The Body: A Guide for Occupants
by Bill Bryson
***Shortlisted for the 2020 Royal Society Insight Investment Science Book Prize***
The Body: A Guide for Occupants by Bill Bryson is a great introduction to the biology of the human body, written in Bryson's easy, accessible style. A lot of it you may already know, some you may not, but it's an enjoyable, engrossing read.
Transcendence: How Humans Evolved Through Fire, Language, Beauty, and Time
by Gaia Vince
***Shortlisted for the 2020 Royal Society Insight Investment Science Book Prize***
"I wrote this book to answer what, for me, is the biggest question: how did we become so different from all the other animals—able to alter our own destiny and that of the rest of life on earth?" —Gaia Vince.
Read our interview with Gaia Vince—whose last book, Adventures in the Anthropocene, won the 2015 Royal Society Science Book Prize—on the best books on the Anthropocene.
At The Edge of Time
by Dan Hooper
At The Edge of Time by astrophysicist Dan Hooper is a popular science book that explains, in lay person's terms, not only what we know out about the universe to date, but also what we don't know about it. "Right now, there’s a culmination of mysteries in cosmology that need to be told as a coherent story," he says in his Five Books interview on the Big Bang. "Maybe we’re in the 1904 of cosmology right now, and we're going to tear down everything we think we know to the ground and build something entirely new."
The World According to Physics
by Jim Al-Khalili
***Shortlisted for the 2020 Royal Society Insight Investment Science Book Prize***
"This book is an ode to physics. I first fell in love with physics when I was a teenager" —Jim Al-Khalili.
In The World According to Physics, theoretical physicist, author and broadcaster Jim Al-Khalili continues his mission to explain physics so that the rest of us can understand it, taking readers through the three 'pillars' of modern physics: relativity, quantum mechanics, and thermodynamics.
Read our updated interview with Jim Al-Khalili on the physics books that inspired him.
“The Double X Economy is a rigorous presentation and analysis of data to show that women are excluded at great cost to society as a whole. It’s an important, relevant and timely topic. Linda Scott has an enormous amount of hands-on experience working with communities in developing countries, researching women’s economic exclusion in various fora, and advising at the highest international levels. The book contrasts the villages of Africa and the slums of Asia right through to boardrooms in the US and other rich countries. It’s a very thorough book with lots of graphs and charts to illustrate key points, but they’re presented in a very simplified, accessible way so the reader can take them or leave them depending on how much detail they want to go into.” Read more...
The Best Science Books of 2020: The Royal Society Book Prize
“It’s an intriguing and well-written detective story. It embraces the history of psychiatry and brings in a range of examples—including the very unfortunate lobotomy of John F Kennedy’s sister Rosemary, who was a very pretty, lively girl until she had her lobotomy. It challenges the field as not having developed since the 1970s, although Cahalan does concede that modern psychiatry does help people. It is a controversial and challenging book.” Read more...
The Best Science Books of 2020: The Royal Society Book Prize
“Camila Pang is a research scientist specialising in translational bioinformatics. She was diagnosed with autism at the age of eight. She also has ADHD and anxiety disorder. Explaining Humans is a charming investigation of how to understand human behaviour, drawing on her superpower of neurodiversity…There’s a striking combination of personal experience and hardcore science that draws the reader in.” Read more...
The Best Science Books of 2020: The Royal Society Book Prize
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1
The Double X Economy: The Epic Potential of Empowering Women
by Linda Scott -
2
The Great Pretender
by Susannah Cahalan -
3
Transcendence: How Humans Evolved Through Fire, Language, Beauty, and Time
by Gaia Vince -
4
The Body: A Guide for Occupants
by Bill Bryson -
5
The World According to Physics
by Jim Al-Khalili -
6
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 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.
