance to astronomers, scientists, philosophers, and artists; their influence on myth and religious beliefs.

What’s stranger than a shadow? Shadows are messengers from the world of darkness, images that we can’t shake off... Read more >

Life After Death
The Burden of Proof
Written by Deepak Chopra

Format: Trade Paperback, 304 pages
Publisher: Three Rivers Press
On Sale: September 16, 2008
Price: $15.00
ISBN: 978-1-4000-5235-6 (1-4000-5235-1)

What happens to the spirit after the body dies?

In Life After Death, Deepak Chopra draws on cutting-edge scientific discoveries and the great wisdom traditions to provide a map of the afterlife. He tells us there is abundant evidence that “the world beyond” is not separated from this world by an impassable... Read more >

The Most Human Human
What Talking with Computers Teaches Us About What It Means to Be Alive
Written by Brian Christian

Format: Hardcover, 320 pages
Publisher: Doubleday
On Sale: March 1, 2011
Price: $27.95
ISBN: 978-0-385-53306-5 (0-385-53306-3)

The Most Human Human is a provocative, exuberant, and profound exploration of the ways in which computers are reshaping our ideas of what it means to be human. Its starting point is the annual Turing Test, which pits artificial intelligence programs against people to determine if computers can “think.”

Named for... Read more >

The Prism and the Pendulum
The Ten Most Beautiful Experiments in Science
Written by Robert Crease

Format: Trade Paperback, 272 pages
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
On Sale: October 12, 2004
Price: $16.00
ISBN: 978-0-8129-7062-3 (0-8129-7062-4)

Is science beautiful? Yes, argues acclaimed philosopher and historian of science Robert P. Crease in this engaging exploration of history’s most beautiful experiments. The result is an engrossing journey through nearly 2,500 years of scientific innovation. Along the way, he encounters the personalities and creative thinking of some of the field’s... Read more >

The Universe in a Single Atom
The Convergence of Science and Spirituality
Written by Dalai Lama

Format: Trade Paperback, 224 pages
Publisher: Three Rivers Press
On Sale: September 12, 2006
Price: $14.95
ISBN: 978-0-7679-2081-0 (0-7679-2081-3)

Galileo, Copernicus, Newton, Niels Bohr, Einstein. Their insights shook our perception of who we are and where we stand in the world, and in their wake have left an uneasy coexistence: science vs. religion, faith vs. empirical inquiry. Which is the keeper of truth? Which is the true path to understanding... Read more >

Self Comes to Mind
Constructing the Conscious Brain
Written by Antonio Damasio

Format: Trade Paperback, 416 pages
Publisher: Vintage
On Sale: March 6, 2012
Price: $15.95
ISBN: 978-0-307-47495-7 (0-307-47495-X)

A leading neuroscientist explores with authority, with imagination, and with unparalleled mastery how the brain constructs the mind and how the brain makes that mind conscious.

Antonio Damasio has spent the past thirty years researching and and revealing how the brain works. Here, in his most ambitious and stunning work yet, he... Read more >

The Origin of Species

Written by Charles Darwin
Foreword by Edward J. Larson

Format: Trade Paperback, 720 pages
Publisher: Modern Library
On Sale: August 11, 1998
Price: $12.00
ISBN: 978-0-375-75146-2 (0-375-75146-7)

Perhaps the most readable of the great works of scientific imagination, The Origin of Species set forth a theory of evolution and natural selection that challenged contemporary beliefs about divine providence and the immutability of species.

This edition also includes an introductory sketch and a glossary Darwin later added to the original... Read more >

The Origin of Species and The Voyage of the 'Beagle'
Introduction by Richard Dawkins
Written by Charles Darwin
Introduction by Richard Dawkins

Format: Hardcover, 1024 pages
Publisher: Everyman's Library
On Sale: October 14, 2003
Price: $32.00
ISBN: 978-1-4000-4127-5 (1-4000-4127-9)

Easily the most influential book published in the nineteenth century, Darwin’s The Origin of Species is also that most unusual phenomenon, an altogether readable discussion of a scientific subject. On its appearance in 1859 it was immediately recognized by enthusiasts and detractors alike as a work of the greatest importance: the... Read more >

The Voyage of the Beagle
Journal of Researches into the Natural History and Geology of the Countries Visited During the Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle Round the World
Written by Charles Darwin
Introduction by Steve Jones

Format: Trade Paperback, 496 pages
Publisher: Modern Library
On Sale: March 13, 2001
Price: $12.95
ISBN: 978-0-375-75680-1 (0-375-75680-9)

The Voyage of the Beagle chronicles Charles Darwin's five-year journey around the world and especially the coastal waters of South America as a naturalist on the H.M.S. Beagle. While traveling through these unexplored countries collecting specimens, Darwin began to formulate the theories of evolution and natural selection realized in his master... Read more >

Eye in the Sky
The Story of the CORONA Spy Satellites
Written by Dwayne Day

Format: Trade Paperback, 320 pages
Publisher: Smithsonian Books
On Sale: August 17, 1999
Price: $17.95
ISBN: 978-1-56098-773-4 (1-56098-773-1)

Presenting the full story of the CORONA spy satellites’ origins, Eye in the Sky explores the Cold War technology and far-reaching effects of the satellites on foreign policy and national security. Arguing that satellite reconnaissance was key to shaping the course of the Cold War, the book documents breakthroughs in intelligence... Read more >

The Future of Man

Written by Teilhard de Chardin

Format: Trade Paperback, 336 pages
Publisher: Image
On Sale: April 20, 2004
Price: $19.00
ISBN: 978-0-385-51072-1 (0-385-51072-1)

The Future of Man is a magnificent introduction to the thoughts and writings of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, one of the few figures in the history of the Catholic Church to achieve renown as both a scientist and a theologian.

Trained as a paleontologist and ordained as a Jesuit priest, Teilhard de... Read more >

Evolution

Written by Jean-Baptiste De Panafieu
Photographed by Patrick Gries
Translated by Linda Asher

Format: Hardcover, 448 pages
Publisher: Seven Stories Press
On Sale: November 15, 2011
Price: $45.00
ISBN: 978-1-60980-368-1 (1-60980-368-X)

Spectacular, mysterious, elegant, or grotesque, the vertebrate skeletons of Earth’s fossil record carry within them the traces of several billion years of evolution. Evolution, a resounding success on its initial publication in 2007, is a unique and beautiful attempt to provide a map of those billion years in time.

Here is a... Read more >

Reef Madness
Charles Darwin, Alexander Agassiz, and the Meaning of Coral
Written by David Dobbs

Format: Hardcover, 320 pages
Publisher: Pantheon
On Sale: January 4, 2005
Price: $25.00
ISBN: 978-0-375-42161-7 (0-375-42161-0)

The controversy over the origin of coral reef held a critical place in 19th century science as a problem involving both how the earth was formed and how science should be practiced. No one was more sensitive to this issue than Alexander Agassiz, for whom the coral reef problem held singularly... Read more >

Biocidal
Confronting the Poisonous Legacy of PCBs
Written by Theodore Michael Dracos

Format: Trade Paperback, 304 pages
Publisher: Beacon Press
On Sale: March 6, 2012
Price: $24.00
ISBN: 978-0-8070-0632-0 (0-8070-0632-7)

Whether or not you’ve heard of PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls), it’s likely that this toxic chemical can be found in your cells. PCBs were invented in 1920 for the electronics industry, fueled the WWII military machine, then were put to domestic uses, and finally came to be present in every corner of... Read more >

The Deep Ecology Movement
An Introductory Anthology
Edited by Alan Drengson and Yuichi Inoue
Contribution by Arne Naess and Gary Snyder

Format: Trade Paperback, 328 pages
Publisher: North Atlantic Books
On Sale: February 2, 1995
Price: $20.00
ISBN: 978-1-55643-198-2 (1-55643-198-8)

The Deep Ecology Movement, a name introduced by noted Norwegian philosopher Arne Naess, is a worldwide grassroots environmental movement that seeks to redress the shallow and piecemeal approach of technology-based ecology. Its followers share a profound respect for the Earth's interrelated natural communities and a sense of urgency about the need... Read more >

The Scientist as Rebel

Written by Freeman Dyson

Format: Hardcover, 400 pages
Publisher: New York Review Books
On Sale: November 14, 2006
Price: $27.95
ISBN: 978-1-59017-216-2 (1-59017-216-7)

An illuminating collection of essays by an award-winning scientist whom the London Times calls “one of the world’s most original minds.”

In the view of the prize-winning physicist Freeman J. Dyson, science, wherever it practiced, is characterized by its rebellion against the restrictions of local cultures. Like art and poetry, it resists... Read more >

The Professor of Secrets
Mystery, Medicine, and Alchemy in Renaissance Italy
Written by William Eamon

Format: Hardcover, 368 pages
Publisher: National Geographic
On Sale: July 20, 2010
Price: $26.00
ISBN: 978-1-4262-0650-4 (1-4262-0650-X)

In the tradition of Galileo’s Daughter and Brunelleschi’s Dome, this exciting story illuminates the captivating world of the late Renaissance–in this case its plagues, remedies, and alchemy–through the life of Leonardo Fioravanti, a brilliant, remarkably forward-thinking, and utterly unconventional doctor. Fioravanti’s marvelous cures and talent for self-aggrandizement earned him the adoration... Read more >

Dry Storeroom No. 1
The Secret Life of the Natural History Museum
Written by Richard Fortey

Format: Trade Paperback, 352 pages
Publisher: Vintage
On Sale: September 8, 2009
Price: $18.95
ISBN: 978-0-307-27552-3 (0-307-27552-3)

Aremarkable behind-the-scenes look at the extraordinary people, meticulous research, and driving passions that make London’s Natural History Museum one of the world’s greatest institutions.

In an elegant and illuminating narrative, Richard Fortey takes his readers to a place where only a few privileged scientists, curators, and research specialists have been—the hallowed halls... Read more >