Death may be unimaginable, but former geriatric specialist Raymond Tallis explores it imaginatively nonetheless. Inspired by novelist E. M. Forster's line from Howards End (1910), “Death destroys a man; the idea of death saves him”, Tallis's meditation on his future corpse is a meshed march of philosophical musings and bald physical detail. As he sifts a lifetime's worth of sensory and emotional memory, Tallis's prose stuns like poetry — from the “crackling, rebellious stretching as paper balls unscrunch” to the self's continuity despite the “distracted, multiple” nature of life. Enchanting.

Whether spotting golden eagles in Idaho or long-tailed tits in London, professional birdwatchers are a rare breed — observational dynamos wedded to their craft. Wildlife campaigner Mark Avery and birdwatcher Keith Betton have captured 20 stories (including their own) from British luminaries such as wagtail expert Stephanie Tyler and birder extraordinaire Lee Evans. This is both a serious overview of the field and a flock of delights, from the shot of a youthful Betton with three young song thrushes balancing on his forearm to fond memories of first binoculars, whether Leica Ultravids or Swarovskis.

He was crucial to the development of crystallography, and discovered the amino acid cystine and the elements palladium and rhodium. Yet scientific polymath William Hyde Wollaston (1766–1828) is largely forgotten. This meticulous biography, the life's work of late chemist Melvyn Usselman, reveals a man of indefatigable curiosity and methodological genius. As we see Wollaston crafting analytical instruments for Arctic expeditions, stargazing or showing scientific writer Mary Somerville the uses of a goniometer, we can only concur with Usselman that this was a “man worth knowing”.

If you follow Shetland's latitude of 60° N around the world, you will encounter cultures “challenged by climate, by landscape, by remoteness”. So writes Shetlander Malachy Tallack in this powerful memoir detailing how, unmoored by his father's death, he traversed that line to explore geographies inner and outer. Whether in Alaska's Kenai peninsula dodging bears or among the Even people in “huge, cold and utterly strange” Siberia, Tallack is forever testing the psychological dynamics of the sense of belonging.