Biology Books

Sound encodes incredible amounts of information—not only words, music, and other audible forms of communication, but complex spatial data too. Caspar Henderson, author of the 'auraculous' new essay collection The Book of Noises, selects five of the best books on sound, from the buzzing of bees to the ghostly whisper of the aurora.

What role did culture play in human evolution? Why did human brains get so big so quickly? When and why did inequality first emerge in human society? Harvard professor and author Joe Henrich picks some of the best books for understanding 'cultural evolution.'

Without them, plants and animals wouldn’t exist and even the Earth’s geology would be different. Paul Falkowski recommends the best books on microbes.

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.

Menstruation is a natural process that will happen some 400 times in a woman's life, and yet it still causes embarrassment. Biological anthropologist Kate Clancy, author of Period: The Real Story of Menstruation, recommends books that shed light not only on periods, but on how to make the world a better place.

Many of the 1,200 known species of dinosaur were far more complex than we once thought. Some were brightly feathered and many were at least partly warm-blooded, explains palaeontologist and dinosaur specialist Paul Barrett. He talks us through five of the best dinosaur books, from 1980s trailblazers to the latest technical tomes.

Birds are everywhere. They capture our imagination and make us wish that we, too, could soar away. Jonathan Elphick eloquently recommends the best books on the wonders of birds.

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.

Palaeontologist Richard Fortey says it took tiny organisms two billion years of work to oxygenate the planet sufficiently for our kind of life, including trilobites, dinosaurs and ourselves, to evolve

Internationally known ecologist says plants are grievously overlooked, because no life on earth would exist without them - essential reading on plants