The best nonfiction books add up to a biography of our culture
It’s a frighteningly giant universe to survey, but picking 100 great books that fall under this baggy rubric promises real insightsFollow the 100 best nonfiction books of all time hereOnce upon a time,...
View ArticleSimon Ingram and Fiona Reynolds on our natural landscapes – books podcast
Simon Ingram tackles the forbidding rock face of the mountaineering memoir, while Fiona Reynolds mounts a passionate plea for the defence of our natural landscapeFrom Beinn Dearg to Ben Nevis, Simon...
View ArticleBook reviews roundup: Paul McCartney; This Must Be the Place; The Gene
What the critics thought of Paul McCartney by Philip Norman, This Must Be the Place by Maggie O’Farrell and The Gene: An Intimate History by Siddhartha MukherjeeFor Helen Brown in the Daily Telegraph,...
View ArticleTide: The Science and Lore of the Greatest Force on Earth review – ebbs and...
Hugh Aldersey-Williams’s scholarly survey of the history of tides, from the Bristol Channel to the Bay of Fundy, is enlighteningThe subtitle of this book gives pause. The greatest force on Earth?...
View ArticleSoul of an Octopus by Sy Montgomery review – a fond study of the elusive ‘alien’
Sy Montgomery’s account of octopuses will do much to rehabilitate the much maligned and mythologised creatureShooting Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea in 1916 – the first motion picture...
View ArticleThe Gene by Siddhartha Mukherjee review – intriguing and entertaining
Despite flaws, this lively and accessible history of the gene and its implications for the future is bursting with complex ideasIn 2010, researchers launched a study, the Strong African American...
View ArticleAndrea Wulf on a scientific adventurer 'chased by 10,000 pigs'
The author explains how her Costa-winning study of Alexander von Humboldt took her from libraries to mountaintops in South AmericaPart of me is blissfully happy when I’m locked up in dusty archives and...
View ArticleNight workers: how evolution drives the firefly dance – in pictures
The bewitching displays created by fireflies are powered by the laws of natural selection. Biologist Sara Lewis introduces the insects responsible for these ethereal spectacles and explores why these...
View ArticleLetters of natural law: The alphabet seen from space – in pictures
While researching wildfires, Nasa science writer Adam Voiland found a image of a huge, V-shaped smoke cloud. He went in search of all 26 letters, as seen in nature by satellites and astronauts – and...
View ArticleThe Ancient Origins of Consciousness by Todd Feinberg and Jon Mallatt review...
An evolutionary history shows how consciousness is key to human survivalWhat does it mean to say that I am conscious? For sure, consciousness is a protean term, with multiple meanings. Among its...
View ArticleTom Gauld on science versus fiction – cartoon
Richard Dawkins’s question – ‘What, when you think about it, is so special about things that never happened?’– provoked debate about the value of science writing and fiction Continue reading...
View ArticleNick Bostrom: ‘We are like small children playing with a bomb’
Sentient machines are a greater threat to humanity than climate change, according to Oxford philosopher Nick BostromYou’ll find the Future of Humanity Institute down a medieval backstreet in the centre...
View ArticleHands: What We Do With Them – and Why by Darian Leader – review
Leader argues that humankind’s progress can be explained via our most dexterous limb in this fascinating, if frustrating bookHardly a day goes by without someone fretting about when automation is going...
View ArticleGrunt by Mary Roach review – the surprising science of war
The funny, affable Roach focuses on military science in her fifth book and amid the chicken guns and silk underpants, she wrestles with the injustices of warMary Roach’s curiosity is notoriously...
View ArticleThe Age of Em review – the horrific future when robots rule the Earth
Robin Hanson’s strange, very serious, book predicts what will happen in a Matrix-like world when computers have software emulations of human brains and our bodies are destroyedIn the future, or so some...
View ArticleFlora, fauna and fraud: cheats of the natural world – in pictures
Deception is everywhere in nature, as plants and animals turn trickster in the hope of eating or avoiding being eaten. The evolutionary biologist Martin Stevens introduces some subtle strategies in the...
View ArticleThe art of memory with Abby Smith Rumsey and Simon Bill – books podcast
We explore memory and forgetting with a fictional artist who struggles with recall and a cultural historian examining the past to solve present troubles with data storageThis week we’re dredging the...
View Article‘There’s no point being subtle about science. You have to bang them over the...
Popular science author Hugh Aldersey-Williams on why he hates the label, thinks scientists should shut up – and why he once spent 13 hours watching the tideIt sounds like satire but Hugh...
View ArticleA Walk in the Park by Travis Elborough review – what makes a park a park?
William Boyd gives his definition of a park, and praises a wonderful book, full of learning and enthusiasm, that insists we need to cherish and protect these ‘people’s institutions’This is a...
View ArticleThe 100 best nonfiction books: No 21 – The Structure of Scientific...
The American physicist and philosopher of science coined the phrase ‘paradigm shift’Thomas Kuhn (1922-1996) did not invent the concept of scientific revolution, but he gave it a special meaning and...
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