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Nature and Science April 2026 |
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| 99 Ways to Die: And How to Avoid Them by Ashely Alker, MDAs a physician specializing in emergency services, Ashely Alker knows a thing or two about the myriad ways that humans can perish. Including pithy advice about how to avoid premature death and job-related anecdotes that are unsettling, funny, and flat-out scary, Alker’s book is “enormously informative and exceedingly entertaining” (Library Journal). For another witty read about dark topics, try The Chick and the Dead: Life and Death Behind Mortuary Doors by Carla Valentine. |
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The Great Shadow: A History of How Sickness Shapes What We Do, Think, Believe, and Buy
by Susan Wise Bauer
Lively, informative ...offers wide-ranging evidence of alternative frameworks for disease. Science Allows readers to practically experience firsthand how humans have adapted to and dealt with disease throughout history...necessary and timely...engaging and entertaining. Highly recommended. Library Journal, starred A] splendid examination...Deeply insightful if unsettling. Kirkus Anti-science, anti-vaccine, anti-reason beliefs seem to be triumphing over common sense today. How did we get here? The Great Shadow brings a huge missing piece to this puzzle--the experience of actually being ill. What did it feel like to be a woman or man struggling with illness in ancient times, in the Middle Ages, in the seventeenth century, or in 1920? And how did that shape our thoughts and convictions? The Great Shadow uses extensive historical research and first-person accounts to tell a vivid story about sickness and our responses to it, from very ancient times until the last decade. In the process of writing, historian Susan Wise Bauer reveals just how many of our current fads and causes are rooted in the moment-by-moment experience of sickness--from the search for a balanced lifestyle to plug-in air fresheners and bare hardwood floors. We can't simply shout facts at people who refuse vaccinations, believe that immigrants carry diseases, or insist that God will look out for them during a pandemic. We have to enter with imagination, historical perspective, and empathy into their world. The Great Shadow does just that with page-turning flair.
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| Art Cure: The Science of How the Arts Save Lives by Daisy FancourtPsychologist and epidemiologist Daisy Fancourt’s debut touts the importance of the arts and creativity in a healthy lifestyle, even for the non-artistic. Fancourt’s inspiring book provides statistics and examples showing that an hour of art-related activity per week can improve mental health, memory, movement, and longevity, and can alleviate the symptoms of numerous ailments. For fans of: The Well-Gardened Mind: The Restorative Power of Nature by Sue Stuart-Smith. |
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Webb's Cosmos: Images and Discoveries from the James Webb Space Telescope
by Marcin Sawicki
Webb's Cosmos is the definitive and most up-to-date book on the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) available today. Covering Webb's breathtaking discoveries from its launch in 2021 to 2025, Webb's Cosmos brings together beauty, wonder, and understanding in one spectacular volume. While older books show Webb's first images, all that was available when they were published, Webb's Cosmos includes many more images, and more recent ones. Author Marcin Sawicki is an experienced science educator and a professional astronomer who actively uses Webb data in his own research. In this book he offers a uniquely informed perspective on what Webb's beautiful images mean. His lucid, engaging text takes us behind the splendor of the images and explains how they reveal information about the birth of stars, the growth of galaxies from tiny seeds in the early cosmic epochs to the grand structures around us today, and humanity's ongoing search for worlds beyond our Solar System. Organized into ten richly illustrated chapters, the book explores topics such as star-forming regions where young stars form and grow, planets that orbit distant suns, and galaxies both nearby and in the farthest reaches of the cosmos. Along the way, readers also discover answers to frequently asked questions such as: How does NASA decide what Webb observes? How are Webb's digital observations processed to reveal the dazzling images we see? What are the immense scales and distances that Webb reveals? Blending the visual beauty of a rich photo album with the insight of a working scientist and engaging prose of an experienced science communicator, Webb's Cosmos is both a feast for the eyes and a guided tour through humanity's newest and most powerful window on the Universe. It is the most complete and up-to-date celebration of the James Webb Space Telescope available today.
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I Told You So!: Scientists Who Were Ridiculed, Exiled, and Imprisoned for Being Right
by Matt Kaplan
An energetic and impassioned work of popular science about scientists who have had to fight for their revolutionary ideas to be accepted--from Darwin to Pasteur to modern day Nobel Prize winners. For two decades, Matt Kaplan has covered science for the Economist. He's seen breakthroughs often occur in spite of, rather than because of, the behavior of the research community, and how support can be withheld for those who don't conform or have the right connections. In this passionately argued and entertaining book, Kaplan narrates the history of the 19th century Hungarian physician Ignaz Semmelweis, who realized that Childbed fever--a devastating infection that only struck women who had recently given birth--was spread by doctors not washing their hands. Semmelweis was met with overwhelming hostility by those offended at the notion that doctors were at fault, and is a prime example of how the scientific community often fights new ideas, even when the facts are staring them in the face. In entertaining prose, Kaplan reveals scientific cases past and present to make his case. Some are familiar, like Galileo being threatened with torture and Nobel laureate Katalin Karikó being fired when on the brink of discovering how to wield mRNA-a finding that proved pivotal for the creation of the Covid-19 vaccine. Others less so, like researchers silenced for raising safety concerns about new drugs, and biologists ridiculed for revealing major flaws in the way rodent research is conducted. Kaplan shows how the scientific community can work faster and better by making reasonably small changes to the forces that shape it.
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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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Shelter from the Storm: How Climate Change Is Creating a New Era of Migration
by Julian Hattem
A Literary Hub Most Anticipated Book An urgent wake-up call about the coming large-scale human displacement caused by climate change, from one of the world's leading experts Mere decades from now, millions of people all over the world will be forced to move because of climate change. Entire islands will disappear into the sea. Once-in-a-century hurricanes will occur on a regular basis, decimating cities and wiping out peoples' homes. Wildfires fed by prolonged drought will rage through communities. No one will be immune: in countries rich and poor, climate change will usher in a new era of migration. In Shelter from the Storm noted journalist and migration researcher Julian Hattem tells the story of the massive human displacement that is already being caused by climate change. With hard-hitting journalism from the front lines of the environmental apocalypse, Hattem takes the reader on a journey from the South Pacific to the Indian subcontinent, the Mediterranean, and beyond, offering a shocking glimpse into the human geography wrecked by a warming planet. Shelter from the Storm also provides rich historical perspective on how climate has impacted migration and a primer on cutting-edge climatological research, creating a multidimensional portrait of this uncertain new age. A work of profound expertise and storytelling, Shelter from the Storm gives a human face to the millions of climate migrants who are leaving their homes--and the millions more who will follow.
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| Winter: The Story of a Season by Val McDermidAs we brace for another “hottest ever” summer, readers wistful for winter coziness will want to immerse themselves in Scottish crime novelist Val McDermid’s ode to the season of cold, rest, and reflection. McDermid’s beloved Edinburgh comes to life with her vivid childhood recollections of busy street scenes, sprinkled with Scottish holiday traditions and a few soup recipes. For fans of: The Light in the Dark: A Winter Journal by Horatio Clare. |
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| When Trees Testify: Science, Wisdom, History, and America's Black Botanical Legacy by Beronda L. MontgomeryPlant biologist Beronda L. Montgomery’s richly detailed own voices book examines several varieties of common American trees and plants in a blend of memoir, Black history, and science. We learn facts both inspiring and haunting about traditional Black botanical knowledge, like that willow bark was boiled to make medicinal poultices, and that the hollow trunks of sycamores would often serve as safe shelter for people escaping enslavement. For fans of: the anthology A Darker Wilderness: Black Nature Writing from Soil to Stars, edited by Erin Sharkey. |
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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