Off-planet observations—the search for extraterrestrial life and curiosity about our universe—and time travel are among the wide-ranging subjects in this fall’s science books. The mind/body/consciousness zeitgeist also presses on, smartly incorporating air and sea creatures as well as land lubbers.
Top 10
Aliens: The World’s Leading Scientists on the Search for Extraterrestrial Life
Edited by Jim Al-Khalili. Picador, Nov. 1
In a series of fascinating essays, members of the global scientific community weigh in on advances in the search for intelligent life in the universe and discuss what it might look like.
Are Numbers Real? The Uncanny Relationship of Mathematics and the Physical World
Brian Clegg. St. Martin’s, Dec. 6
Clegg looks at the history of numbers, exploring the way that math has become increasingly detached from reality, and yet continues to drive the development of modern physics.
Falcon
Helen Macdonald. Reaktion, Oct. 15
Macdonald dives through centuries and around the globe to tell the tale of the falcon through history, myth, and legend, exploring the long history of the sport of falconry across cultures.
The Glass Universe
Dava Sobel. Viking, Dec. 6
Sobel shares the story of the contributions to astronomy made by a group of women working in the Harvard College Observatory from the late 19th century through the mid-20th.
Goldilocks and the Water Bears: The Search for Life in the Universe
Louisa Preston. Bloomsbury/Sigma, Nov. 8
Scientist Preston describes what astrobiology—the study of life in the universe from its origins to its evolution into intelligent sentient beings—says about the likelihood of extraterrestrial life.
I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life
Ed Yong. Ecco, Aug. 9
Yong reveals the extraordinary story of the partnerships between familiar and unfamiliar microscopic creatures as well as how we humans are disrupting and manipulating them.
Now: The Physics of Time
Richard A. Muller. Norton, Sept. 20
Muller crafts a revolutionary theory of time that poke holes in past ideas and makes testable predictions, laying out a firm and clear explanation of the building blocks of his theory.
Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness
Peter Godfrey-Smith. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Dec. 6
By tracing the problem of consciousness back to its roots and comparing the human brain to that of the octopus, Godfrey-Smith sheds new light on one of life’s enduring mysteries.
Patient H.M.: A Story of Memory, Madness, and Family Secrets
Luke Dittrich. Random House, Aug. 9
Dittrich explores the scientific, ethical, and human dimensions of this important chapter in medical history, exposing troubling stories of how far we’ve gone in our pursuit of knowledge.
Time Travel: A History
James Gleick. Pantheon, Sept. 27
Gleick leads a mind-bending exploration of time travel: its subversive origins, its evolution in literature and science, and its influence on our understanding of time itself.
Science Listings
Arcade
Venom Doc: The Edgiest, Darkest, Strangest Natural History Memoir Ever by Bryan Grieg Fry (Oct. 4, hardcover, $24.99, ISBN 978-1-62872-699-2). Crocodile Dundee meets David Attenborough in this jaw-dropping account as venomologist Fry recounts his lifelong passion for studying the world’s most venomous creatures. It’s a captivating memoir, where Fry and danger are never far apart.
Basic
A Big Bang in a Little Room: The Quest to Create New Universes by Zeeya Merali (Jan. 31, hardcover, $27.99, ISBN 978-0-465-06591-2) takes readers on a journey through the history of cosmology and unravels the ideas behind the provocative claim, made by some of the most respected physicists alive, that we can nurse other worlds in the tiny confines of a lab.
Calculating the Cosmos: How Mathematics Unveils the Universe by Ian Stewart (Oct. 25, hardcover, $27.99, ISBN 978-0-465-09610-7). In his accessible and engaging style, Stewart uses math to describe the architecture of space and time; dark matter and dark energy; how galaxies, stars, and planets form; why stars implode; how everything began; and how it’s all going to end.
Sun Moon Earth: The History of Solar Eclipses from Omens of Doom to Einstein and Exoplanets by Tyler Nordgren (Sept. 13, hardcover, $26.99, ISBN 978-0-465-06092-4). Astronomer Nordgren illustrates how this apparently unnatural phenomenon was transformed from a fearsome omen to a tourist attraction. Traveling through history, he shows how different cultures interpreted these dramatic events.
Bloomsbury
The Story of the World in 100 Species by Christopher Lloyd (Sept. 27, trade paper, $30, ISBN 978-1-4088-7638-1) explains, in a jargon-free way, the phenomenon called life on Earth. This beautifully illustrated, wide-ranging book provides entertaining and eye-opening insight into the story of Earth, humankind’s place in nature, and our pivotal relationship with the Earth: past, present, and future.
Bloomsbury Natural History
Birds: Myth, Lore and Legend by Rachel Warren-Chadd and Marianne Taylor (Oct. 25, hardcover, $40, ISBN 978-1-4729-2286-1) draws on historical accounts and scientific literature to reveal how colorful tales or superstitions were shaped by human imagination from each bird’s behavior or appearance. The book offers an enchanting perspective on more than 80 kinds of birds from around the world.
Bloomsbury Sigma
Bring Back the King: The New Science of De-extinction by Helen Pilcher (Jan. 10, hardcover, $27, ISBN 978-1-4729-1225-1) describes current initiatives and future plans to restore long-deceased species, and uses both science and willful irreverence to assess the ramifications of how these genetic Lazaruses might fare in their brave new world.
Goldilocks and the Water Bears: The Search for Life in the Universe by Louisa Preston (Nov. 8, hardcover, $27, ISBN 978-1-4729-2009-6). Scientist Preston chronicles what astrobiology— the study of life in the universe from its origins to its evolution into intelligent sentient beings—says about the likelihood of extraterrestrial life.
Science and the City: The Mechanics Behind the Metropolis by Laurie Winkless (Oct. 25, hardcover, $27, ISBN 978-1-4729-1321-0). Uncovering the science and engineering that shapes cities, Winkless reveals how technology will aid in meeting future urban challenges—including increasing demand for power, water, and Internet access, as well as how to navigate a megacity of tens of millions of people.
Columbia Univ.
The Madhouse Effect: How Climate Change Denial Is Threatening Our Planet, Destroying Our Politics, and Driving Us Crazy by Michael E. Mann (Oct. 11, hardcover, $24.95, ISBN 978-0-231-17786-3). Climate scientist Mann and Pulitzer Prize–winning political cartoonist Tom Toles satirically portray the intellectual pretzels into which denialists twist to explain away the clear evidence of man-made climate change.
Reductionism in Art and Brain Science: Bridging the Two Cultures by Eric Kandel (Sept. 6, hardcover, $29.95, ISBN 978-0-231-17962-1) draws on Kandel’s Nobel Prize–winning work studying the neurobiological underpinnings of learning and memory to explore how reductionism—the distillation of larger concepts into smaller, more tractable ideas—has been used by scientists and artists alike to pursue their respective truths.
Ecco
I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life by Ed Yong (Aug. 9, hardcover, $27.99, ISBN 978-0-06-236859-1) reveals the perspective-altering story of the extraordinary partnerships between familiar and unfamiliar microscopic creatures, as well as how we humans are disrupting these partnerships and how we might manipulate them for our own good.
The Experiment
The Aliens Are Coming! The Extraordinary Science Behind Our Search for Life in the Universe by Ben Miller (Oct. 4, trade paper, $15.95, ISBN 978-1-61519-365-3). In this clear, entertaining guide, Miller argues that our growing understanding of life itself will help predict whether it exists elsewhere, what it might look like, and when we might find it.
Citizen Scientist: Searching for Heroes and Hope in an Age of Extinction by Mary Ellen Hannibal (Aug. 23, hardcover, $24.95, ISBN 978-1-61519-243-4). Combining original reporting, meticulous research, and memoir in impassioned prose, Hannibal mourns her father and finds solace in citizen science, with its promise to slow and reverse the unprecedented mass extinction of species.
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness by Peter Godfrey-Smith (Dec. 6, hardcover, $27, ISBN 978-0-374-22776-0). By tracing the problem of consciousness back to its roots and comparing the human brain to its most alien and perhaps most remarkable animal relative, Godfrey-Smith sheds new light on one of our most abiding mysteries.
FSG/Scientific American
The Gene Machine: How New Genetic Technologies Are Transforming Parenting and Cracking Medical Mysteries by Bonnie Rochman (Jan. 17, hardcover, $26, ISBN 978-0-374-16078-4) introduces readers to scientists working to unlock the secrets of the human genome; gene counselors and spiritual advisers helping parents manage this complex new reality; and parents themselves, who glimpse the genetic futures of their children.
Venomous: How Earth’s Deadliest Creatures Mastered Biochemistry by Christie Wilcox (Aug. 9, hardcover, $26, ISBN 978-0-374-28337-7). In this thrilling tale of encounters with nature’s masters of biochemistry, molecular biologist Wilcox investigates venoms and the animals that use them, revealing how they work, what they do to the human body, and how they can revolutionize biochemistry and medicine today.
Grand Central
Earth in Human Hands: The Rise of Terra Sapiens and Hope for Our Planet by David Grinspoon (Dec. 6, hardcover, $28, ISBN 978-1-4555-8912-8). NASA astrobiologist Grinspoon offers a new vision of the future in which humans embrace their role as planet-shapers and use their technological skills to enhance the survival prospects of all life on Earth.
Harvard Univ.
The Rhinoceros and the Megatherium: An Essay in Natural History by Juan Pimentel, trans. by Peter Mason (Jan. 9, hardcover, $29.95, ISBN 978-0-674-73712-9), shows that the reactions of Europeans three centuries apart to two mysterious beasts reflect deep cultural changes as well as the enduring power of image and imagination to shape human understanding of the natural world.
The Vicarious Brain, Creator of Worlds by Alain Berthoz, trans. by Giselle Weiss (Jan. 9, hardcover, $24.95, ISBN 978-0-674-08895-5). Forging across disciplinary boundaries, Berthoz explores notions of the vicarious in paleontology, ethology, art, literature, and psychology. Through an absorbing examination of numerous facets of “vicariance,” he reveals its impact on daily decision making and on the brain’s creation of worlds.
Harvard/Belknap
Making Faces: The Evolutionary Origins of the Human Face by Adam S. Wilkins, illus. by Sarah Kennedy (Jan. 2, hardcover, $45, ISBN 978-0-674-72552-2), draws on studies of nonhuman species, the fossil record, genetics, and molecular and developmental biology to reconstruct the evolution of the human face and its inextricable link to our species’ evolving social complexity.
Johns Hopkins Univ.
Exploration and Engineering: The Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the Quest for Mars by Erik M. Conway (Oct. 4, trade paper, $32.95, ISBN 978-1-4214-2122-3). The Jet Propulsion Lab’s historian offers an insider’s perspective into the changing goals of Mars exploration, the ways in which sophisticated computer simulations drove the design process, and the remarkable evolution of landing technologies over a 30-year period.
Knopf
The Wood for the Trees: One Man’s Long View of Nature by Richard Fortey (Dec. 6, hardcover, $28.95, ISBN 978-1-101-87575-9) investigates four acres of English woodland from top to bottom. Fortey uses the forest as a springboard back through time to chronicle the rich and unexpected tales of the people, plants, and animals that once called the land home.
MIT
Machine Learning: The New AI by Ethem Alpaydin (Sept. 23, trade paper, $15.95, ISBN 978-0-262-52951-8) offers a concise overview of the subject for general readers, describing its evolution, explaining important learning algorithms, and presenting example applications. Alpaydin shows how digital technology advanced from number-crunching mainframes to mobile devices, putting today’s machine learning boom in context.
The Mind-Body Problem by Jonathan Westphal (Sept. 16, trade paper, $15.95, ISBN 978-0-262–52956-3) outlines the history of the mind-body problem, beginning with Descartes, describing mind-body dualism, physicalist theories of mind, antimaterialism, and scientific theories of consciousness. Westphal also examines the largely forgotten neutral monist theories of mind and body, proposing his own version to account for mind-body interaction.
Neuroplasticity by Moheb Costandi (Aug. 12, trade paper, $15.95, ISBN 978-0-262-52933-4). In this concise overview of neuroplasticity for general readers, Costandi describes how our brains change continuously in response to our actions and experiences, discussing key experimental findings and describing how our thinking about the brain has evolved over time.
National Geographic
Mars: Our Future on the Red Planet by Leonard David (Oct. 25, hardcover, $30, ISBN 978-1-4262-1758-6). This companion book to the six-part National Geographic TV series shows the science behind a potential Mars mission and the challenges awaiting those brave individuals. The book combines science, technology, photography, art, and storytelling, offering what only National Geographic can create.
StarTalk: Everything You Ever Need to Know About Space Travel, Sci-Fi, the Human Race, the Universe, and Beyond, edited by Neil deGrasse Tyson, Jeffrey Simons, and Charles Liu (Sept. 13, hardcover, $30, ISBN 978-1-4262-1727-2). This beautifully illustrated companion to the popular podcast and National Geographic TV show is an eye-opening journey for anyone curious about the complexities of our universe.
Suggestible You: Placebos, False Memories, Hypnosis, and the Power of Your Astonishing Brain by Erik Vance (Nov. 8, hardcover, $26, ISBN 978-1-4262-1789-0) explores the world of placebos, hypnosis, false memories, and neurology to reveal the groundbreaking science of our suggestible minds. Journalist Vance explores the surprising ways our expectations and beliefs influence our responses to pain, disease, and everyday events.
Norton
A Most Improbable Journey: A Big History of Our Planet and Ourselves by Walter Alvarez (Nov. 15, hardcover, $26.95, ISBN 978-0-393-29269-5) brings a scientist’s view to the human story, from the creation of our universe and planet, the rise of life, the movement of our continents and its effect on human migration, to human mastery of Earth’s natural resources.
Now: The Physics of Time by Richard A. Muller (Sept. 20, hardcover, $27.95, ISBN 978-0-393-28523-9). Experimental physicist Muller crafts a revolutionary theory of time that poke holes in past ideas and makes testable predictions, laying out a firm and clear explanation of the building blocks of his theory: relativity, entropy, entanglement, antimatter, and the Big Bang.
Rancher, Farmer, Fisherman: Conservation Heroes of the American Heartland by Miriam Horn (Sept. 6, hardcover, $27.95, ISBN 978-0-393-24734-3) shares the stories of five representative figures that one would meet on a trip down the Mississippi River—a rancher, a farmer, a riverman, a shrimper, and a fisherman—to challenge pervasive and powerful myths about American and environmental values.
The Tide: The Science and Stories Behind the Greatest Force on Earth by Hugh Aldersey-Williams (Sept. 20, hardcover, $27.95, ISBN 978-0-393-24163-1) weaves together centuries of scientific thinking with the literature and folklore that tides have inspired to explain the power and workings of the most mysterious, primal, and powerful force on earth.
Pantheon
Time Travel: A History by James Gleick (Sept. 27, trade paper, $27.95, ISBN 978-0-307-90879-7). The acclaimed author of The Information and Chaos presents a mind-bending exploration of time travel: its subversive origins, its evolution in literature and science, and its influence on our understanding of time itself.
Pegasus
A Space Traveler’s Guide to the Solar System by Mark Thompson (Nov. 8, hardcover, $27.95, ISBN 978-1-68177-239-4) takes readers on an epic voyage of discovery, relating what it would be like to tour the solar system, visit the sun and the planets, and navigate everything from moons to asteroid belts along the way.
Wild Sex: The Science Behind Mating in the Animal Kingdom by Carin Bondar (Aug. 2, hardcover, $27.95, ISBN 978-1-68177-166-3) explores the diverse world of sex in the wild, offering an engaging guide to the reproductive habits of creatures great and small, based on the author’s popular web series Wild Sex, which has received over 14 million views.
Picador
Aliens: The World’s Leading Scientists on the Search for Extraterrestrial Life, edited by Jim Al-Khalili (Nov. 1, hardcover, $25, ISBN 978-1-250-10963-7). In a series of lively and fascinating essays, a broad spectrum of contributors from the global scientific community weigh in on the latest advances in the search for intelligent life in the universe and discuss what it might look like.
Princeton Univ.
Bird Brain: An Exploration of Avian Intelligence by Nathan Emery (Aug. 30, hardcover, $29.95, ISBN 978-0-691-16517-2) looks at the structures and functions of the avian brain, and describes the extraordinary behaviors that arise from different types of avian intelligence, offering insights into corvids as well as parrots and some less-studied species from around the world.
Deep Life: The Hunt for the Hidden Biology of Earth, Mars, and Beyond by Tullis C. Onstott (Nov. 1, hardcover, $35, ISBN 978-0-691-09644-5) takes readers to uncharted regions deep beneath Earth’s crust in search of life in extreme environments, and reveals how astonishing new discoveries by geomicrobiologists are helping the quest to find life in the solar system.
Welcome to the Universe: An Astrophysical Tour by Neil deGrasse Tyson, Michael A. Strauss, and J. Richard Gott (Sept. 22, hardcover, $39.95, ISBN 978-0-691-15724-5). Inspired by the enormously popular introductory astronomy course that Tyson, Strauss, and Gott taught together at Princeton, this book covers it all—including planets, stars, galaxies, black holes, wormholes, and time travel.
Prometheus Books
The New Science of Consciousness: Exploring the Complexity of Brain, Mind, and Self by Paul L. Nunez (Nov. 8, hardcover, $26, ISBN 978-1-63388-219-5) explains in laypersons’ terms a new approach to studying
consciousness based on a partnership between neuroscientists and complexity scientists. This cross-disciplinary approach also offers fresh insights into a major unsolved challenge: the origin of self-awareness.
Random House
Patient H.M.: A Story of Memory, Madness, and Family Secrets by Luke Dittrich (Aug. 9, hardcover, $28, ISBN 978-0-8129-9273-1) explores the scientific, ethical, and human dimensions of one of the most important stories in medical history. Dittrich delves into the enduring mysteries of the mind, while exposing troubling stories of just how far we’ve gone in our pursuit of knowledge.
Reaktion
Falcon by Helen Macdonald (Oct. 15, trade paper, $16, ISBN 978-1-78023-641-4) dives through centuries and careens around the globe to tell the tale of the falcon as it has flown in the wild skies of the natural world and those of our imagination. Mixing history, myth, and legend, Macdonald explores the long history of the sport of falconry across cultures.
Scribner
The Unnatural World: The Race to Remake Civilization in Earth’s Newest Age by David Biello (Nov. 15, hardcover, $26, ISBN 978-1-4767-4390-5) chronicles a disparate band of unlikely heroes working to save planet Earth: a scientist who would fertilize the seas; a pigeon obsessive bent on reviving the extinct; a Chinese government functionary cleaning up his city, and more.
Skyhorse
Accidental Medical Discoveries: How Tenacity and Pure Dumb Luck Changed the World by Robert W. Winters (Nov. 1, trade paper, $16.99, ISBN 978-1-5107-1246-1) looks at the creation of 25 medical inventions that have changed the world—unintentionally. Winters’s lively and engaging approach will appeal to a wide variety of readers, including history buffs, trivia fanatics, and medical professionals.
St. Martin’s
Are Numbers Real? The Uncanny Relationship of Mathematics and the Physical World by Brian Clegg (Dec. 6, hardcover, $27.99, ISBN 978-1-250-08104-9). In this deep look at the history of numbers and their applications in life and science, Clegg explores the way that math has become increasingly detached from reality, and yet continues to drive the development of modern physics.
Univ. of Chicago
Common Ground: Encounters with Nature at the Edges of Life by Rob Cowen (Oct. 24, hardcover, $29, ISBN 978-0-226-42426-2) recounts Cowen’s transformative journey through the layers and lives of a patch of land outside London. As the land and his life intertwine, the divisions between human and nature blur and shift, and the place becomes a mirror.
Monkeytalk: Inside the Worlds and Minds of Primates by Julia Fischer, trans. by Frederick B. Henry Jr. (Dec. 22, hardcover, $25, ISBN 978-0-226-12424-7), explores the role of social living in the rise of primate intelligence and communication, asking what primates’ communication can teach us about the evolution of human language.
Voracious Science and Vulnerable Animals: A Primate Scientist’s Ethical Journey by John P. Gluck (Oct. 24, hardcover, $27.50, ISBN 978-0-226-37565-6) is a powerful appeal for human respect and compassion for those creatures who have unwillingly dedicated their lives to science. Gluck tells a vivid, heartrending, personal story of how he became a vocal activist for animal protection.
Viking
The Glass Universe by Dava Sobel (Dec. 6, hardcover, $30, ISBN 978-0-670-01695-2) tells the little-known true story of the unexpected and remarkable contributions to astronomy made by a group of women working in the Harvard College Observatory from the late 19th century through the mid-20th—a period thought of as the twilight before the dawn of modern astrophysics.
Urban Forests: A Natural History of Trees and People in the American Cityscape by Jill Jonnes (Sept. 27, hardcover, $28, ISBN 978-0-670-01566-5) is a passionate, wide-ranging, and fascinating natural history of the tree in American cities over the past two centuries. Jonnes examines the character of American urban forests and the effect that tree-rich landscaping might have on urban living.
Yale Univ.
All These Worlds Are Yours: The Scientific Search for Alien Life by Jon Willis (Aug. 23, hardcover, $30, ISBN 978-0-300-20869-6) explores the science of astrobiology and the possibility of locating other life in our own galaxy, describing the most recent discoveries by space exploration missions, including the Kepler space telescope, the Mars Curiosity rover, and the New Horizons probe.
Intelligence in the Flesh: Why Your Mind Needs Your Body Much More Than It Thinks by Guy Claxton (Oct. 25, trade paper, $22, ISBN 978-0-300-22347-7) draws on the latest findings in neuroscience and psychology to reveal how our bodies—long dismissed as mere conveyances—actually constitute the core of our intelligent life.
Void: The Strange Physics of Nothing by James Owen Weatherall (Jan. 10, hardcover, $26, ISBN 978-0-300-20998-3) takes on a fundamental concept of modern physics: nothing. Weatherall explores the very nature of empty space, finding that nothing, it turns out, is an awful lot like something, with a structure and properties every bit as complex and mysterious as matter.
