the secret life of cows by rosamund young review -...
An organic farmer identifies empathy (sensitivity to another's feelings as if they were...
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a day in the life of the brain by susan greenfield...
Greenfield considers the brain processes behind the experience of a single day – as ‘you’...
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six facets of light by ann wroe review - a...
Eric Ravilious,Samuel Palmer and William Blake all feature in this personal meditation on the...
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rain: four walks in english weather by melissa...
A guided tour of wet English landscapes offers extraordinary insights of the natural worldMelissa...
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dinomania: the story of our obsession with...
They made the Victorians shudder with awe,but before long dinosaurs were loved mostly by cartoonists...
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the last of the light: about twilight by peter...
Shape-shifting,entrancing, sometimes haunting … an idiosyncratic meditation on the time between...
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pinpoint by greg milner review - how is gps...
Anyone with a smartphone anywhere on Earth knows precisely where they are. But does that leave us...
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industrial farming is one of the worst crimes in...
The fate of industrially farmed animals is one of the most urgent ethical questions of our time....
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landskipping: painters, ploughmen and places by...
Anna Pavord’s account of our evolving like for the British landscape is an intense joyFor the...
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there is no such thing as past or future:...
Seven Brief Lessons on Physics sold over a million copies around the world. Now Rovelli is back to...
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what we cannot know by marcus du sautoy review -...
Among the frontiers identified are time,the cosmos, consciousness and God, and but aren’t swaths...
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cure: a journey into the science of mind over body...
From placebos and ‘kissing it better’ to hypnosis and Lourdes – a level-headed look at...
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penelope lively picks five books about renewal
From horticulture to tsarist Russia,the novelist chooses works that represent novel growthThe...
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how does english weather relate to national...
Kate Flint looks at books by Alexandra Harris,William Vaughan and Peter Davidson exploring how...
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homo deus by yuval noah harari review - how data...
It’s a chilling prospect,but the AI we’ve created could transform human nature, argues this...
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top 10 depictions of british rain
whether April showers are keeping you indoors,English literature from Shakespeare to Hilary Mantel...
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soul of an octopus by sy montgomery review - a...
Sy Montgomery’s account of octopuses will do much to rehabilitate the much maligned and...
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why we should celebrate winter woodland - not just...
Trees in winter reflect the deepest connections between humans and nature,writes Robert PennA few...
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hands: what we do with them - and why by darian...
Leader argues that humankind’s progress can be explained via our most dexterous limb in this...
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you may also like by tom vanderbilt review - what...
Why achieve we like what we like – this band or that ice-cream flavour? Is it biological or...
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fluke: the maths and myths of coincidences by...
Unforeseen meetings,improbable outcomes and a strange story of plum puddings … a deep dive into...
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generation anthropocene: how humans have altered...
We are living in the Anthropocene age,in which human influence on the planet is so profound – and...
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i contain multitudes by ed yong review - we are...
Each of us contains 40 trillion microbes. Their power is immense,and we are just beginning to...
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the serengeti rules by sean b carroll review - a...
Carroll argues that life,from genes to ecosystems, is regulated top-down by predators – a powerful...
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rain by melissa harrison review - in praise of the...
An account of four walks through the damp English countryside combines lovely phrase-making with...
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house guests, house pests by richard jones review...
Silverfish don’t drink,they absorb moisture through their rear ends; scorpions are useful...
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15 million degrees: a journey to the centre of the...
Why does the sun shine? How does the star work? Why is it mostly plasma,not gas? Green gives us the...
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climate crisis: seaweed, coffee and cement could...
Greenhouse gas levels are on track to exceed the worst-case scenario. But,as world leaders meet in...
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being a beast by charles foster review - a true...
This magnificent account of one man’s tender to live as five animals reveals what makes us humanIn...
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the invention of science: a new history of the...
The birth of science in Europe was the greatest revolution of all,argues this dazzling polemicWhat...
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lab girl: one woman s fight to overcome sexism and...
Botanist Hope Jahren’s unusual memoir tells how a lifelong passion for science sustained her in...
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seven brief lessons on physics by carlo rovelli...
A brief attempt to engage readers in the biggest questions of physics dwells on beauty and wonderIn...
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coastlines review - accessible and poignant
Patrick Barkham’s guide to Britain’s Neptune Coast teems with characters,history and literary...
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elon musk by ashlee vance review - how one tech...
The Silicon Valley entrepreneur wants to solve humanity’s problems with his electric cars,space...
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britannia obscura by joanne parker review - hidden...
Caves,ley lines, megaliths, or flight paths,canals – a fascinating notice at alternative ways of...
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the man who made things out of trees review - a...
Cycling writer Rob Penn takes an enjoyable change of direction – into the woods“I grew up under...
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the age of em review - the horrific future when...
Robin Hanson’s weird,very serious, book predicts what will happen in a Matrix-like world when...
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no need for geniuses by steve jones review -...
From melting down the Eiffel Tower to the Tour de France to black holes ... a richly rewarding if...
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lab girl by hope jahren - what a life in science...
Jahren,a geobiologist, lives on reheated fast food, or encounters sexism and worries so much...
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international space station by david nixon review...
A painstaking account of the construction of the ISS and the daily routine of the astronauts who...
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voices in the ocean: a journey into the wild and...
A feelgood account of an encounter with dolphins,and their amazing abilities, darkens into a...
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common ground by rob cowen review - a memoir of...
As a father-to-be,Cowen returns to the wild areas near his childhood home and his poetic prose turns...
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the abundance by annie dillard review - a world of...
In his foreword to this collection of essays,Geoff Dyer affectionately calls Dillard ‘scatty’,...
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adventures in human being by gavin francis review...
A beautifully written guide to our wonders and weaknessesAn Edinburgh GP with a love of...
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dark matter and the dinosaurs by lisa randall...
An exciting current theory suggests that a lean disc of matter not visible through a telescope is...
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norwegian wood by lars mytting the man who made...
A simple,elegant book approximately how to fell trees is this year’s most surprising bestseller....
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a message from martha by mark avery review - the...
There were once 10bn in the US alone,but the last bird died in Cincinatti Zoo in 1914. This...
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oh excellent air bag! review - two centuries of...
This wonderful collection of writings on nitrous oxide features carnivals,dentists’ chairs,...
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a prehistory of the cloud by tung hui hu review -...
From old railway tracks repurposed as routes for fibre-optic cables to cold war bunkers retrofitted...
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the running hare: the secret life of farmland by...
The environmentalist’s account of the year he spent restoring wildlife to a field is enlightening...
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between the sunset and the sea by simon ingram...
A riveting,beguiling and highly personal history of Britain’s most evocative peaksThere are four...
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a new map of wonders by caspar henderson review -...
A wunderkammer of astounding facts inspires a better appreciation of the world and celebrates the...
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uprooted: on the trail of the green man by nina...
Lyon’s search for the meanings of the folk image and symbol of rebirth win her from neopagan...
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robin mckie s best science books of 2017
Why kindly health requires kindly sleep,the role our senses play in what we choose to consume, and...
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a brief history of everyone who ever lived by adam...
This effervescent book contains the latest thinking on the African origins of Homo sapiens and asks...
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a smell of burning by colin grant review - how...
A powerful memoir of the author’s brother tells the story of a condition whose sufferers were...
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the 100 best nonfiction books: no 6 - a brief...
The theoretical physicist’s mega-selling account of the origins of the universe is a masterpiece...
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beyond zero and one: machines, psychedelics, and...
How can we end superintelligent computers from taking over the world? Feed them a digital dose of...
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gaia vince: humans have caused untold damage to...
The original winner of the Winton prize for science books says humanity has become a geophysical...
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what we cannot know by marcus du sautoy - review
The mathematician and broadcaster fortunately reveals his own confusions in this refreshing study of...
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patrick barkham: i tried to mirror the course of a...
The writer explains how he sought to steer a literary course around the British coast that dodges...
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the hunt for vulcan by thomas levenson review ...
It’s a tale that has been told many times,but this unusual catch on the revolution in astronomy...
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the gardener and the carpenter by alison gopnik...
We worry too much and carry out too much for them: children flourish when they are given freedom....
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how cars ruined our love of the countryside
From Kipling’s first car journey to JG Ballard’s motorway dystopias – our growing...
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being a beast by charles foster review - the man...
The author of this funny and profound book lived in a sett,swam as an otter and foraged in bins as a...
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orison for a curlew by horatio clare review - in...
The travel writer traces the slender-billed curlew’s migratory path in a book that’s full of...
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making the weather in english writing and art
From icy ground gleaming in early literature to our idea of a data cloud … the portrayals of...
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robin mckie s best science books of 2016
The pick of this year’s science books set our health – and other obsessions under the...
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the switch by chris goodall - solar power is...
The transition to solar is happening faster than predicted,and now power can be stored when the sun...
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raptor: a journey through birds by james macdonald...
A beautifully written study of Britain’s birds of prey takes too cramped account of the...
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atmosphere of hope: solutions to the climate...
In the run-up to the Paris climate talks,two books argue for drastic action to be taken to avoid a...
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tide: the science and lore of the greatest force...
Hugh Aldersey-Williams’s scholarly survey of the history of tides,from the Bristol Channel to the...
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the wood for the trees by richard fortey review -...
Renowned natural historian Fortey bought four acres of beech and bluebell wood and began a deep...
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country files: nature writers on the books that...
Robert Macfarlane,Helen Macdonald, Kathleen Jamie and other contemporary writers choose the books...
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bee time: lessons from the hive review - the...
A passionate celebration of bees combined with a calmly reasoned critique of industrialised...
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i let the country flow under my wheels …
From Kipling’s first car journey to JG Ballard’s motorway dystopias – our growing...
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the 100 best nonfiction books: no 1 - the sixth...
The first in a novel series on the world’s most important works of nonfiction is an engrossing...
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michio kaku picks five books to help you...
From medicine to space travel,these works explore how the newest wave of science will transform...
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the grasmere journal: seeing the lake district...
Dorothy Wordsworth’s notebooks reveal a formidable Romantic writer unfairly eclipsed by her...
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royal institution to sell science treasures to...
First editions of Darwin,Newton, Humboldt and Kepler among groundbreaking works going on saleNinety...
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mary roach and her husband learn about the latest...
It's the most natural thing in the world,but scientific research into what really happens when...
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sleepwalking to armageddon: the threat of nuclear...
A collection of essays that focuses on the US president as the source of our greatest dangerWhen...
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the copernicus complex by caleb scharf review -...
From the microscopic to the macroscopic,this is an original and gripping contemplate at the universe...
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a brief history of everyone who ever lived review...
Adam Rutherford’s elegant account of the Human Genome Project brings a note of realism to our...
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patient hm review - a botched lobotomy that...
When Henry Molaison had his hippocampus removed,it left him with a profound memory deficit. Does...
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half earth: our planet s fight for life by edward...
A chilling warning that we’re in danger of wiping out all wildlife on EarthIn 2000,workers...
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seven brief lessons on physics review - science...
Carlo Rovelli has written a wonderful primer on how physics can help us understand the universe and...
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the best science books of 2015
Going feet first into evolutionary theory,the race to crack the genetic code and a memorable journey...
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seven brief lessons on physics by carlo rovelli...
The theoretical physicist untangles seven topics in a short book that works best when it doesn’t...
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the living mountain author nan shepherd to feature...
Writer Robert Macfarlane hails the Quarry Wood novelist,who will adorn £5 notes entering...
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the most perfect thing: inside (and outside) a...
The eccentric lives of or egg collectors own inspired an exquisite bookTim Birkhead features...
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dawn of the new everything by jaron lanier review...
The techno-sage and Silicon Valley insider sees VR as emancipatory and liberating but what does...
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skyfaring: a journey with a pilot review - a...
trace Vanhoenacker has written a stunning,contemplative book that reveals nature’s wonders and...
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john james audubon and the natural history of a...
Brilliant work in the archives has unearthed evidence that the grand ornithological artist also...
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the bundian way: ancient aboriginal trail, future...
Australia’s highest point – Mount Kosciuszko – links to coastal NSW via a 365km track filled...
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black, grey and read: top 10 squirrels in...
Squirrels are the demons,tricksters and phantoms of the literary canon, from Nabokov to Nietzsche to...
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celling point: scientist makes darwins origin of...
Molecular biologist Dr Simon Park has made a very strange edition of the classic text,using bacteria...
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building beyond the earth: the international space...
Racing over our heads at five miles per second is a building the size of an art gallery. The...
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david attenboroughs first adventures - in pictures
In 1954,a young David Attenborough was offered the chance to travel the world collecting animals for...
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