"A Series of Fortunate Events" is a lighthearted exploration of the roles that chance and coincidence play in human existence. That there is life on Earth at all, let alone human life, is a happy accident, Sean B. Carroll writes.... Read More

Holly Trechter and Jane Donovan’s graphic novel "Galileo! Galileo!" introduces children to NASA’s mission to Jupiter. Its colorful spreads and clear diagrams recap half a century of aeronautics research and space missions. In the... Read More

"Rascal" is a graphic novel about a destructive but endearing cat. Realistic illustrations of feline antics reveal the pros and cons of pet ownership, including unforeseen life changes. A young woman returns from a trip to discover that... Read More

Karl Coplan’s "Live Sustainably Now" suggests ways to reduce one’s carbon footprint with a “carbon budget” that may seem like a severe challenge, but whose strategies set a realistic example. For the past decade, Coplan has... Read More

Maren Meinhardt’s biography of early nineteenth-century scientist Alexander von Humboldt shows how he came to have more places and objects named after him than any other person. The text focuses on the scientist and explorer’s... Read More

Citizen science might seem like a model for discovery that could only work in the internet age, but amateur involvement in science is in fact nothing new. In "The Crowd and the Cosmos", Oxford Professor of Astrophysics Chris Lintott... Read More

Nonbinary poet Xandria Phillips’s poetry collection "Hull" employs the language of dreams and fraught journeys, laying bare the historical and current threats to black and queer bodies. The still-powerful forces of colonialism and... Read More

Dan Hooper’s "At the Edge of Time" charts what is understood, and what remains a mystery, about the Big Bang—that moment 13.7 billion years ago of inconceivably high temperatures, fast expansion, and particles and forces like gravity... Read More