NC SciFest - April Sweetbean Bonus - Adult and Teen

Celebrate the NC Science Festival with April's Sweetbean Reading Challenge! Read about science all month long with fun books, cool facts, and exciting discoveries. Let’s read, learn, and discover the wonders of science together!

Updated March 27, 2025
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"Surely you're joking, Mr. Feynman!" : adventures of a curious character
Feynman, Richard P.
Paper Book
One of the most famous science books of our time, the phenomenal national bestseller that "buzzes with energy, anecdote and life. It almost makes you want to become a physicist" (Science Digest). Richard P. Feynman, winner of the Nobel Prize in physics, thrived on outrageous...
American murderer : the parasite that haunted the South
Jarrow, Gail
Paper Book
Included on NPR's 2022 "Books We Love" List Finalist, 2023 YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction ALSC Notable Children's Book What made workers in the American South so tired and feeble during the 19th and early 20th centuries? This exciting medical mystery uncovers...
Biology's beginnings
Hakim, Joy
Paper Book
Trace the history of life science in the first of a four-part MITeen series by mega-best-selling author Joy Hakim, who brought us The History of US. When did we start learning the scientific secrets of life? Step back to the Islamic Golden Age, when scholars ask questions...
Bomb : the race to build and steal the world's most dangerous weapon
Sheinkin, Steve.
Paper Book
Perfect for middle grade readers and history enthusiasts, New York Times bestselling author Steve Sheinkin presents the fascinating and frightening true story of the creation behind the most destructive force that birthed the arms race and the Cold War in Bomb: The Race...
A city on Mars : can we settle space, should we settle space, and have we really thought this through?
Weinersmith, Kelly
Paper Book
* THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * Winner of the Hugo Award * Scientific American's #1 Book for 2023 * Winner of Royal Society's Trivedi Prize * A Guardian Best Book of 2024 * A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice * A Times Best Science and...
The disappearing spoon and other true tales of madness, love, and the history of the world from the periodic table of the elements
Kean, Sam.
CD
The periodic table is one of man's crowning scientific achievements. But it's also a treasure trove of stories of passion, adventure, betrayal, and obsession. The infectious tales and astounding details in The Disappearing Spoon follow carbon, neon, silicon, and gold as they play out their...
Eve how the female body drove 200 million years of human evolution
Bohannon, Cat
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION FINALIST * THE REAL ORIGIN OF OUR SPECIES: a myth-busting, eye-opening landmark account of how humans evolved, offering a paradigm shift in our thinking about what the female body is, how it came to be, and how this evolution...
The fangirl's guide to the universe : a handbook for girl geeks
Maggs, Sam
Paper Book
From notable geek girl Sam Maggs, The Fangirl's Guide to the Universe is the ultimate handbook for teens living the nerdy life. Fandom, pop culture, feminism, cosplay, cons, books, memes, podcasts, vlogs, OTPs and RPGs and MMOs and more-there's never been a better time to...
An immense world : how animal senses reveal the hidden realms around us
Yong, Ed
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A "thrilling" (The New York Times), "dazzling" (The Wall Street Journal) tour of the radically different ways that animals perceive the world that will fill you with wonder and forever alter your perspective, by Pulitzer Prize-winning...
In the shadow of the moon : America, Russia, and the hidden history of the space race
Cherrix, Amy E.
Paper Book
An exhilarating dive into the secret history of humankind's race to the moon, from acclaimed author Amy Cherrix. This fascinating and immersive read is perfect for fans of Steve Sheinkin's Bomb and M. T. Anderson's Symphony for the City of the Dead. You've heard of the space race, but do...
The man who mistook his wife for a hat : and other clinical tales
Sacks, Oliver
Paper Book
In his most extraordinary book, "one of the great clinical writers of the twentieth century" (The New York Times) recounts the case histories of patients lost in the bizarre, apparently inescapable world of neurological disorders. Oliver Sacks's The Man Who Mistook His Wife...
The monster's bones : the discovery of T. Rex and how it shook our world
Randall, David K.
Paper Book
In the dust of the Gilded Age Bone Wars, two vastly different men emerge with a mission to fill the empty halls of New York's struggling American Museum of Natural History: Henry Fairfield Osborn, a privileged socialite whose reputation rests on the museum's success, and intrepid Kansas-born...
A quantum life : my unlikely journey from the street to the stars
Oluseyi, Hakeem M.
Paper Book
A NASA astrophysicist narrates his improbable journey from an impoverished childhood and an adolescence mired in drugs and crime to the nation's top physics PhD program at Stanford in this inspiring coming-of-age memoir. Born into extreme poverty and emotional deprivation, James...
A short history of nearly everything
Bryson, Bill.
Paper Book
This new edition of the acclaimed bestseller is lavishly illustrated to convey, in pictures as in words, Bill Bryson's exciting, informative journey into the world of science. In A Short History of Nearly Everything, the bestselling author of A Walk in the...
Stiff : the curious lives of human cadavers
Roach, Mary.
Paper Book
"One of the funniest and most unusual books of the year....Gross, educational, and unexpectedly sidesplitting."--Entertainment Weekly Stiff is an oddly compelling, often hilarious exploration of the strange lives of our bodies postmortem. For two thousand years,...
The story of more : how we got to climate change and where to go from here
Jahren, Hope
Paper Book
The essential pocket primer on climate change that will leave an indelible impact on everyone who reads it. * "Jahren asks the central question of our time: how can we learn to live on a finite planet?" --Elizabeth Kolbert, New York Times bestselling author of The Sixth Extinction...
What if? : serious scientific answers to absurd hypothetical questions
Munroe, Randall
Ebook
From the creator of the wildly popular webcomic xkcd, hilarious and informative answers to important questions you probably never thought to ask. Millions of people visit xkcd.com each week to read Randall Munroe's iconic webcomic. His stick-figure drawings about science, technology,...
Why we die : the new science of aging and the quest for immortality
Ramakrishnan, Venki
Paper Book
"Utterly fascinating." --Bill Bryson "An incredible journey." --Siddhartha Mukherjee *WINNER OF THE 2025 ASSOCIATION OF AMERICAN PUBLISHERS PROSE AWARD FOR BEST BOOK ON BIOLOGY* A groundbreaking exploration of the science of longevity and mortality--from Nobel Prize-winning...
Women in science : 50 fearless pioneers who changed the world
Ignotofsky, Rachel
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER .This "wittily illustrated and accessible volume" (The Wall Street Journal)highlights the contributions of fifty notable women to the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) from the ancient to the modern world. ...

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