• The Best Popular Science Books of 2022: The Royal Society Book Prize - The Greywacke: How a Priest, a Soldier and a School Teacher Uncovered 300 Million Years of History by Nick Davidson
  • The Best Popular Science Books of 2022: The Royal Society Book Prize - Different: What Apes Can Teach Us About Gender by Frans de Waal
  • The Best Popular Science Books of 2022: The Royal Society Book Prize - Spike: The Virus vs. The People - the Inside Story by Jeremy Farrar & with Anjana Ahuja
  • The Best Popular Science Books of 2022: The Royal Society Book Prize - A (Very) Short History of Life on Earth: 4.6 Billion Years in 12 Chapters by Henry Gee
  • The Best Popular Science Books of 2022: The Royal Society Book Prize - Age Proof: The New Science of Living a Longer and Healthier Life by Rose Anne Kenny
  • The Best Popular Science Books of 2022: The Royal Society Book Prize - Hot Air: The Inside Story of the Battle Against Climate Change Denial by Peter Stott

The Best Popular Science Books of 2022: The Royal Society Book Prize, recommended by Maria Fitzgerald

The renowned UCL neuroscientist Professor Maria Fitzgerald, chair of the 2022 Royal Society Book Prize, talks us through the judges’ selection of the best popular science books of the year—including a whistle-stop tour of the history of the Earth, a self-help book offering evidence-based advice on how to live a longer life, and a primatologist’s study of gender among apes.

  • The Best Literary Science Writing: The 2023 PEN/E.O. Wilson Book Award - Heartbreak: A Personal and Scientific Journey by Florence Williams
  • The Best Literary Science Writing: The 2023 PEN/E.O. Wilson Book Award - Vagina Obscura: An Anatomical Voyage by Rachel E. Gross
  • The Best Literary Science Writing: The 2023 PEN/E.O. Wilson Book Award - Sounds Wild and Broken by David George Haskell
  • The Best Literary Science Writing: The 2023 PEN/E.O. Wilson Book Award - An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us by Ed Yong
  • The Best Literary Science Writing: The 2023 PEN/E.O. Wilson Book Award - The Big Bang of Numbers: How to Build the Universe Using Only Math by Manil Suri

The Best Literary Science Writing: The 2023 PEN/E.O. Wilson Book Award, recommended by David Hu

Every year, the judges of the PEN/E.O. Wilson Award highlight the best new literary science writing. The 2023 shortlist consists of five fascinating books on subjects including the science of heartbreak, the sensory worlds of animals, and the development of mathematics. David Hu, a professor of mechanical engineering and a member of this year’s judging panel, talks us through their choices.

  • The Best Books on the Big Bang - The First Three Minutes by Steven Weinberg
  • The Best Books on the Big Bang - The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself by Sean M Carroll
  • The Best Books on the Big Bang - How the Universe Got Its Spots: Diary of a Finite Time in a Finite Space by Janna Levin
  • The Best Books on the Big Bang - A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking
  • The Best Books on the Big Bang - Black Holes and Time Warps by Kip S Thorne

The Best Books on the Big Bang, recommended by Dan Hooper

Before Einstein, how the universe began was a question for theologians, not scientists. Over a century later, we know much more, but not enough to do more than guess at what happened at the moment of the Big Bang and immediately after. Astrophysicist Dan Hooper, author of At the Edge of Timea book that explores dark energy, dark matter and other things we don’t yet understand—talks us through books about the Big Bang, and questions whether our entire understanding of the universe is about to be turned upside down.

  • Favourite Maths Books - Teach Yourself Geometry by Paul Abbott
  • Favourite Maths Books - Playing with Infinity by Rozsa Peter
  • Favourite Maths Books - Essays in the History of Mechanics by Clifford Truesdell
  • Favourite Maths Books - Why do Buses Come in Threes? by Jeremy Wyndham & Rob Eastaway
  • Favourite Maths Books - The Penguin Dictionary of Curious and Interesting Geometry by David Wells

Favourite Maths Books, especially Geometry, recommended by David Acheson

From Thales’s theorem to the Banach-Tarski paradox, Oxford mathematician David Acheson’s book, The Wonder Book of Geometry, is a lively attempt to bring to life geometry—literally, ‘earth measurement’—and make it accessible to the general public. Here, David recommends some of the books that influenced him, “in the order in which I met them, over a timespan of some 60 years.”

  • The best books on Quantum Physics and Reality - The Construction of Social Reality by John Searle
  • The best books on Quantum Physics and Reality - The Matrix by Lana Wachowski & Lilly Wachowski
  • The best books on Quantum Physics and Reality - Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder
  • The best books on Quantum Physics and Reality - The Philosophy of Quantum Mechanics by Max Jammer
  • The best books on Quantum Physics and Reality - Reality and the Physicist: Knowledge, Duration and the Quantum World by Bernard D'Espagnat

The best books on Quantum Physics and Reality, recommended by Jim Baggott

Quantum physics is deeply confusing and its relation to reality the cause of heated debate among physicists since its discovery. Here, science writer Jim Baggott—who has spent more than three decades thinking about quantum mechanics and written a number of books about it—recommends books for better understanding what it’s about, and explains why how physicists approach it is so crucial to science’s credibility.

  • The best books on Longevity - Lifespan: Why We Age and Why We Don't Have To by David A. Sinclair
  • The best books on Longevity - Eat Like the Animals: What Nature Teaches us About the Science of Healthy Eating by David Raubenheimer & Stephen Simpson
  • The best books on Longevity - The Human Advantage: A New Understanding of How Our Brain Became Remarkable by Suzana Herculano-Houzel
  • The best books on Longevity - Long for this World: The Strange Science of Immortality by Jonathan Weiner
  • The best books on Longevity - Charlatan: America’s Most Dangerous Huckster, the Man who Pursued Him, and the Age of Flimflam by Pope Brock

The best books on Longevity, recommended by Steven Austad

The promises of potions or techniques to achieve longevity have been with us since time immemorial, the outlandishness of some claims matched only by our willingness to believe them. And, yet, today’s scientific research does give some clues on how to live longer and healthier lives. Biologist Steven Austad, Distinguished Professor and Endowed Chair in Healthy Aging Research at the University of Alabama, recommends a range of books that give insight into longevity.

  • The Best Popular Science Books of 2021: The Royal Society Book Prize - The Last Stargazers: The Enduring Story of Astronomy's Vanishing Explorers by Emily Levesque
  • The Best Popular Science Books of 2021: The Royal Society Book Prize - Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art by James Nestor
  • The Best Popular Science Books of 2021: The Royal Society Book Prize - The End of Bias, A Beginning: The Science and Practice of Overcoming Unconscious Bias by Jessica Nordell
  • The Best Popular Science Books of 2021: The Royal Society Book Prize - The Sleeping Beauties: And Other Stories of Mystery Illness by Suzanne O'Sullivan
  • The Best Popular Science Books of 2021: The Royal Society Book Prize - Science Fictions: How Fraud, Bias, Negligence, and Hype Undermine the Search for Truth by Stuart Ritchie
  • The Best Popular Science Books of 2021: The Royal Society Book Prize - Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures by Merlin Sheldrake

The Best Popular Science Books of 2021: The Royal Society Book Prize, recommended by Luke O'Neill

Every year the Royal Society, the world’s oldest independent scientific academy, awards a prize for the best new popular science book. Here, Luke O’Neill—Professor of Biochemistry at Trinity College, Dublin, and chair of the 2021 judging panel—discusses the latest shortlist: six new popular science books that are topical, accessible and infinitely interesting.

  • Best Books on the Neuroscience of Consciousness - Consciousness Explained by Daniel Dennett
  • Best Books on the Neuroscience of Consciousness - The Mechanization of the Mind by Jean Pierre Dupuy
  • Best Books on the Neuroscience of Consciousness - Consciousness: How Matter Becomes Imagination by Gerald Edelman & Giulio Tononi
  • Best Books on the Neuroscience of Consciousness - Being No One: The Self-Model Theory of Subjectivity by Thomas Metzinger
  • Best Books on the Neuroscience of Consciousness - Klara and the Sun: A Novel by Kazuo Ishiguro

Best Books on the Neuroscience of Consciousness, recommended by Anil Seth

Nearly every human has a sense of self, a feeling that we are located in a body that’s looking out at the world and experiencing it over the course of a lifetime. Some people even think of it as a soul or other nonphysical reality that is yet somehow connected to the blood and bones that make up our bodies. How things seem, however, is quite often an unreliable guide to how things are, says neuroscientist Anil Seth. Here he recommends five key books that led him to his own understanding of consciousness, and explores why it is that what is likely an illusion can be so utterly convincing.

  • The Best Science Books of 2020: The Royal Society Book Prize - The Double X Economy: The Epic Potential of Empowering Women by Linda Scott
  • The Best Science Books of 2020: The Royal Society Book Prize - The Great Pretender by Susannah Cahalan
  • The Best Science Books of 2020: The Royal Society Book Prize - Transcendence: How Humans Evolved Through Fire, Language, Beauty, and Time by Gaia Vince
  • The Best Science Books of 2020: The Royal Society Book Prize - The Body: A Guide for Occupants by Bill Bryson
  • The Best Science Books of 2020: The Royal Society Book Prize - The World According to Physics by Jim Al-Khalili
  • The Best Science Books of 2020: The Royal Society Book Prize - Explaining Humans: What Science Can Teach Us about Life, Love and Relationships by Camilla Pang

The Best Science Books of 2020: The Royal Society Book Prize, recommended by Anne Osbourn

The Royal Society is the world’s oldest independent scientific academy, dedicated to promoting excellence in science—and that includes an annual prize for the best popular science book. Here Professor Anne Osbourn, Fellow of the Royal Society and chair of this year’s judging panel, talks us through the six books that made the 2020 shortlist—and what makes them intriguing, accessible and exciting.

  • The best books on The Scientific Revolution - Wonders and the Order of Nature 1150-1750 by Lorraine Daston and Katharine Park
  • The best books on The Scientific Revolution - Science and the Secrets of Nature: Books of Secrets in Medieval and Early Modern Culture by William Eamon
  • The best books on The Scientific Revolution - Leviathan and the Air-Pump by Simon Schaffer & Steven Shapin
  • The best books on The Scientific Revolution - Probability and Certainty in 17th Century England. A Study of the Relationships between Natural Science, Religion, History, Law and Literature by Barbara Shapiro
  • The best books on The Scientific Revolution - The Business of Alchemy: Science and Culture in the Holy Roman Empire by Pamela Smith

The best books on The Scientific Revolution, recommended by Vera Keller

The scientific revolution is often seen as having transformed the way we think and ushered in the modern world, but in highlighting the work of a few key individuals, it has distorted the reality of how science advances in society and how it interacts with truth. Here, Vera Keller, Professor of History at the University of Oregon, challenges popularly held assumptions about the scientific revolution and explains how its meaning, significance and importance have been disputed and misunderstood.

  • Best Books on the Periodic Table - The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements by Sam Kean
  • Best Books on the Periodic Table - The Story of N: A Social History of the Nitrogen Cycle and the Challenge of Sustainability by Hugh Gorman
  • Best Books on the Periodic Table - The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women by Kate Moore
  • Best Books on the Periodic Table - Rare Earth Frontiers: From Terrestrial Subsoils to Lunar Landscapes by Julie Klinger
  • Best Books on the Periodic Table - The Alchemy of Us: How Humans and Matter Transformed One Another by Ainissa Ramirez

Best Books on the Periodic Table, recommended by Henrik Selin & Noelle Eckley Selin

The periodic table of the elements has been described as “one of the great intellectual achievements of humankind”. Here, Noelle Eckley Selin of MIT and Henrik Selin of Boston University talk us through some of their favourite books about various chemical elements and explain why they’re vital to understanding the world around us.

  • Nuclear Books - Critical Assembly: Poems of the Manhattan Project by John Canaday
  • Nuclear Books - Radioactive: Marie & Pierre Curie: A Tale of Love and Fallout by Lauren Redniss
  • Nuclear Books - The Four Faces of Nuclear Terrorism by Center for Nonproliferation Studies
  • Nuclear Books - An Indispensable Truth: How Fusion Power Can Save the Planet by Francis Chen
  • Nuclear Books - Energy: A Human History by Richard Rhodes

Nuclear Books, recommended by Richard Wolfson

In science, the word ‘nuclear’ refers to anything to do with the atomic nucleus, whether you’re using it to generate power or create weapons of mass destruction. Here, physicist and science educator Richard Wolfson recommends five books relating to things nuclear, from a book of graphic nonfiction about the Curie family to how fusion can save the planet.

  • The best books on Ada Lovelace - In Byron's Wake: The Turbulent Lives of Lord Byron's Wife and Daughter: Annabella Milbanke and Ada Lovelace by Miranda Seymour
  • The best books on Ada Lovelace - Victorian Sensation: The Extraordinary Publication, Reception and Secret Authorship of 'The Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation' by James Secord
  • The best books on Ada Lovelace - Mathematics in Victorian Britain by Adrian Rice, Raymond Flood & Robin Wilson
  • The best books on Ada Lovelace - The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage by Sydney Padua
  • The best books on Ada Lovelace - Middlemarch by George Eliot

The best books on Ada Lovelace, recommended by Ursula Martin

Ada Lovelace has become an iconic figure for women in science and is often credited with the invention of modern computing. But, as Ursula Martin—mathematician, computer scientist and Lovelace biographer—explains, all of that is a bit overblown. The Lovelace myth obscures the truth about a woman who was certainly a very brilliant mathematician, but who was also often frustrated in her scientific ambitions, in poor health and unhappy.

  • The best books on Prehistoric Women - Femmes de la préhistoire by Claudine Cohen
  • The best books on Prehistoric Women - Femmes, naissance de l'homme: Icônes de la préhistoire by Alexandre Hurel & Florian Berrouet
  • The best books on Prehistoric Women - L'homme préhistorique est aussi une femme by Marylène Patou-Mathis
  • The best books on Prehistoric Women - The Invisible Sex: Uncovering the True Role of Women in Prehistory J. M. Adovasio, Olga Soffer and Jake Page
  • The best books on Prehistoric Women - Our Human Story by Chris Stringer & Louise Humphrey

The best books on Prehistoric Women, recommended by Thomas Cirotteau

Thanks to scientific advances, we’re finding out more and more about prehistoric people, including women and their lives during the Upper Paleolithic era. French filmmaker Thomas Cirotteau, director of the documentary and co-author of a book about Lady Sapiens, recommends books to find out more about our female ancestors, who while separated from us by tens of thousands of years, have been brought tantalizingly close by new techniques and discoveries.

  • The Royal Society Science Book Prize: the 2019 shortlist - Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men by Caroline Criado Perez
  • The Royal Society Science Book Prize: the 2019 shortlist - Six Impossible Things: The ‘Quanta of Solace’ and the Mysteries of the Subatomic World by John Gribbin
  • The Royal Society Science Book Prize: the 2019 shortlist - The Remarkable Life of the Skin by Monty Lyman
  • The Royal Society Science Book Prize: the 2019 shortlist - Clearing the Air: The Beginning and End of Air Pollution by Tim Smedley
  • The Royal Society Science Book Prize: the 2019 shortlist - The Second Kind of Impossible: The Extraordinary Quest for a New Form of Matter by Paul J. Steinhardt
  • The Royal Society Science Book Prize: the 2019 shortlist - Infinite Powers: The Story of Calculus by Steven Strogatz

The Royal Society Science Book Prize: the 2019 shortlist, recommended by Nigel Shadbolt

“Science is a profoundly human endeavour. The stories of triumph and success in science, alongside the failures and despair, are compelling.” From a data-driven account of air pollution to a book that makes calculus fun, 2019 has been a great year for science books. Nigel Shadbolt, chair of judges, discusses the six books shortlisted for the 2019 Royal Society Insight Investment Science Book Prize.

  • The best books on Isaac Newton - Never at Rest: A Biography of Isaac Newton by Richard S. Westfall
  • The best books on Isaac Newton - A Portrait of Isaac Newton by Frank E. Manuel
  • The best books on Isaac Newton - Newton and the Origins of Civilization by Jed Z. Buchwald & Mordechai Feingold
  • The best books on Isaac Newton - Priest of Nature: The Religious Worlds of Isaac Newton by Rob Iliffe
  • The best books on Isaac Newton - Isaac Newton and Natural Philosophy by Niccolò Guicciardini

The best books on Isaac Newton, recommended by William Newman

John Maynard Keynes famously cast Isaac Newton not as the first scientist of the age of reason, but the last of the magicians. How should we interpret the million words he wrote, in secret, on alchemy? What should we make of Newton’s heretical religious views? William Newman talks us through the best books for a better understanding of the complex man who was one of the greatest physicists of all time.

  • Space Travel and Science Fiction Books - The Martian by Andy Weir
  • Space Travel and Science Fiction Books - Seveneves by Neal Stephenson
  • Space Travel and Science Fiction Books - Foundation Trilogy by Isaac Asimov
  • Space Travel and Science Fiction Books - The Metaphysics of Morals by Immanuel Kant
  • Space Travel and Science Fiction Books - The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert A Heinlein

Space Travel and Science Fiction Books, recommended by Christopher Mason

Space travel may be the stuff of science fiction but some of it is getting closer and closer to becoming reality. What’s more, we have a duty to pursue it, says Christopher Mason, Professor of Genomics, Physiology, and Biophysics at Weill Cornell Medicine and author of The Next 500 Years, a blueprint of how to set about leaving our solar system. Here, he recommends his favourite science fiction about space travel, and an essential philosophy book.

  • The best books on Galileo Galilei - Life of Galileo by Bertolt Brecht
  • The best books on Galileo Galilei - Galileo’s Telescope: A European Story by Franco Giudice, Massimo Bucciantini and Michele Camerota, translated by Catherine Bolton
  • The best books on Galileo Galilei - Letters to Father: Sister Maria Celeste to Galileo by Suor Maria Celeste (Virginia Galilei) and Dava Sobel (editor and translator)
  • The best books on Galileo Galilei - On Trial for Reason: Science, Religion, and Culture in the Galileo Affair by Maurice A. Finocchiaro
  • The best books on Galileo Galilei - Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems by Galileo Galilei & Stillman Drake (trans.)

The best books on Galileo Galilei, recommended by Paula Findlen

The trial of Galileo by the Roman Inquisition was one of the most public confrontations between the new science emerging in the 17th century and the Catholic Church but, nearly 400 years later, there’s still a lot of scope to argue what it was about. Here historian of science Paula Findlen, a professor at Stanford University, explains the endless fascination of Galileo Galilei, the Renaissance man who turned a telescope to the sky and took the world by storm, and recommends the best books to start learning more about him.

  • The best books on Existential Risks - The Last Children by Gudrun Pausewang
  • The best books on Existential Risks - A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller Jr.
  • The best books on Existential Risks - Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
  • The best books on Existential Risks - Climate Shock: The Economic Consequences of a Hotter Planet by Gernot Wagner & Martin L. Weitzman
  • The best books on Existential Risks - The Dark Forest by Cixin Liu

The best books on Existential Risks, recommended by The Centre for the Study of Existential Risk

In the rapidly-emerging field of existential risks, researchers study the mitigation of threats that could lead to human extinction or civilisational collapse. We met with four researchers from The Centre for the Study of Existential Risk at the University of Cambridge, to discuss their recommendations of the best books to get a grasp of this dense subject.