Supercontinent: Ten Billion Years in the Life of Our Planet

  • Ted Nield
(Harvard Univ. Press, $18.95)

Geologist Ted Nield gives a thorough account of Earth, from long before Pangaea to far into the future. “To handle it without oversimplification or getting lost in a maze of detail is no small accomplishment,” wrote David Oldroyd in his review of the hardback edition (Nature 449, 540; 2007).

Earth Under Fire: How Global Warming is Changing the World

  • Gary Braasch
(Univ. California Press, £14.95)

Award-winning photojournalist Gary Braasch supplies breathtaking imagery of the effects of climate change. He includes personal accounts from eyewitnesses and researchers, together with the best evidence available, to give a refreshing and intelligent take on this well-covered field.

Floods, Famines and Emperors: El Niño and the Fate of Civilizations (Tenth Anniversary Edition)

  • Brian Fagan
(Basic Books, $17.95)

First published in 1999, Brian Fagan's book charts the discovery of El Niño — the Pacific ocean-atmosphere oscillation underlying freak weather events — and shows how climate change affected ancient civilizations. In describing how they coped, or not, Fagan highlights the problems we face in dealing with climate change today.

American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer

  • Kai Bird &
  • Martin J. Sherwin
(Atlantic Books, £9.99)

This impressively researched and well-written book explores the life of nuclear physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, covering the different sides of his personality and his rise and fall in society. Bird and Sherwin provide a thorough exploration of the science and politics of the nuclear age.

The Secret History of the War on Cancer

  • Devra Davis
(Basic Books, £10.99)

Drawing on research and personal experience, Devra Davis argues that focusing on cancer treatment instead of prevention has cost lives. Reviewer Daniel S. Greenberg wrote, “For a well-documented, prosecutorial account of the dark side of cancer-control politics, Davis's work — lopsided and verbose as it is — merits attention.” (Nature 449, 660–661; 2007).

Life As It Is: Biology for the Public Sphere

  • William F. Loomis
(Univ. California Press, $15.95)

William F. Loomis explores controversial issues from a biological perspective, providing “a fascinating, if occasionally disjointed, survey of topics ... the nature and evolution of life, and current scientific thought regarding consciousness, psychology and social behaviour.” (Eugenie Scott, Nature 452, 690–691; 2008).

Guilty Robots, Happy Dogs: The Question of Alien Minds

  • David McFarland
(Oxford Univ. Press, £7.99)

Taking a fresh angle on the question of 'alien minds' — whether animal or machine — and drawing on current research in computing, robotics and animal behaviour, David McFarland offers an accessible introduction to the philosophy of the mind. He explains why intelligence may be impossible to define.

Mindfield: How Brain Science is Changing Our World

  • Lone Frank
(Oneworld, $16.95)

Lone Frank asks how neuroscience is transforming our society. By describing her own experiences while researching the book — from holding half a real brain in her hands to talking with leading scientists — she explains advances in the field for a general audience.

Your Inner Fish: A Journey Into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body

  • Neil Shubin
(Penguin, £9.99)

Neil Shubin “delves into human gristle, interpreting the scars of billions of years of evolution that we carry inside our bodies”, wrote Carl Zimmer in his review (Nature 451, 245; 2008). “The simple, passionate writing may turn more than a few high-school students into aspiring biologists.”

Splendors and Miseries of the Brain: Love, Creativity and the Quest for Human Happiness

  • Semir Zeki
(Wiley-Blackwell, £16.99)

Semir Zeki examines the brain's ability to seek knowledge and form concepts in creative areas such as music, art and literature. He gives us an insight into how the brain functions, what this means for happiness, and how even negative emotions can be a source of creativity.

The Ten Most Beautiful Experiments

  • George Johnson
(Vintage, £8.99)

George Johnson's book covers ten of the most historically significant experiments in science — including Isaac Newton's prisms and Ivan Pavlov's dogs. He does justice to each experiment, showing how ingenious and elegant it was — and how the process of experimenting may be as important as the conclusion.

The Silent Deep: The Discovery, Ecology, and Conservation of the Deep Sea

  • Tony Koslow
(Univ. Chicago Press, $22.50)

Describing the huge variety of ocean life “with textbook depth on all aspects of deep-sea science and conservation,” (Mark Schrope, Nature 447, 909–910; 2007), Tony Koslow examines how oceanography has developed and discusses human exploitation of the seas.

Deadly Companions: How Microbes Shaped Our History

  • Dorothy H. Crawford
(Oxford Univ. Press, £8.99)

From the origin of the first microorganisms on Earth, Dorothy Crawford describes how microbes have evolved alongside humanity. Showing how they have altered human history, such as through plague or famine, she explains how humanity has affected microbes in return — and why this will never change.

Elizabeth Blackburn and the Story of Telomeres: Deciphering the Ends of DNA

  • Catherine Brady
(MIT Press, $15.95)

This compelling tale describes the science and politics behind molecular biologist Elizabeth Blackburn's great discoveries. She “emerges as a valuable role model in the sometimes unsettling treatment of women in the world of science”, wrote Maria A. Blasco (Nature 450, 613–614; 2007).

Flower Hunters

  • Mary Gribbin &
  • John Gribbin
(Oxford Univ. Press, $19.95)

This engaging collection tells the stories of 11 remarkable 'flower hunters' who travelled the globe to discover new plants. It describes the impacts they had on both gardening and science, highlighting the difficulties they experienced on their travels and when trying to propagate the plants they brought back with them.

Starved for Science: How Biotechnology Is Being Kept Out of Africa

  • Robert Paarlberg
(Harvard Univ. Press, $16.95)

In this controversial book, Robert Paarlberg argues that opposition to agricultural science in prosperous countries is reaching Africa, denying poor farmers access to technologies that might improve their yields — especially transgenic crops with insect- or drought-resistance.

Rethinking Expertise

  • Harry Collins &
  • Robert Evans
(Univ. Chicago Press, £15.50)

By classifying different types of expertise, Harry Collins and Robert Evans make the case for a radical rethink of what constitutes expertise and how to exploit it. “Collins and Evans put their points vividly, with elegant language and diagrams,” wrote Robert P. Crease (Nature 450, 350–351; 2007).

A Cultural History of Modern Science in China

  • Benjamin A. Elman
(Harvard Univ. Press, $17.95)

In this concise, accessible, but comprehensive book, Benjamin Elman describes the effects on science of the Jesuit mission in imperial China in 1600–1800, and the later influence of Protestants in the nineteenth century. By doing so, he places the emergence of modern science in China in historical context.

Quantum: Einstein, Bohr, and the Great Debate about the Nature of Reality

  • Manjit Kumar
(Icon Books, £9.99)

In this popular history of quantum mechanics, Manjit Kumar focuses “on the long-running debate between Niels Bohr and Albert Einstein, which took place from the mid-1920s through to the mid-1950s, over the adequacy of the quantum theory as a framework for fundamental physics”, explained reviewer Don Howard (Nature 456, 706–707; 2008).

Physics of the Impossible: A Scientific Exploration of the World of Phasers, Force Fields, Teleportation and Time Travel

  • Michio Kaku
(Penguin, £9.99)

Theoretical physicist Michio Kaku looks at various 'impossibilities' drawn from science fiction. He asks how new technology might help us achieve currently impossible phenomena, such as invisibility, and explains why others, such as precognition, would break the laws of physics.