While the characters and their unique challenges are fictional, a lot of the scientific details in the book are based in real research. Some of the solutions they present, like drilling into glaciers to drain off the meltwater, are genuinely being tested by scientists today. As a science writer, I loved this attention to detail, and felt somewhat more hopeful for the future after reading this interpretation of it.
“The best science-fiction nonfiction novel I’ve ever read.” —Jonathan Lethem
"If I could get policymakers, and citizens, everywhere to read just one book this year, it would be Kim Stanley Robinson’s The Ministry for the Future." —Ezra Klein (Vox)
The Ministry for the Future is a masterpiece of the imagination, using fictional eyewitness accounts to tell the story of how climate change will affect us all. Its setting is not a desolate, postapocalyptic world, but a future that is almost upon us. Chosen by Barack Obama as one of his favorite…
I had just been reading and thinking about medieval bestiaries when I came across The Golden Mole. If there ever was a modern day equivalent of a bestiary, this would be it. The author uses her engaging writing style to introduce some of the most intriguing animals, like the narwhal and the pangolin, but I also learned some new facts about animals I thought I knew (such as that elephants are afraid of bees), and left with renewed wonder about the world.
The world is more astonishing, more miraculous and more wonderful than our wildest imaginings.
'Rare and magical book.' Bill Bryson 'A witty, intoxicating paean to Earth's most wondrous creatures.' Observer 'Exquisite and timely.' Maggie O'Farrell
** Shortlisted for the Waterstones and Foyles Book of the Year ** ** Shortlisted for the Wainwright Prize for Nature Writing **
In The Golden Mole, Katherine Rundell, the award-winning author of Super-Infinite and Impossible Creatures, takes us on a globe-spanning tour of the world's strangest and most awe-inspiring animals, including pangolins, wombats, lemurs and seahorses. But each of these animals is endangered. And so,…
My own notebooks are a mess, but I love seeing what other people found noteworthy. In this book, Tom Cox published some of his observations from his own notebooks. As you would expect, it jumps from topic to topic, but there are some running threads through the notes, such as amusing quotes from his dad. This book was particularly familiar to me because I initially discovered Tom Cox through his social media accounts (which heavily feature his cats and record collection). It’s very much in the same brief style. But even if you don’t know his work yet, Notebook is a fun glimpse into what authors write down when they’re not writing entire novels.
Sure, sex is great, but have you ever cracked open a new notebook and written something on the first page with a really nice pen?
The story behind Notebook starts with a minor crime: the theft of Tom Cox's rucksack from a Bristol pub in 2018. In that rucksack was a journal containing ten months worth of notes, one of the many Tom has used to record his thoughts and observations over the past twelve years. It wasn't the best he had ever kept – his handwriting was messier than in his previous notebook, his entries more sporadic – but…
Twenty-four short essays take an approachable and humorous look at the connection between hot springs and genetics, the psychology behind your study playlist, hiking trail geology and much more. Reading this book will make you look at the world in a different way and is bound to have you say, "hey, there's science in this!"
