Best Science Books

J. Kenji López-Alt's landmark culinary science book explains the science behind everyday cooking and provides hundreds of recipes built on tested, proven techniques.

Peter Attia's comprehensive guide to living longer and better, based on his medical practice and years of research into the science of longevity.

A landmark work in trauma psychology by one of the world's foremost authorities on PTSD. Van der Kolk reveals how trauma reshapes both body and brain, undermining survivors' capacity for pleasure, engagement, self-control, and trust.

Astronaut Mark Watney is stranded alone on Mars after his crew evacuates, and must use science, engineering, and dark humour to survive until a rescue mission can reach him.

David McCullough tells the gripping story of two self-taught bicycle mechanics from Dayton who changed the world by inventing powered flight.

Bill Bryson's quest to understand everything that has ever happened, from the Big Bang to the rise of civilisation — written with his characteristic wit and warmth.

Stephen Hawking's landmark exploration of cosmology, from the Big Bang to black holes, written for readers with no background in physics.

A science journalist investigates the health implications of how we breathe — and finds that most people are doing it wrong, with significant consequences for their health.

A neuroscientist reveals the life-transforming power of sleep. Walker shows why sleep is the single most effective thing you can do to reset your brain and body — and the catastrophic consequences of neglecting it.

A Pulitzer Prize-winning exploration of how consciousness, self-reference, and meaning emerge from formal systems, through the intertwined work of a mathematician, an artist, and a composer.

A Pulitzer Prize-winning history of cancer — its origins, treatments, and future — told through the stories of patients, scientists, and physicians across centuries.

A comprehensive exploration of the biological underpinnings of human behaviour — from the neural firing a second before an act to the evolutionary pressures that shaped our species over millions of years.

James Gleick chronicles the birth of chaos theory and the scientists who discovered that randomness and disorder follow surprising mathematical patterns.

Psychologist Anders Ericsson, the father of deliberate practice, reveals the science behind how world-class expertise is actually achieved.

A comprehensive history of the gene from Mendel's peas to CRISPR — and a searching investigation of what our growing power over the genome means for humanity.

Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman explains the two systems that drive the way we think — and reveals how our intuitive System 1 thinking leads us astray in predictable, correctable ways.

Why did Europeans conquer the Americas, Africa, and Australia rather than the other way around? Jared Diamond's Pulitzer Prize-winning answer overturns centuries of racial and cultural explanations: the answer lies in geography, agriculture, and the uneven distribution of domesticable plants and animals.

Stories of personal triumph from the frontiers of brain science, revealing how the brain's lifelong capacity to change its own structure — neuroplasticity — offers hope for previously untreatable conditions.

James Gleick traces the history of information from African talking drums through Claude Shannon's information theory to the digital deluge of the modern age.

Richard Dawkins's landmark restatement of Darwinian natural selection from the perspective of the gene, introducing the meme concept and transforming evolutionary biology.

Elizabeth Kolbert reports from the front lines of the ongoing mass extinction event — the sixth in Earth's history, and the first caused by a single species.

Daniel Coyle reveals how deep practice, ignition, and master coaching combine to unlock exceptional skill in any field.

Steven Pinker's comprehensive argument that the Enlightenment values of reason, science, humanism, and progress have dramatically improved the human condition — and why we should defend them.

A Harvard geneticist argues that aging is a disease — one that can be treated — and shares the cutting-edge research on sirtuins, NAD+, and the information theory of aging.