Science and Nature

Discover new and trending science and nature titles.
Updated December 9, 2025
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Is a River Alive?
MacFarlane, Robert
Paper Book
Hailed in the New York Times as "a naturalist who can unfurl a sentence with the breathless ease of a master angler," Robert Macfarlane brings his glittering style to a profound work of travel writing, reportage, and natural history. Is a River Alive? is a joyful, mind-expanding exploration of an...
When the Earth was green : plants, animals, and evolution's greatest romance
Black, Riley
Paper Book
NOW A USA TODAY BESTSELLER! Winner, A Friend of Darwin Award, 2024 A gorgeously composed look at the longstanding relationship between prehistoric plants and life on Earth Fossils plants allow us to touch the lost worlds from...
Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection
Green, John.
Paper Book
Instant #1 New York Times bestseller! * #1 Washington Post bestseller! * #1 Indie Bestseller! * USA Today Bestseller! John Green, acclaimed author and passionate advocate for global healthcare reform, tells a deeply human story illuminating the fight against the...
Replaceable You : Adventures in Human Anatomy
Roach, Mary.
Paper Book
The body is the most complex machine in the world, and the only one for which you cannot get a replacement part from the manufacturer. For centuries, medicine has reached for what's available--sculpting noses from brass, borrowing skin from frogs and hearts from pigs, crafting eye parts from jet...
Forest euphoria : the abounding queerness of nature
Kaishian, Patricia Ononiwu
Paper Book
NATIONAL BESTSELLER * TIME 100 MUST-READ BOOKS OF 2025 "An antidote to the loneliness of our species."--ROBIN WALL KIMMERER "A master class in how to love the world."--MARGARET RENKL A thrilling book about the abounding queerness of the...
Close to home : the wonders of nature just outside your door
Hanson, Thor
Paper Book
An award-winning natural-history writer presents "the perfect mix of science and story" (Sy Montgomery), opening the door to the nature that thrives in our yards, gardens, and parks: "I couldn't put it down" (Doug Tallamy).    We all live on nature's...
Air-Borne: The Hidden History of the Life We Breathe
Zimmer, Carl
Paper Book
One of Smithsonian Magazine's Ten Best Science Books of 2025 The fascinating, untold story of the air we breathe, the hidden life it contains, and invisible dangers that can turn the world upside down Every day we draw in two thousand gallons of air-...
Ends of the Earth: Journeys to the Polar Regions in Search of Life, the Cosmos, and Our Future
Shubin, Neil
Paper Book
**Shortlisted for the 2025 Royal Society Trivedi Science Book Prize** The bestselling author of Your Inner Fish takes readers on an epic adventure to the North and South Poles to reveal the secrets locked in the ice about life, the cosmos, and our planet's future. ...
Hope Dies Last: Visionary People Across the World, Fighting to Find Us a Future
Weisman, Alan
Paper Book
One of Heatmap's 18 Climate Books to Read in 2025 The award-winning environmental journalist's extraordinary, long-awaited portrait of hope and resilience as we face a fractured and uncertain future In this profoundly human and moving narrative, the...
In Praise of Floods : The Untamed River and the Life It Brings
Scott, James C.
Paper Book
James C. Scott reframes rivers as alive and dynamic, revealing the consequences of treating them as resources for our profit   A New Yorker Best Book of the Year   "Informative, enjoyable, and provocative. . . . Scott's...
The ocean's menagerie : how earth's strangest creatures reshape the rules of life
Harvell, C. Drew 1954-
Paper Book
A Nature Best Book of 2025 * A Wall Street Journal Holiday Gift Pick An elegantly written exploration of the cutting edge science of the strangest and most remarkable creatures on our planet by a leading marine biologist Hundred-year-old giant clams,...
The decline and fall of the human empire : why our species is on the edge of extinction
Gee, Henry 1962-
Paper Book
By the award-winning author of A (Very) Short History of Life on Earth: a history of humanity on the brink of decline. A Next Big Idea Club Must-Read Selection We are living through a period that is unique in human history. For the first time in more...
The Lost Trees of Willow Avenue: A Story of Climate and Hope on One American Street
Tidwell, Mike
Paper Book
A riveting and elegant story of climate change on one city street, full of surprises and true stories of human struggle and dying local trees - all against the national backdrop of 2023's record heat domes and raging wildfires and, simultaneously, rising hopes for clean energy.
Slither: How Nature's Most Maligned Creatures Illuminate Our World
Hall, Stephen S
Paper Book
In this "wise and wondrous" (David Quammen) exploration, a science writer reintroduces readers to The Snake, encouraging our initial reaction to the slithery creature to be one of awe rather than disgust. For millennia, depictions of snakes as...
A Crack in Everything: How Black Holes Came in from the Cold and Took Cosmic Centre Stage
Chown, Marcus
Paper Book
What is space? What is time? Where did the universe come from? The answers to mankind's most enduring questions may lie in science's greatest enigma: black holes. A black hole is a region of space where gravity is so strong that nothing, not even light, can escape. This can...
Carbon : the book of life
Hawken, Paul
Paper Book
Carbon is the only element that animates the entirety of the living world. Though comprising a tiny fraction of Earth's composition, our planet is lifeless without it. Yet it is maligned as the driver of climate change, scorned as an errant element blamed for the possible demise of civilisation....
Bad Naturalist : One Woman's Ecological Education on a Wild Virginia Mountaintop
Whyman, Paula
Paper Book
With humor, humility, and awe, one woman attempts to restore 200 acres of farmland long gone-to-seed in the Blue Ridge Mountains, facing her own limitations while getting to know a breathtaking corner of the natural world.   When Paula Whyman first climbs a peak...
Dark Laboratory : On Columbus, the Caribbean, and the Origins of the Climate Crisis
Goffe, Tao Leigh
Paper Book
A groundbreaking investigation of the Caribbean as both an idyll in the American imagination and a dark laboratory of Western experimentation, revealing secrets to racial and environmental progress that impact how we live today. "Goffe's ear is tuned to songs of resistance, to what...
Good Nature : Why Seeing, Smelling, Hearing, and Touching Plants Is Good for Our Health
Willis, Kathy.
Paper Book
A Next Big Idea Club must-read selection! An Amazon Editor's Pick for Best Nonfiction Book! A ground-breaking investigation into newly discovered evidence showing that remarkable things happen to our bodies and our minds when our senses connect with the...
Bird school : a beginner in the wood
Nicolson, Adam 1957-
An intimate exploration of the lives of birds and their interactions with man, by a preeminent naturalist. Poets and scientists, saints and naturalists, stalk through these pages. Neighboring cock robins duel almost to the death. Tawny owl widows are seen looking for tawny owl...
The Genius Bat: The Secret Life of the Only Flying Mammal
Yovel, Yossi
Paper Book
An awe-inspiring tour of bat world by the world's leading expert With nearly 1500 species, bats account for more than twenty percent of mammalian species. The most successful and most diverse group of mammals, bats come in different sizes, shapes, and colors, from the tiny...
Ocean: Earth's Last Wilderness
Attenborough, David
Paper Book
Award-winning broadcaster and natural historian David Attenborough and longtime collaborator Colin Butfield present a powerful call to action focused on our planet's oceans, exploring how critical this habitat is for the survival of humanity and the earth's future. ...
Morbidly curious : a scientist explains why we can't look away
Scrivner, Coltan
"A fascinating examination of a feature of human nature that all of us have, most of us deplore (at least in others), and few of us understand." --Steven Pinker, New York Times bestselling author of Rationality and Enlightenment Now "An entertaining...
Out of Your Mind : The Biggest Mysteries of the Human Brain
Cham, Jorge/ Godwin, Dwayne
Paper Book
From the creative brain behind WE HAVE NO IDEA, an introductory journey into your own mind--if your inner voice had a PhD in neuroscience, cracked jokes, and drew cartoons Why do you love? Why do you hate? What makes you happy? Every single thought you have comes from one place:...
If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies : Why Superhuman Ai Would Kill Us All
Yudkowsky, Eliezer/ Soares, Nate.
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER | The New Yorker's Best Books of 2025 | A 2025 Booklist Editors' Choice Pick The scramble to create superhuman AI has put us on the path to extinction--but it's not too late to change course, as two of the...
A Dumb Birds Field Guide to the Worst Birds Ever
Kracht, Matt
Paper Book
Professional birding amateur and national bestselling author Matt Kracht has had it with these goddamn birds. His new book is a warning, a field guide to help you identify and stay away from the absolute worst birds ever to plague planet Earth. Featuring an all-new scientific scale devised...
Science under siege : how to fight the five most powerful forces that threaten our world
Mann, Michael E. 1965-
In this "well-researched guide," two of the world's most respected scientists reveal the forces behind the dangerous anti-science movement--and offer "powerful ideas about how to fight back" (Bill McKibben, author of Here Comes the Sun) "Science is indeed...
Gemini: Stepping Stone to the Moon, the Untold Story
Kluger, Jeffrey
ONE OF TIME MAGAZINE'S MOST ANTICIPATED BOOKS OF FALL 2025 From the bestselling co-author of Apollo 13 comes the thrilling untold story of the pioneering Gemini program that was instrumental in getting Americans on the moon. Without Gemini, there...
White Light: The Elemental Role of Phosphorus-In Our Cells, in Our Food, and in Our World
Lohmann, Jack
Paper Book
"At once lyrical and exacting, clear-sighted and deeply informed--a beautiful book." --Elizabeth Kolbert, author of Under a White Sky A profound and poetic reflection on the cyclical nature of life, what happens when we break that cycle, and how to repair it--told through...
The ideological brain : the radical science of flexible thinking
Zmigrod, Leor
Paper Book
Named a best book of the year by The Guardian and The Telegraph Why do some people become radicalized? How do ideologies shape the human brain? And how can we unchain our minds from toxic dogmas? In The Ideological...
The arrogant ape : the myth of human exceptionalism and why it matters
Webb, Christine E.
A New York Times's Notable Book of 2025 An impassioned celebration of humility before the living world that leads us to a new understanding of other species--and ourselves Darwin considered humans one part of the web of life, not the apex of a natural...
The Shape of Wonder: How Scientists Think, Work, and Live
Lightman, Alan
Paper Book
In this captivating, insightful book, acclaimed physicists Alan Lightman and Martin Rees illuminate the life and work of numerous scientists in order to demystify the scientific process and show that scientists are concerned citizens, just like the rest of us. "Remarkable. . . ....
The trouble with ancient DNA : telling stories of the past with genomic science
KällÊn, Anna
Paper Book
A thoughtful consideration of the storytelling and science behind ancient DNA discoveries.   In recent years, discoveries brought to light through analysis of ancient DNA--or aDNA--have made headlines around the world. While ancient DNA studies may appear to...

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