2018 Science and Nature Books Lists
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The Best Science & Nature Books of 2018 (A Year-End List Aggregation)

“What are the Best Science & Nature books of 2018?” We aggregated 19 year-end lists and ranked the 146 unique titles by how many times they appeared in an attempt to answer that very question!

 

There are thousands of year-end lists released every year and like we do in our weekly Best Book articles, we wanted to see which books appear the most. The top 33 books, all of which appeared on 2 or more “Best Science / Nature” Book lists, are ranked below with images, summaries, and links for more information or to purchase. The remaining 100+ books, as well as the top book lists are at the bottom of the page.

 

Make sure to take a look at our other Best of 2018 book lists:

You can also take a look at our Best Science & Nature books from last year as well as all the other Best 2017 articles!

 

Happy Scrolling!



Top 33 Science & Nature Books Of 2018



33 .) Broad Band: The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the Internet written by Claire Evans

	Broad Band: The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the Internet

Lists It Appears On:

  • Goodreads
  • Science Friday

The history of technology you probably know is one of men and machines, garages and riches, alpha nerds and brogrammers. But the little-known fact is that female visionaries have always been at the vanguard of technology and innovation–they’ve just been erased from the story. Until now. Women are not ancillary to the history of technology; they turn up at the very beginning of every important wave. But they’ve often been hidden in plain sight, their inventions and contributions touching our lives in ways we don’t even realize. VICE reporter and YACHT lead singer Claire L. Evans finally gives these unsung female heroes their due with her insightful social history of the Broad Band, the women who made the internet what it is today. Learn from Ada Lovelace, the tortured, imaginative daughter of Lord Byron, who wove numbers into the first program for a mechanical computer in 1842. Seek inspiration from Grace Hopper, the tenacious mathematician who democratized computing by leading the charge for machine-independent programming languages after World War II. Meet Elizabeth “Jake” Feinler, the one-woman Google who kept the earliest version of the Internet online, and Stacy Horn, who ran one of the first-ever social networks on a shoestring out of her New York City apartment in the 1980s. Evans shows us how these women built and colored the technologies we can’t imagine life without. Join the ranks of the pioneers who defied social convention and the longest odds to become database poets, information-wranglers, hypertext dreamers, and glass ceiling-shattering dot com-era entrepreneurs.



32 .) Brotopia: Breaking Up the Boys’ Club of Silicon Valley written by Emily Chang

	Brotopia: Breaking Up the Boys' Club of Silicon Valley

Lists It Appears On:

  • Financial Times
  • Wired

Silicon Valley is a modern utopia where anyone can change the world. Unless you’re a woman. For women in tech, Silicon Valley is not a fantasyland of unicorns, virtual reality rainbows, and 3D-printed lollipops, where millions of dollars grow on trees. It’s a “Brotopia,” where men hold all the cards and make all the rules. Vastly outnumbered, women face toxic workplaces rife with discrimination and sexual harassment, where investors take meetings in hot tubs and network at sex parties. In this powerful exposé, Bloomberg TV journalist Emily Chang reveals how Silicon Valley got so sexist despite its utopian ideals, why bro culture endures despite decades of companies claiming the moral high ground (Don’t Be Evil! Connect the World!)–and how women are finally starting to speak out and fight back. Drawing on her deep network of Silicon Valley insiders, Chang opens the boardroom doors of male-dominated venture capital firms like Kleiner Perkins, the subject of Ellen Pao’s high-profile gender discrimination lawsuit, and Sequoia, where a partner once famously said they “won’t lower their standards” just to hire women. Interviews with Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki, and former Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer–who got their start at Google, where just one in five engineers is a woman–reveal just how hard it is to crack the Silicon Ceiling. And Chang shows how women such as former Uber engineer Susan Fowler, entrepreneur Niniane Wang, and game developer Brianna Wu, have risked their careers and sometimes their lives to pave a way for other women. Silicon Valley’s aggressive, misogynistic, work-at-all costs culture has shut women out of the greatest wealth creation in the history of the world. It’s time to break up the boys’ club. Emily Chang shows us how to fix this toxic culture–to bring down Brotopia, once and for all.



31 .) Chasing New Horizons: Inside the Epic First Mission to Pluto written by Alan Stern & David Grinspoon

	Chasing New Horizons: Inside the Epic First Mission to Pluto

Lists It Appears On:

  • Five Weeks
  • Smithsonian

On July 14, 2015, something amazing happened. More than 3 billion miles from Earth, a small NASA spacecraft called New Horizons screamed past Pluto at more than 32,000 miles per hour, focusing its instruments on the long mysterious icy worlds of the Pluto system, and then, just as quickly, continued on its journey out into the beyond. Nothing like this has occurred in a generation–a raw exploration of new worlds unparalleled since NASA’s Voyager missions to Uranus and Neptune–and nothing like it is planned to happen ever again. The photos that New Horizons sent back to Earth graced the front pages of newspapers on all 7 continents, and NASA’s website for the mission received more than 2 billion hits in the days surrounding the flyby. At a time when so many think our most historic achievements are in the past, the most distant planetary exploration ever attempted not only succeeded but made history and captured the world’s imagination.



30 .) Close Encounters with Humankind: A Paleoanthropologist Investigates Our Evolving Species written by Sang-Hee Lee

	Close Encounters with Humankind: A Paleoanthropologist Investigates Our Evolving Species

Lists It Appears On:

  • Kirkus 2
  • Smithsonian

What can fossilized teeth tell us about the life expectancy of our ancient ancestors? How did farming play a problematic role in the history of human evolution? How can simple geometric comparisons of skull and pelvic fossils suggest a possible origin to our social nature? And what do we truly have in common with the Neanderthals? In this captivating international bestseller, Close Encounters with Humankind, Korea’s first paleoanthropologist, Sang-Hee Lee, explores some of our greatest evolutionary questions from new and unexpected angles. Through a series of entertaining, bite-sized chapters, we gain fresh perspectives into our first hominin ancestors and ways to challenge perceptions about the traditional progression of evolution. By combining anthropological insight with exciting, cutting-edge research, Lee’s surprising conclusions shed new light on our beginnings and connect us to a faraway past. For example, our big brains may have served to set our species apart and spur our societal development, but perhaps not in the ways we have often assumed. And it’s possible that the Neanderthals, our infamous ancestors, were not the primitive beings portrayed by twentieth-century science. With Lee as our guide, we discover that from our first steps on two feet to our first forays into toolmaking and early formations of community, we have always been a species of continuous change. Close Encounters with Humankind is the perfect read for anyone curious about where we came from and what it took to get us here. As we mine the evolutionary path to the present, Lee helps us to determine where we are heading and tackles one of our most pressing scientific questions—does humanity continue to evolve?



29 .) Darwin Comes To Town: How The Urban Jungle Drives Evolution written by Menno Schilthuizen

	Darwin Comes To Town: How The Urban Jungle Drives Evolution

Lists It Appears On:

  • Kirkus 2
  • NPR

From evolutionary biologist Menno Schilthuizen, a book that will make you see yourself and the world around you in an entirely new way. For a long time, biologists thought evolution was a necessarily slow process, too incremental to be observed in a lifetime. In Darwin Comes to Town, evolutionary biologist Menno Schilthuizen shows that evolution can in fact happen extremely quickly, and in the strangest of places: the heart of the city. Menno Schilthuizen is one of a growing number of “urban ecologists” studying how our manmade environments are accelerating the evolution of the animals and plants around us. Cities are extreme environments and, in a world of adapt or die, the wildlife sharing these spaces with us is being forced to adopt fascinating new ways of surviving, and often thriving. –Carrion crows in the Japanese city of Sendai have learned to use passing traffic to crack nuts. –Spiders in Vienna are adapting to build their webs near moth-attracting streetlights, while moths in some cities are developing a resistance to the lure of light bulbs. –Certain Puerto Rican city lizards are evolving feet that better grip surfaces like concrete. –Europe’s urban blackbirds sing at a higher pitch than their rural cousins, to be heard over the din of traffic, while many pigeons have eschewed traveling “as the crow flies” in favor of following manmade roads. Darwin Comes to Town draws on these and other eye-popping examples to share a stunning vision of urban evolution in which humans and wildlife co-exist in a unique harmony. It reveals that evolution can happen far more rapidly than Darwin dreamed, while providing a glimmer of hope that our race toward overpopulation might not take the rest of nature down with us.



28 .) Dispatches from Planet 3: 32 Brief Tales on the Solar System, the Milky Way, and Beyond written by Marcia Bartusiak

	Dispatches from Planet 3: 32 Brief Tales on the Solar System, the Milky Way, and Beyond

Lists It Appears On:

  • Science Friday
  • Symmetry

The galaxy, the multiverse, and the history of astronomy are explored in this engaging compilation of cosmological “tales” by multiple award‑winning science writer Marcia Bartusiak. In thirty‑two concise and engrossing essays, the author provides a deeper understanding of the nature of the universe and those who strive to uncover its mysteries. Bartusiak shares the back stories for many momentous astronomical discoveries, including the contributions of such pioneers as Beatrice Tinsley and her groundbreaking research in galactic evolution, and Jocelyn Bell Burnell, the scientist who first discovered radio pulsars. An endlessly fascinating collection that you can dip into in any order, these pieces will transport you to ancient Mars, when water flowed freely across its surface; to the collision of two black holes, a cosmological event that released fifty times more energy than was radiating from every star in the universe; and to the beginning of time itself.



27 .) Eager written by Ben Goldfarb

	Eager

Lists It Appears On:

  • Open Letters Review
  • Science News

In Eager, environmental journalist Ben Goldfarb reveals that our modern idea of what a healthy landscape looks like and how it functions is wrong, distorted by the fur trade that once trapped out millions of beavers from North America’s lakes and rivers. The consequences of losing beavers were profound: streams eroded, wetlands dried up, and species from salmon to swans lost vital habitat. Today, a growing coalition of “Beaver Believers”―including scientists, ranchers, and passionate citizens―recognizes that ecosystems with beavers are far healthier, for humans and non-humans alike, than those without them. From the Nevada deserts to the Scottish highlands, Believers are now hard at work restoring these industrious rodents to their former haunts. Eager is a powerful story about one of the world’s most influential species, how North America was colonized, how our landscapes have changed over the centuries, and how beavers can help us fight drought, flooding, wildfire, extinction, and the ravages of climate change. Ultimately, it’s about how we can learn to coexist, harmoniously and even beneficially, with our fellow travelers on this planet.



26 .) Enlightenment Now: The Case For Reason, Science, Humanism, And Progress written by Steven Pinker

	Enlightenment Now: The Case For Reason, Science, Humanism, And Progress

Lists It Appears On:

  • Amazon
  • NPR

The follow-up to Pinker’s groundbreaking The Better Angels of Our Nature presents the big picture of human progress: people are living longer, healthier, freer, and happier lives, and while our problems are formidable, the solutions lie in the Enlightenment ideal of using reason and science. Is the world really falling apart? Is the ideal of progress obsolete? In this elegant assessment of the human condition in the third millennium, cognitive scientist and public intellectual Steven Pinker urges us to step back from the gory headlines and prophecies of doom, which play to our psychological biases. Instead, follow the data: In seventy-five jaw-dropping graphs, Pinker shows that life, health, prosperity, safety, peace, knowledge, and happiness are on the rise, not just in the West, but worldwide. This progress is not the result of some cosmic force. It is a gift of the Enlightenment: the conviction that reason and science can enhance human flourishing. Far from being a naïve hope, the Enlightenment, we now know, has worked. But more than ever, it needs a vigorous defense. The Enlightenment project swims against currents of human nature–tribalism, authoritarianism, demonization, magical thinking–which demagogues are all too willing to exploit. Many commentators, committed to political, religious, or romantic ideologies, fight a rearguard action against it. The result is a corrosive fatalism and a willingness to wreck the precious institutions of liberal democracy and global cooperation. With intellectual depth and literary flair, Enlightenment Now makes the case for reason, science, and humanism: the ideals we need to confront our problems and continue our progress.



25 .) How To Invent Everything: A Survival Guide For The Stranded Time Traveler written by Ryan North

	How To Invent Everything: A Survival Guide For The Stranded Time Traveler

Lists It Appears On:

  • Goodreads
  • NPR

“How to Invent Everything is such a cool book. It’s essential reading for anyone who needs to duplicate an industrial civilization quickly.” –Randall Munroe, xkcd creator and New York Times-bestselling author of What If? The only book you need if you’re going back in time What would you do if a time machine hurled you thousands of years into the past. . . and then broke? How would you survive? Could you improve on humanity’s original timeline? And how hard would it be to domesticate a giant wombat? With this book as your guide, you’ll survive–and thrive–in any period in Earth’s history. Bestselling author and time-travel enthusiast Ryan North shows you how to invent all the modern conveniences we take for granted–from first principles. This illustrated manual contains all the science, engineering, art, philosophy, facts, and figures required for even the most clueless time traveler to build a civilization from the ground up. Deeply researched, irreverent, and significantly more fun than being eaten by a saber-toothed tiger, How to Invent Everything will make you smarter, more competent, and completely prepared to become the most important and influential person ever. You’re about to make history. . . better.



24 .) Nine Pints: A Journey Through the Money, Medicine, and Mysteries of Blood written by Rose George

	Nine Pints: A Journey Through the Money, Medicine, and Mysteries of Blood

Lists It Appears On:

  • Science Friday
  • Science News

An eye-opening exploration of blood, the lifegiving substance with the power of taboo, the value of diamonds, and the promise of breakthrough science Blood carries life, yet the sight of it makes people faint. It is a waste product and a commodity pricier than oil. It can save lives and transmit deadly infections. Each one of us has roughly nine pints of it, yet many don’t even know their own blood type. And for all its ubiquity, the few tablespoons of blood discharged by 800 million women are still regarded as taboo; menstruation is perhaps the single most demonized biological event. Rose George, author of The Big Necessity, is renowned for her intrepid work on topics that are invisible but vitally important. In Nine Pints, she takes us from ancient practices of bloodletting to modern “hemovigilance” teams that track blood-borne diseases. She introduces Janet Vaughan, who set up the world’s first system of mass blood donation during the Blitz, and Arunachalam Muruganantham, known as “Menstrual Man” for his work on sanitary pads for developing countries. She probes the lucrative business of plasma transfusions, in which the U.S. is known as the “OPEC of plasma.” And she looks to the future, as researchers seek to bring synthetic blood to a hospital near you. Spanning science and politics, stories and global epidemics, Nine Pints reveals our life’s blood in an entirely new light.



23 .) Technically Wrong: Sexist Apps, Biased Algorithms, and Other Threats of Toxic Tech written by Sara Wachter-Boettcher

	Technically Wrong: Sexist Apps, Biased Algorithms, and Other Threats of Toxic Tech

Lists It Appears On:

  • Evening Standard
  • Wired

Buying groceries, tracking our health, finding a date: whatever we want to do, odds are that we can now do it online. But few of us ask why all these digital products are designed the way they are. It’s time we change that. Many of the services we rely on are full of oversights, biases, and downright ethical nightmares: Chatbots that harass women. Signup forms that fail anyone who’s not straight. Social media sites that send peppy messages about dead relatives. Algorithms that put more black people behind bars.



22 .) The Future of Humanity: Terraforming Mars, Interstellar Travel, Immortality, and Our Destiny Beyond Earth written by Michio Kaku

	The Future of Humanity: Terraforming Mars, Interstellar Travel, Immortality, and Our Destiny Beyond Earth

Lists It Appears On:

  • Amazon
  • Goodreads

The #1 bestselling author of The Future of the Mind brings us a stunning new vision of our future in space. Human civilization is on the verge of spreading beyond Earth. More than a possibility, it is becoming a necessity: whether our hand is forced by climate change and resource depletion or whether future catastrophes compel us to abandon Earth, one day we will make our homes among the stars. World-renowned physicist and futurist Michio Kaku explores in rich, accessible detail how humanity might gradually develop a sustainable civilization in outer space. With his trademark storytelling verve, Kaku shows us how science fiction is becoming reality: mind-boggling developments in robotics, nanotechnology, and biotechnology could enable us to build habitable cities on Mars; nearby stars might be reached by microscopic spaceships sailing through space on laser beams; and technology might one day allow us to transcend our physical bodies entirely. With irrepressible enthusiasm and wonder, Dr. Kaku takes readers on a fascinating journey to a future in which humanity could finally fulfil its long-awaited destiny among the stars – and perhaps even achieve immortality.



21 .) The Space Barons: Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and the Quest to Colonize the Cosmos written by Christian Davenport

	The Space Barons: Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and the Quest to Colonize the Cosmos

Lists It Appears On:

  • Financial Times
  • Goodreads

The Space Barons is the story of a group of billionaire entrepreneurs who are pouring their fortunes into the epic resurrection of the American space program. Nearly a half-century after Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, these Space Barons-most notably Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, along with Richard Branson and Paul Allen-are using Silicon Valley-style innovation to dramatically lower the cost of space travel, and send humans even further than NASA has gone. These entrepreneurs have founded some of the biggest brands in the world-Amazon, Microsoft, Virgin, Tesla, PayPal-and upended industry after industry. Now they are pursuing the biggest disruption of all: space.



20 .) The Truth About Animals: Stoned Sloths, Lovelorn Hippos, and Other Tales from the Wild Side of Wildlife written by Lucy Cooke

	The Truth About Animals: Stoned Sloths, Lovelorn Hippos, and Other Tales from the Wild Side of Wildlife

Lists It Appears On:

  • Amazon
  • Science News

Humans have gone to the Moon and discovered the Higgs boson, but when it comes to understanding animals, we’ve still got a long way to go. Whether we’re seeing a viral video of romping baby pandas or a picture of penguins “holding hands,” it’s hard for us not to project our own values–innocence, fidelity, temperance, hard work–onto animals. So you’ve probably never considered if moose get drunk, penguins cheat on their mates, or worker ants lay about. They do–and that’s just for starters. In The Truth About Animals, Lucy Cooke takes us on a worldwide journey to meet everyone from a Colombian hippo castrator to a Chinese panda porn peddler, all to lay bare the secret–and often hilarious–habits of the animal kingdom. Charming and at times downright weird, this modern bestiary is perfect for anyone who has ever suspected that virtue might be unnatural.



19 .) Through Two Doors at Once: The Elegant Experiment That Captures the Enigma of Our Quantum Reality written by Anil Ananthaswamy

	Through Two Doors at Once: The Elegant Experiment That Captures the Enigma of Our Quantum Reality

Lists It Appears On:

  • Kirkus 2
  • Symmetry

Many great scientific minds have grappled with the ‘double slit’ experiment. Thomas Young devised it in the early 1800s to show that light behaves like a wave, and in doing so opposed Isaac Newton’s view that light is made of particles. But then Albert Einstein showed that light comes in quanta, or particles. Thus, quantum mechanics was born. This led to a fierce debate between Einstein and Niels Bohr over the nature of reality-subatomic bits of matter and its interaction with light-as revealed by the double slit experiment. Richard Feynman held that it embodies the central mystery of the quantum world. Decade after decade, hypothesis after hypothesis, scientists have returned to this ingenious experiment to help them answer deeper and deeper questions about the fabric of the universe. How can a single particle behave both like a particle and a wave? Does a particle, or indeed reality, exist before we look at it, or does looking create reality, as the textbook ‘Copenhagen interpretation’ of quantum mechanics seems to suggest? How can particles influence each other faster than the speed of light? Is there a place where the quantum world ends and the familiar classical world of our daily lives begins, and if so, can we find it? And if there’s no such place, then does the universe split into two each time a particle goes through the double slit? With his extraordinarily gifted eloquence, Anil Ananthaswamy travels around the world and through history, down to the smallest scales of physical reality we have fathomed. It is the most fantastic voyage you can take.



18 .) Underbug: An Obsessive Tale Of Termites And Technology written by Lisa Margonelli

	Underbug: An Obsessive Tale Of Termites And Technology

Lists It Appears On:

  • NPR
  • Open Letters Review

Are we more like termites than we ever imagined? In Underbug, the award-winning journalist Lisa Margonelli introduces us to the enigmatic creatures that collectively outweigh human beings ten to one and consume $40 billion worth of valuable stuff annually—and yet, in Margonelli’s telling, seem weirdly familiar. Over the course of a decade-long obsession with the little bugs, Margonelli pokes around termite mounds and high-tech research facilities, closely watching biologists, roboticists, and geneticists. Her globe-trotting journey veers into uncharted territory, from evolutionary theory to Edwardian science literature to the military industrial complex. What begins as a natural history of the termite becomes a personal exploration of the unnatural future we’re building, with darker observations on power, technology, historical trauma, and the limits of human cognition.



17 .) When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing written by Daniel H. Pink

	When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing

Lists It Appears On:

  • Amazon
  • Goodreads

Everyone knows that timing is everything. But we don’t know much about timing itself. Our lives are a never-ending stream of “when” decisions: when to start a business, schedule a class, get serious about a person. Yet we make those decisions based on intuition and guesswork. Timing, it’s often assumed, is an art. In When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing, Pink shows that timing is really a science. Drawing on a rich trove of research from psychology, biology, and economics, Pink reveals how best to live, work, and succeed. How can we use the hidden patterns of the day to build the ideal schedule? Why do certain breaks dramatically improve student test scores? How can we turn a stumbling beginning into a fresh start? Why should we avoid going to the hospital in the afternoon? Why is singing in time with other people as good for you as exercise? And what is the ideal time to quit a job, switch careers, or get married?



16 .) 21 Lessons for the 21st Century written by Yuval Noah Harari

	21 Lessons for the 21st Century

Lists It Appears On:

  • Evening Standard
  • Financial Times
  • Wired

In Sapiens, he explored our past. In Homo Deus, he looked to our future. Now, one of the most innovative thinkers on the planet turns to the present to make sense of today’s most pressing issues. How do computers and robots change the meaning of being human? How do we deal with the epidemic of fake news? Are nations and religions still relevant? What should we teach our children? Yuval Noah Harari’s 21 Lessons for the 21st Century is a probing and visionary investigation into today’s most urgent issues as we move into the uncharted territory of the future. As technology advances faster than our understanding of it, hacking becomes a tactic of war, and the world feels more polarized than ever, Harari addresses the challenge of navigating life in the face of constant and disorienting change and raises the important questions we need to ask ourselves in order to survive. In twenty-one accessible chapters that are both provocative and profound, Harari builds on the ideas explored in his previous books, untangling political, technological, social, and existential issues and offering advice on how to prepare for a very different future from the world we now live in: How can we retain freedom of choice when Big Data is watching us? What will the future workforce look like, and how should we ready ourselves for it? How should we deal with the threat of terrorism? Why is liberal democracy in crisis? Harari’s unique ability to make sense of where we have come from and where we are going has captured the imaginations of millions of readers. Here he invites us to consider values, meaning, and personal engagement in a world full of noise and uncertainty. When we are deluged with irrelevant information, clarity is power. Presenting complex contemporary challenges clearly and accessibly, 21 Lessons for the 21st Century is essential reading.



15 .) Chesapeake Requiem: A Year With the Watermen of Vanishing Tangier Island written by Earl Swift

	Chesapeake Requiem: A Year With the Watermen of Vanishing Tangier Island

Lists It Appears On:

  • Kirkus 1
  • NPR
  • Science Friday

A brilliant, soulful, and timely portrait of a two-hundred-year-old crabbing community in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay as it faces extinction from rising sea levels—part natural history of an extraordinary ecosystem, starring the beloved blue crab; part paean to a vanishing way of life; and part meditation on man’s relationship with the environment—from the acclaimed author, who reported this story for more than two years Tangier Island, Virginia, is a community unique on the American landscape. Mapped by John Smith in 1608, settled during the American Revolution, the tiny sliver of mud is home to 470 hardy people who live an isolated and challenging existence, with one foot in the 21st century and another in times long passed. They are separated from their countrymen by the nation’s largest estuary, and a twelve-mile boat trip across often tempestuous water—the same water that for generations has made Tangier’s fleet of small fishing boats a chief source for the rightly prized Chesapeake Bay blue crab, and has lent the island its claim to fame as the softshell crab capital of the world. Yet for all of its long history, and despite its tenacity, Tangier is disappearing. The very water that has long sustained it is erasing the island day by day, wave by wave. It has lost two-thirds of its land since 1850, and still its shoreline retreats by fifteen feet a year—meaning this storied place will likely succumb first among U.S. towns to the effects of climate change. Experts reckon that, barring heroic intervention by the federal government, islanders could be forced to abandon their home within twenty-five years. Meanwhile, the graves of their forebears are being sprung open by encroaching tides, and the conservative and deeply religious Tangiermen ponder the end times.



14 .) The Big Ones: How Natural Disasters Have Shaped Us (and What We Can Do About Them) written by Lucy Jones

	The Big Ones: How Natural Disasters Have Shaped Us (and What We Can Do About Them)

Lists It Appears On:

  • Amazon
  • Goodreads
  • Science News

By a veteran seismologist of the U.S. Geological Survey, a lively and revealing history of the world’s most disruptive natural disasters, their impact on our culture, and new ways of thinking about the ones to come Natural disasters emerge from the same forces that give our planet life. Earthquakes have provided us with natural springs. Volcanoes have given us fertile soil. A world without floods would be a world without rain. It is only when these forces exceed our ability to withstand them that they become disasters. Together, these colossal events have shaped our cities and their architecture; elevated leaders and toppled governments; influenced the way we reason, feel, fight, unite, and pray. The history of natural disasters is a history of ourselves. The Big Ones is a look at some of the most devastating disasters in human history, whose reverberations we continue to feel today. It considers Pompeii, and how a volcanic eruption in the first century AD challenged and reinforced prevailing views of religion for centuries to come. It explores the California floods of 1862, examining the failures of our collective memory. And it transports us to today, showing what Hurricane Katrina and the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami can tell us about governance and globalization. With global temperatures rising, natural disasters are striking with greater frequency. More than just history, The Big Ones is a call to action. Natural disasters are inevitable; human catastrophes are not. With this energizing and richly researched book, Jones offers a look at our past, readying us to face down the Big Ones in our future.



13 .) The Dinosaur Artist: Obsession, Betrayal, and the Quest for Earth’s Ultimate Trophy written by Paige Williams

	The Dinosaur Artist: Obsession, Betrayal, and the Quest for Earth’s Ultimate Trophy

Lists It Appears On:

  • Science Friday
  • Smithsonian
  • The New York Times

In 2012, a New York auction catalogue boasted an unusual offering: “a superb Tyrannosaurus skeleton.” In fact, Lot 49135 consisted of a nearly complete T. bataar, a close cousin to the most famous animal that ever lived. The fossils now on display in a Manhattan event space had been unearthed in Mongolia, more than 6,000 miles away. At eight-feet high and 24 feet long, the specimen was spectacular, and when the gavel sounded the winning bid was over $1 million. Eric Prokopi, a thirty-eight-year-old Floridian, was the man who had brought this extraordinary skeleton to market. A onetime swimmer who spent his teenage years diving for shark teeth, Prokopi’s singular obsession with fossils fueled a thriving business hunting, preparing, and selling specimens, to clients ranging from natural history museums to avid private collectors like actor Leonardo DiCaprio. But there was a problem. This time, facing financial strain, had Prokopi gone too far? As the T. bataar went to auction, a network of paleontologists alerted the government of Mongolia to the eye-catching lot. As an international custody battle ensued, Prokopi watched as his own world unraveled.



12 .) The Poison Squad: One Chemist’s Single-Minded Crusade for Food Safety at the Turn of the Twentieth Century written by Deborah Blum

	The Poison Squad: One Chemist's Single-Minded Crusade for Food Safety at the Turn of the Twentieth Century

Lists It Appears On:

  • Science News
  • Smithsonian
  • The New York Times

By the end of nineteenth century, food was dangerous. Lethal, even. “Milk” might contain formaldehyde, most often used to embalm corpses. Decaying meat was preserved with both salicylic acid, a pharmaceutical chemical, and borax, a compound first identified as a cleaning product. This was not by accident; food manufacturers had rushed to embrace the rise of industrial chemistry, and were knowingly selling harmful products. Unchecked by government regulation, basic safety, or even labelling requirements, they put profit before the health of their customers. By some estimates, in New York City alone, thousands of children were killed by “embalmed milk” every year. Citizens–activists, journalists, scientists, and women’s groups–began agitating for change. But even as protective measures were enacted in Europe, American corporations blocked even modest regulations. Then, in 1883, Dr. Harvey Washington Wiley, a chemistry professor from Purdue University, was named chief chemist of the agriculture department, and the agency began methodically investigating food and drink fraud, even conducting shocking human tests on groups of young men who came to be known as, “The Poison Squad.”



11 .) What Is Real?: The Unfinished Quest for the Meaning of Quantum Physics written by Adam Becker

	What Is Real?: The Unfinished Quest for the Meaning of Quantum Physics

Lists It Appears On:

  • Amazon
  • Goodreads
  • Symmetry

The untold story of the heretical thinkers who dared to question the nature of our quantum universe Every physicist agrees quantum mechanics is among humanity’s finest scientific achievements. But ask what it means, and the result will be a brawl. For a century, most physicists have followed Niels Bohr’s Copenhagen interpretation and dismissed questions about the reality underlying quantum physics as meaningless. A mishmash of solipsism and poor reasoning, Copenhagen endured, as Bohr’s students vigorously protected his legacy, and the physics community favored practical experiments over philosophical arguments. As a result, questioning the status quo long meant professional ruin. And yet, from the 1920s to today, physicists like John Bell, David Bohm, and Hugh Everett persisted in seeking the true meaning of quantum mechanics. What Is Real? is the gripping story of this battle of ideas and of the courageous scientists who dared to stand up for truth.



10 .) Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup written by John Carreyrou

	Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup

Lists It Appears On:

  • Evening Standard
  • NPR
  • Science Friday
  • Wired

The full inside story of the breathtaking rise and shocking collapse of Theranos, the multibillion-dollar biotech startup, by the prize-winning journalist who first broke the story and pursued it to the end, despite pressure from its charismatic CEO and threats by her lawyers. In 2014, Theranos founder and CEO Elizabeth Holmes was widely seen as the female Steve Jobs: a brilliant Stanford dropout whose startup “unicorn” promised to revolutionize the medical industry with a machine that would make blood testing significantly faster and easier. Backed by investors such as Larry Ellison and Tim Draper, Theranos sold shares in a fundraising round that valued the company at more than $9 billion, putting Holmes’s worth at an estimated $4.7 billion. There was just one problem: The technology didn’t work. A riveting story of the biggest corporate fraud since Enron, a tale of ambition and hubris set amid the bold promises of Silicon Valley.



9 .) Brief Answers to the Big Questions written by Stephen Hawking

	Brief Answers to the Big Questions

Lists It Appears On:

  • Amazon
  • Goodreads
  • Symmetry
  • Wired

The world-famous cosmologist and #1 bestselling author of A Brief History of Time leaves us with his final thoughts on the biggest questions facing humankind. Stephen Hawking was the most renowned scientist since Einstein, known both for his groundbreaking work in physics and cosmology and for his mischievous sense of humor. He educated millions of readers about the origins of the universe and the nature of black holes, and inspired millions more by defying a terrifying early prognosis of ALS, which originally gave him only two years to live. In later life he could communicate only by using a few facial muscles, but he continued to advance his field and serve as a revered voice on social and humanitarian issues. Hawking not only unraveled some of the universe’s greatest mysteries but also believed science could be used to fix problems here on Earth. Now, as we face immense challenges on our planet–from climate change to the development of artificial intelligence–he turns his attention to the most urgent issues facing us. Will humanity survive? Should we colonize space? Does God exist? ​​These are just a few of the questions Hawking addresses in this wide-ranging, passionately argued final book from one of the greatest minds in history. Featuring a foreword by Eddie Redmayne, who won an Oscar playing Stephen Hawking, an introduction by Nobel Laureate Kip Thorne, and an afterword from Hawking’s daughter, Lucy, Brief Answers to the Big Questions is a brilliant last message to the world.



8 .) Hello World: How to be Human in the Age of the Machine written by Hannah Fry

	Hello World: How to be Human in the Age of the Machine

Lists It Appears On:

  • Amazon
  • Evening Standard
  • Financial Times
  • Wired

A look inside the algorithms that are shaping our lives and the dilemmas they bring with them. If you were accused of a crime, who would you rather decide your sentence—a mathematically consistent algorithm incapable of empathy or a compassionate human judge prone to bias and error? What if you want to buy a driverless car and must choose between one programmed to save as many lives as possible and another that prioritizes the lives of its own passengers? And would you agree to share your family’s full medical history if you were told that it would help researchers find a cure for cancer? These are just some of the dilemmas that we are beginning to face as we approach the age of the algorithm, when it feels as if the machines reign supreme. Already, these lines of code are telling us what to watch, where to go, whom to date, and even whom to send to jail. But as we rely on algorithms to automate big, important decisions—in crime, justice, healthcare, transportation, and money—they raise questions about what we want our world to look like. What matters most: Helping doctors with diagnosis or preserving privacy? Protecting victims of crime or preventing innocent people being falsely accused? Hello World takes us on a tour through the good, the bad, and the downright ugly of the algorithms that surround us on a daily basis. Mathematician Hannah Fry reveals their inner workings, showing us how algorithms are written and implemented, and demonstrates the ways in which human bias can literally be written into the code.



7 .) Losing the Nobel Prize: A Story of Cosmology, Ambition, and the Peril’s of Science’s Highest Honor written by Brian Keating

	Losing the Nobel Prize: A Story of Cosmology, Ambition, and the Peril’s of Science’s Highest Honor

Lists It Appears On:

  • Amazon
  • Science Friday
  • Science News
  • Symmetry

What would it have been like to be an eyewitness to the Big Bang? In 2014, astronomers wielding BICEP2, the most powerful cosmology telescope ever made, revealed that they’d glimpsed the spark that ignited the Big Bang. Millions around the world tuned in to the announcement broadcast live from Harvard University, immediately igniting rumors of an imminent Nobel Prize. But had these cosmologists truly read the cosmic prologue or, swept up in Nobel dreams, had they been deceived by a galactic mirage? In Losing the Nobel Prize, cosmologist and inventor of the BICEP (Background Imaging of Cosmic Extragalactic Polarization) experiment Brian Keating tells the inside story of BICEP2’s mesmerizing discovery and the scientific drama that ensued. In an adventure story that spans the globe from Rhode Island to the South Pole, from California to Chile, Keating takes us on a personal journey of revelation and discovery, bringing to vivid life the highly competitive, take-no-prisoners, publish-or-perish world of modern science. Along the way, he provocatively argues that the Nobel Prize, instead of advancing scientific progress, may actually hamper it, encouraging speed and greed while punishing collaboration and bold innovation. In a thoughtful reappraisal of the wishes of Alfred Nobel, Keating offers practical solutions for reforming the prize, providing a vision of a scientific future in which cosmologists may, finally, be able to see all the way back to the very beginning.



6 .) Spying on Whales: The Past, Present, and Future of Earth’s Most Awesome Creatures written by Nick Pyenson

	Spying on Whales: The Past, Present, and Future of Earth’s Most Awesome Creatures

Lists It Appears On:

  • Goodreads
  • Open Letters Review
  • Science Friday
  • Science News

The Smithsonian’s star paleontologist takes us to the ends of the earth and to the cutting edge of whale research Whales are among the largest, most intelligent, deepest diving species to have ever lived on our planet. They evolved from land-roaming, dog-like creatures into animals that move like fish, breathe like us, can grow to 300,000 pounds, live 200 years and roam entire ocean basins. Whales fill us with terror, awe, and affection–yet we know hardly anything about them, and they only enter our awareness when they die, struck by a ship or stranded in the surf. Why did it take whales over 50 million years to evolve to such big sizes, and how do they eat enough to stay that big? How did their ancestors return from land to the sea? Why do they beach themselves? What do their lives tell us about our oceans, and evolution as a whole? Importantly, in the sweepstakes of human-driven habitat and climate change, will whales survive? Nick Pyenson’s research has given us the answers to some of our biggest questions about whales. Nick’s rich storytelling takes us to the cool halls deep inside the Smithsonian’s priceless fossil collection, to the frigid fishing decks on Antarctic whaling stations, and to the blazing hot desert of Chile where scientists race against time to document the largest fossil whalebone site on earth. Spying on Whales is science writing at its best: an author who is an incredible, passionate writer, at the forefront of his field, on a topic that invokes deep fascination.



5 .) Lost in Math: How Beauty Leads Physics Astray written by Sabine Hossenfelder

	Lost in Math: How Beauty Leads Physics Astray

Lists It Appears On:

  • Amazon
  • Five Weeks
  • Goodreads
  • Smithsonian
  • Symmetry

A contrarian argues that modern physicists’ obsession with beauty has given us wonderful math but bad science. Whether pondering black holes or predicting discoveries at CERN, physicists believe the best theories are beautiful, natural, and elegant, and this standard separates popular theories from disposable ones. This is why, Sabine Hossenfelder argues, we have not seen a major breakthrough in the foundations of physics for more than four decades. The belief in beauty has become so dogmatic that it now conflicts with scientific objectivity: observation has been unable to confirm mindboggling theories, like supersymmetry or grand unification, invented by physicists based on aesthetic criteria. Worse, these “too good to not be true” theories are actually untestable and they have left the field in a cul-de-sac. To escape, physicists must rethink their methods. Only by embracing reality as it is can science discover the truth.



4 .) The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs: A New History of a Lost World written by Steve Brusatte

	The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs: A New History of a Lost World

Lists It Appears On:

  • Goodreads
  • Open Letters Review
  • Science Friday
  • Science News
  • Smithsonian

Brusatte traces the evolution of dinosaurs from their inauspicious start as small shadow dwellers—themselves the beneficiaries of a mass extinction caused by volcanic eruptions at the beginning of the Triassic period—into the dominant array of species every wide-eyed child memorizes today, T. rex, Triceratops, Brontosaurus, and more. This gifted scientist and writer re-creates the dinosaurs’ peak during the Jurassic and Cretaceous, when thousands of species thrived, and winged and feathered dinosaurs, the prehistoric ancestors of modern birds, emerged. The story continues to the end of the Cretaceous period, when a giant asteroid or comet struck the planet and nearly every dinosaur species (but not all) died out, in the most extraordinary extinction event in earth’s history, one full of lessons for today as we confront a “sixth extinction.” Brusatte also recalls compelling stories from his globe-trotting expeditions during one of the most exciting eras in dinosaur research—which he calls “a new golden age of discovery”—and offers thrilling accounts of some of the remarkable findings he and his colleagues have made, including primitive human-sized tyrannosaurs; monstrous carnivores even larger than T. rex; and paradigm-shifting feathered raptors from China.



3 .) How To Change Your Mind: What The New Science Of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, And Transcendence written by Michael Pollan

	How To Change Your Mind: What The New Science Of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, And Transcendence

Lists It Appears On:

  • Amazon
  • Goodreads
  • Kirkus 2
  • NPR
  • Science Friday
  • The New York Times

When LSD was first discovered in the 1940s, it seemed to researchers, scientists and doctors as if the world might be on the cusp of psychological revolution. It promised to shed light on the deep mysteries of consciousness, as well as offer relief to addicts and the mentally ill. But in the 1960s, with the vicious backlash against the counter-culture, all further research was banned. In recent years, however, work has quietly begun again on the amazing potential of LSD, psilocybin and DMT. Could these drugs in fact improve the lives of many people? Diving deep into this extraordinary world and putting himself forward as a guinea-pig, Michael Pollan has written a remarkable history of psychedelics and a compelling portrait of the new generation of scientists fascinated by the implications of these drugs. How to Change Your Mind is a report from what could very well be the future of human consciousness.



2 .) The Tangled Tree: A Radical New History of Life written by David Quammen

	The Tangled Tree: A Radical New History of Life

Lists It Appears On:

  • Amazon
  • Five Weeks
  • Goodreads
  • Kirkus 2
  • Open Letters Review
  • Science News
  • The New York Times

Nonpareil science writer David Quammen explains how recent discoveries in molecular biology can change our understanding of evolution and life’s history, with powerful implications for human health and even our own human nature. In the mid-1970s, scientists began using DNA sequences to reexamine the history of all life. Perhaps the most startling discovery to come out of this new field—the study of life’s diversity and relatedness at the molecular level—is horizontal gene transfer (HGT), or the movement of genes across species lines. It turns out that HGT has been widespread and important. For instance, we now know that roughly eight percent of the human genome arrived not through traditional inheritance from directly ancestral forms, but sideways by viral infection—a type of HGT. In The Tangled Tree David Quammen, “one of that rare breed of science journalists who blends exploration with a talent for synthesis and storytelling” (Nature), chronicles these discoveries through the lives of the researchers who made them—such as Carl Woese, the most important little-known biologist of the twentieth century; Lynn Margulis, the notorious maverick whose wild ideas about “mosaic” creatures proved to be true; and Tsutomu Wantanabe, who discovered that the scourge of antibiotic-resistant bacteria is a direct result of horizontal gene transfer, bringing the deep study of genome histories to bear on a global crisis in public health. “Quammen is no ordinary writer. He is simply astonishing, one of that rare class of writer gifted with verve, ingenuity, humor, guts, and great heart” (Elle). Now, in The Tangled Tree, he explains how molecular studies of evolution have brought startling recognitions about the tangled tree of life—including where we humans fit upon it. Thanks to new technologies such as CRISPR, we now have the ability to alter even our genetic composition—through sideways insertions, as nature has long been doing. The Tangled Tree is a brilliant guide to our transformed understanding of evolution, of life’s history, and of our own human nature.



1 .) She Has Her Mother’s Laugh: The Powers, Perversions, and Potential of Heredity written by Carl Zimmer

	She Has Her Mother's Laugh: The Powers, Perversions, and Potential of Heredity

Lists It Appears On:

  • Amazon
  • Goodreads
  • Kirkus 2
  • Open Letters Review
  • Science Friday
  • Science News
  • Smithsonian
  • The New York Times

Carl Zimmer presents a history of our understanding of heredity in this sweeping, resonating overview of a force that shaped human society–a force set to shape our future even more radically. She Has Her Mother’s Laugh presents a profoundly original perspective on what we pass along from generation to generation. Charles Darwin played a crucial part in turning heredity into a scientific question, and yet he failed spectacularly to answer it. The birth of genetics in the early 1900s seemed to do precisely that. Gradually, people translated their old notions about heredity into a language of genes. As the technology for studying genes became cheaper, millions of people ordered genetic tests to link themselves to missing parents, to distant ancestors, to ethnic identities. . . . But, Zimmer writes, “Each of us carries an amalgam of fragments of DNA, stitched together from some of our many ancestors. Each piece has its own ancestry, traveling a different path back through human history. A particular fragment may sometimes be cause for worry, but most of our DNA influences who we are–our appearance, our height, our penchants–in inconceivably subtle ways.” Heredity isn’t just about genes that pass from parent to child. Heredity continues within our own bodies, as a single cell gives rise to trillions of cells that make up our bodies.




The 100+ Additional Best Science Books Of 2018



#BooksAuthorsLists
34A History of Video Games in 64 Objects 
Den Of Geek
35A Lab of One’s Own: Science and Suffrage in the First World WarPatricia FaraFive Weeks
36A New Reality: Human Evolution For A Sustainable FutureJonas Salk and Jonathan SalkNPR
37
A WILDER TIME: NOTES FROM A GEOLOGIST AT THE EDGE OF THE GREENLAND ICE
 Kirkus 1
38
Accessory to War: The Unspoken Alliance Between Astrophysics and the Military
 Goodreads
39
Aerodynamic: Inside the High-Stakes Global Jetliner Ecosystem:
 
Puget Sound Business Journal
40
Alaska Over Israel: Operation Magic Carpet, the Men and Women Who Made it Fly, and the Little Airline That Could:
 
Puget Sound Business Journal
41
Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism
 Goodreads
42Anti-Science and the Assault on Democracy Inverse
43
Architects of Intelligence: The Truth about AI from the People Building It
 
Financial Times
44Around the World in 80 TreesJonathan DroriWired
45ArousedRandi Hutter Epstein
Science News
46Atom Land: A Guided Tour Through the Strange (And Impossibly Small) World of Particle PhysicsJon ButterworthSymmetry
47Attention: Dispatches from a Land of DistractionJoshua CohenWired
48Ball LightningCixin Liu, translatedNPR
49Bugs Don’t Hug: Six-Legged Parents and Their KidsHeather Montgomery
Celebrate Science
50Chilling Adventures in Sorcery 
Den Of Geek
51
Collision on Tenerife: The How and Why of the World’s Worst Aviation Disaster:
 
Puget Sound Business Journal
52Cute as Axolotl: Discovering the World’s Most Adorable AnimalsJess Keating
Celebrate Science
53
Disasters in Space: Stories from the US–Soviet Space Race and Beyond:
 
Puget Sound Business Journal
54Do Not Lick This BookIdan Ben-Barak, illustratedNPR
55Doing Harm: The Truth About How Bad Medicine And Lazy Science Leave Women Dismissed, Misdiagnosed, And SickMaya DusenberyNPR
56Eavesdropping on Elephants: How Listening Helps ConservationPatricia Newman
Celebrate Science
57End of the Megafauna Inverse
58ENERGY: A HUMAN HISTORY Kirkus 2
59Extreme Conservation 
Open Letters Review
60Eyes of the Shoal 
Open Letters Review
61Farewell to the Horse 
Open Letters Review
62
First in Fly: Drosophila Research and Biological Discovery
 
Smithsonian
63First Man: The Life of Neil A. Armstrong: 
Puget Sound Business Journal
64Flying Deep: Climb Inside Deep-Sea Submersible AlvinMichelle Cusolito
Celebrate Science
65Genetics in the MadhouseTheodore M. Porter
Science News
66Give Me Your Hand: A NovelMegan AbbottNPR
67Gnomon: A NovelNick HarkawayNPR
68Heart: A HistorySandeep Jauhar
Science Friday
69How to Walk on Water and Climb up Walls Inverse
70Hungover Inverse
71Imagine It Forward: Courage, Creativity, and the Power of ChangeBeth ComstockWired
72In Search of the Canary TreeLauren E. Oakes
Science Friday
73Inventing Ourselves: The Secret Life of the Teenage BrainSarah-Jayne BlakemoreWired
74JIM BROWN: LAST MAN STANDING Kirkus 1
75Joan Procter, Dragon DoctorPatricia Valdez
Celebrate Science
76
LANDS OF LOST BORDERS: A JOURNEY ON THE SILK ROAD
 Kirkus 1
77Like A Mother: A Feminist Journey Through The Science And Culture Of PregnancyAngela GarbesNPR
78Maker of Patterns: An Autobiography Through LettersFreeman DysonSymmetry
79MIT Press Essential Knowledge Series 
Evening Standard
80My Own Devices: True Stories From The Road On Music, Science, And Senseless LoveDessaNPR
81Nervous States: How Feeling Took Over the WorldWilliam DaviesWired
82Never Home Alone Inverse
83New Dark Age: Technology and the End of the FutureJames BridleWired
84Nothing Stopped Sophie: The Unshakable Mathematician Sophie GermainCheryl Bardoe
Celebrate Science
85On the Future: Prospects for HumanityMartin ReesWired
86Otis and Will Discover the Deep: The Record-Setting Dive of the BathysphereBarb Rosenstock
Celebrate Science
87Particle Physics Brick by Brick: Atomic and Subatomic Physics Explained…in LEGODr. Ben StillSymmetry
88Picnic Comma Lightning: In Search of a New RealityLaurence ScottWired
89Rising: Dispatches from the New American ShoreElizabeth Rush
Science Friday
90
Rocket Men: The Daring Odyssey of Apollo 8 and the Astronauts Who Made Man’s First Journey to the Moon
 Amazon
91
Sex robots are destined to remain a niche fetish. Here’s why
 Wired
92Something Rotten: A Fresh Look at Road KillHeather Montgomery Starstruck: The Cosmic Journey of Neil DeGrasse Tyson
Celebrate Science
93Star Wars: Women of the Galaxy 
Den Of Geek
94
Stay up to speed with the SciFri Book Club Newsletter!
 
Science Friday
95Stranger Things: Worlds Turned Upside Down 
Den Of Geek
96Stretch to the Sun: From a Tiny Sprout to the Tallest Tree on EarthCarrie Pearson
Celebrate Science
97
Taming the Sun: Innovations to Harness Solar Energy and Power the Planet
 Goodreads
98
Ten Arguments For Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now
 
Financial Times
99Thank You, Earth: Love Letters to Our PlanetApril Pulley Sayre
Celebrate Science
100
The Atlas Obscura Explorer’s Guide for the World’s Most Adventurous Kid
 
Den Of Geek
101
THE BIG FELLA: BABE RUTH AND THE WORLD HE CREATED
 Kirkus 1
102The Billionaire Raj: A Journey Through India’s New Gilded AgeJames CrabtreeWired
103The Biological Mind: How Brain, Body, and Environment Collaborate to Make Us Who We AreAlan JasanoffFive Weeks
104The Book of Why: The New Science of Cause and EffectJudea Pearl and Dana Mackenzie
Science Friday
105
The Books of Earthsea: The Complete Illustrated Edition by Ursula K. Leguin
 
Den Of Geek
106The Boy and the Diamond: The Creation of Diamonds and The Life of H. Tracy HallHannah Holt
Celebrate Science
107
THE CONSCIOUSNESS INSTINCT: UNRAVELING THE MYSTERY OF HOW THE BRAIN MAKES THE MIND
 Kirkus 2
108The Cow with Ear Tag #1389 
Open Letters Review
109The Dialogues: Conversations about the Nature of the UniverseClifford V. Johnson
Science Friday
110
THE GAME: HARVARD, YALE, AND AMERICA IN 1968
 Kirkus 1
111The Girl Who Drew Butterflies: How Maria Merian’s Art Changed ScienceJoyce Sidman Itch: Everything You Didn’t Want to Know About What Makes You Scratch
Celebrate Science
112The History of Physics: A Very Short IntroductionJ.L. HeilbronSymmetry
113The Last Man Who Knew Everything: The Life and Times of Enrico Fermi, The Father of the Nuclear AgeDavid N. SchwartzSymmetry
114The League of Regrettable Sidekicks 
Den Of Geek
115The Making of Planet of the Apes 
Den Of Geek
116
The Man Who Caught the Storm: The Life of Legendary Tornado Chaser Tim Samaras
 Amazon
117The Mass Extinction Detectives 
Science Friday
118The Mystery of the Exploding Teeth (And Other Curiosities from the History of Medicine)Thomas Morris
Science Friday
119The Order of Time Goodreads
120The Overstory: A NovelRichard PowersNPR
121
THE PERFECTIONISTS: HOW PRECISION ENGINEERS CREATED THE MODERN WORLD
 Kirkus 2
122The Personality Brokers: The Strange History Of Myers-Briggs And The Birth Of Personality TestingMerve EmreNPR
123The Phantom of Eternia 
Den Of Geek
124The Poisoned CityAnna Clark
Science News
125The Prisoner: The Uncertainty Machine 
Den Of Geek
126
THE RED CADDY: INTO THE UNKNOWN WITH EDWARD ABBEY
 Kirkus 1
127
The Sawbones Book: The Hilarious, Horrifying Road to Modern Medicine
 Goodreads
128The Science Of Breakable ThingsTae KellerNPR
129The Strange Case Of Dr. Couney: How A Mysterious European Showman Saved Thousands Of American BabiesDawn RaffelNPR
130
The Valancourt Book of Victorian Christmas Ghost Stories, Volume Three
 
Den Of Geek
131The Value of Everything: Making and Taking in the Global EconomyMariana MazzucatoWired
132
The Wizard and the Prophet: Two Remarkable Scientists and Their Dueling Visions to Shape Tomorrow’s World
 Amazon
133
THE WONDERFUL MR WILLUGHBY: THE FIRST TRUE ORNITHOLOGIST
 Kirkus 1
134Thus Spoke the Plant Inverse
135Tigers & Tea With ToppyBarbara Kerley and Rhoda Knight Kalt, illustratedNPR
136Totally Random: Why Nobody Understands Quantum Mechanics (A Serious Comic on Entanglement)Tanya Bub and Jeffrey BubSymmetry
137Universal Life Inverse
138Upscale 
Evening Standard
139Washington Black: A NovelEsi EdugyanNPR
140What the Eyes Don’t SeeMona Hanna-Attisha
Science Friday
141
What the Future Looks Like: Scientists Predict the Next Great Discoveries―and Reveal How Today’s Breakthroughs Are Already Shaping Our World
 
Smithsonian
142When Einstein Walked with Gödel: Excursions to the Edge of ThoughtJim HoltSymmetry
143
When the weather outside is frightful, space, megafauna, and microbes are delightful.
 Inverse
144
Who We Are and How We Got Here: Ancient DNA and the New Science of the Human Past
 Goodreads
145Wilding: The Return of Nature to a British Farm 
Smithsonian
146
Worlds Seen in Passing: Ten Years of Tor.com Short Fiction
 
Den Of Geek



19 Best Nature Books From 2018 Sources/Lists



SourceArticle
Amazon Best science books of 2018
Celebrate Science 17 Favorite STEM Books of 2018
Den Of Geek Holiday Gift Guide 2018: Books for Geeks
Evening Standard Best tech books 2018: 6 that will expand your mind
Financial Times Best books of 2018: Technology
Five Weeks The Best Science Books of 2018
Goodreads Best Science And Technology
Inverse Best Science Books of 2018: Your Winter Reading and Gift Giving Guide
Kirkus 1 Best Nature, Travel, and Sports Books of 2018
Kirkus 2 Best Popular Science Books of 2018
NPR https://apps.npr.org/best-books-2018/
Open Letters Review Open Letters Review
Puget Sound Business Journal Top books of 2018 for aerospace and aviation enthusiasts
Science Friday Science Friday
Science News These are our favorite science books of 2018
Smithsonian The Ten Best Science Books of 2018
Symmetry Physics books of 2018
The New York Times 100 Notable Books of 2018
Wired The best books of 2018 in tech, science, business and ideas