Vestal Fire: An Environmental History, Told Through Fire, of Europe and Europe's Encounter with the World

  • Stephen J. Pyne
University of Washington Press, £24

The Art of Genes: How Organisms Make Themselves

  • Enrico Coen
Oxford University Press, $16.95

“In The Art of Genes, Coen tries to explain to readers with no special knowledge of biology or development what is happening in the world of genetics ... I would have loved this book at 16, so should anyone — aged 16 to 60 — who really wants to understand development.” John Maynard Smith, Nature 398, 302–303 (1999)

Galileo's Daughter

  • Dava Sobel
Penguin, $14

“This is a harrowing tale of two victims: Galileo Galilei, forced to deny the evidence of his telescopes, his daughter Virginia, forced at the age of 13 to enter the living sepulchre of the cloistered convent. Dava Sobel's latest well-timed bestseller provides a woman's angle on history's greatest conflict between science and religion.” Brenda Maddox, Nature 403, 702–703 (2000)