Top 10

The AGI Chronicles: The Inside Story of the Race to Create an Artificial Superintelligence

Kevin Roose. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Oct. 6 ($33, ISBN 978-0-374-61875-9)

New York Times tech columnist Roose follows Anthropic, Google DeepMind, and OpenAI as they race to develop machines that can surpass human capabilities in every domain.

Artificial Intimacy: Who We Become When We Talk to Machines

Sherry Turkle. Little, Brown, Sept. 29 ($32, ISBN 978-0-316-57396-2)

Reliance on AI is teaching people they don’t need to take risks, have difficult conversations, or contend with uncertainty, suggests psychologist Turkle.

Bogland: The Secret World That Defies Death and Protects Life

Merritt R. Turetsky. Norton, Oct. 13 ($29.99, ISBN 978-1-324-08653-6)

Not quite land and not quite water, boglands are home to fascinating creatures and are important sites of carbon sequestration, according to ecologist Turetsky.

This Book May Cause Side Effects: The Curious and Dangerous Power of the Nocebo Effect, Placebo’s Evil Twin

Helen Pilcher. Abrams, Aug. 25 ($30, ISBN 978-1-4197-7466-9)

Biologist Pilcher explains how expectations about illness—often influenced by the internet—can seriously affect health outcomes.

Curved Air: A Biography of Sickle Cell Anemia and the Quest to Cure the First Molecular Disease

Kevin Davies. Belknap, Sept. 8 ($29.95, ISBN 978-0-674-29396-0)

The history of sickle cell anemia is chronicled from its 1904 discovery through decades of racial discrimination in health care to the 2023 approval of gene-editing therapy to treat it.

Darwin and the Queer Origins of Life: A History of Sex and Science

Ross Brooks. Yale Univ., Sept. 8 ($35, ISBN 978-0-300-28720-2)

Science historian Brooks argues Charles Darwin and early evolutionists were acutely aware of sexual diversity in nature.

The Internet Will Die, and So Will You: On Learning to Live in Our Digital Age

John West. Here Below, Sept. 10 ($28.99, ISBN 978-0-8028-8542-5)

Acknowledging the internet’s mortality can help people live more meaningful, less distracted lives, contends journalist West.

It Could Be Otherwise: Science in the Age of Uncertainty

Stuart Firestein. Basic, Aug. 4 ($30, ISBN 978-1-5416-0673-9)

Neuroscientist Firestein challenges the myth that science is a quest for certainty, reframing it as a source of possibility.

The Vanishing Children: A Psychiatrist’s Journey to Unravel the Mysteries of Childhood Psychosis

Nitin Gogtay. Hanover Square, Jan. 26 ($30, ISBN 978-1-335-00252-5)

Following four families as they navigate symptoms, misdiagnoses, and treatments, psychiatrist Gogtay depicts how schizophrenia and acute psychotic illnesses manifest in children.

The Vanishing Family: Love, Fate, and the Quest to End Dementia

Robert Kolker. Doubleday, Sept. 29 ($35, ISBN 978-0-385-55103-8)

Journalist Kolker profiles a Pennsylvania family that carries a genetic mutation for a rare form of dementia that alters their personalities in their 40s but may hold the key to treating Alzheimer’s.

Longlist

Abrams

Circuit Breakers: How Neuroscientists Get Inside Your Head by Anna Chambers (Nov. 3, $30, ISBN 978-1-4197-7358-7). Neuroscientist Chambers reveals the inner workings of a brain research laboratory, explaining how scientists attempt to solve the organ’s mysteries to improve health.

American Philosophical Society

The Fly Room: The Story of the Scientists Who Discovered Genetics and Reinvented Evolution by William deJong-Lambert (Sept. 22, $34.95, ISBN 978-1-60618-156-0) chronicles how Columbia biologist Thomas Hunt Morgan and his students, by experimenting with fruit flies in the early 20th century, refuted eugenics and proved Darwin was right about evolution.

Atria

The Panda Project: An Intimate Look at the World’s Most Beloved Bear by Brandie Smith (Nov. 10, $30, ISBN 978-1-6680-2772-1). The director of the Smithsonian National Zoo relays the history and biology of giant pandas, offering insights into their behaviors and quirks and explaining what it takes to keep them from going extinct.

Beacon

The Binary Delusion: How Biology Defies the Myth of Two Sexes by Ari Berkowitz (Aug. 18, $29, ISBN 978-0-8070-2340-2). The traits that make people typically male or female, like hormones and genitalia, are extensive and often overlap, explains University of Oklahoma biology professor Berkowitz.

BenBella

Elon, Take the Wheel: The Danger and Delusion of Tesla’s Self-Driving Technology by Edward Niedermeyer (Dec. 1, $29.95, ISBN 979-8-90268-011-6) outlines the public debate around automated driving systems and unpacks the science behind the technology.

Bison

Striped Reckoning: Tiger Kings and the Battle to Rescue America’s Captive Big Cats by Carol Bradley (Oct. 1, $24.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-4962-4795-7) examines how animal rights activists worked to drive exotic cat breeders, like Joe Exotic, Tim Stark, and Jeff Lowe, out of business.

Bloomsbury Sigma

Future Build: How Construction Can Heal Our Planet by Will Arnold (Oct. 6, $28, ISBN 978-1-3994-2954-2). Design innovations, like schools built of bamboo and houses made from waste, can shrink the construction industry’s giant environmental footprint, contends structural engineer Arnold.

How to Design a Universe: The Science of Real and Virtual Worlds by Catherine Heymans (Nov. 10, $28, ISBN 978-1-3994-2144-7). Astrophysicist Heymans explains what’s known about the universe, from subatomic particles to dark matter, and questions whether a virtual universe as diverse as this one could be created by humans.

Chelsea Green

My Wild City: Finding Nature, Meaning, and Hope in India’s Capital by Neha Sinha (Sept. 1, $29.95, ISBN 978-1-64502-486-6). Nature writer Sinha uncovers the wilderness hidden in the bustling city of Delhi, including groves of trees that date back centuries, neglected rivers, animal tracks, and bird calls.

Our Ocean to Save: How to Protect Our Greatest Climate Ally by Emily Cunningham (Oct. 27, $19.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-64502-409-5) educates readers on threats facing the planet’s oceans and what can be done to protect them.

DK

The Art of Science: A Visual Story of Scientific Discovery by DK (Oct. 13, $55, ISBN 979-8-217-30551-3) features drawings, prints, and engravings scientists have made to capture and communicate their discoveries, like the inner workings of cells or craters on the moon.

Dundurn

Beyond Biology: How Culture Created You by Jason Martens (Sept. 15, $21.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-4597-5693-9) details the myriad ways culture influences perceptions and behaviors, from who people find attractive to how they see colors.

Dutton

How Many Pikachus Would It Take to Power a Lightbulb? And Other Adventures at the Frontiers of Fantasy Mathematics by Tom Crawford (Nov. 17, $22 trade paper, ISBN 979-8-217-17999-2). The author, a YouTuber and Oxford mathematics lecturer, uses video games and literary characters to explain risk, probability, and the laws of physics.

Ecco

Why We Ask Why: The Science of Explanation and the Human Drive to Understand by Tania Lombrozo (Oct. 6, $30, ISBN 978-0-06-339500-8) examines the role explanation plays in how people engage with each other and the world, and offers tools to make explanations better.

Experiment

The World as We Built It: The 35 Inventions That Define Modern Life by Jonn Elledge (Oct. 13, $24.95, ISBN 979-8-89303-164-5) elucidates the innovations that have enabled humans to become an urban-dwelling species, from electric lighting and windows to sewage and street numbering.

Greystone

The Age of Alchemy: The Secret History of Chemistry from Ancient Magic to Modern Science by Kit Chapman (Oct. 20, $29.95, ISBN 978-1-77840-417-7) chronicles how early alchemists and experimenters laid the groundwork for what became modern-day medicine and chemical engineering.

HarperOne

The God Notes: How Sound Creates the World by Lynne McTaggart (Oct. 20, $28.99, ISBN 978-0-06-342411-1) investigates the impact of sound on humans, plants, animals, and the cosmos.

Start with a Bear: Humans, Grizzlies, and the Power of Stories on a Crowded Planet by Peter S. Alagona (Nov. 17, $29.99, ISBN 978-0-06-339754-5) explores the fraught relationship between humans and bears, and offers a road map for conservation that heals humans’ severed ties with the wilderness.

Harvard Univ.

The Age of Microbes: A Blueprint for a Habitable Earth by Steven D. Allison (Nov. 3, $28.95, ISBN 978-0-674-29046-4). Microbes can help combat the climate crisis and create a sustainable future, according to ecologist Allison.

House of Anansi

Endings: Encounters with Extinction by Neil Griffin (Sept. 22, $24.99, ISBN 978-1-4870-1426-1) traces the history of extinction,
explaining how species disappear and how their absence shapes the planet.

Island

Animal Diaspora: Decoding Ice Age Mysteries to Reveal the Future of Migration by Edward Struzik (Nov. 3, $32, ISBN 978-1-64283-323-2) examines migrations and mass extinctions in the distant past to gain insight into population redistributions occurring now as the planet warms.

Johns Hopkins Univ.

The Machines Will See You Now: A Human Roadmap to Autonomous Health Care by Anmol Madan (Sept. 1, $32.95, ISBN 978-1-4214-5505-1). Computer scientist Madan probes how artificial intelligence is transforming the relationship between patients, providers, and technology.

Knopf

The Butterfly Season: What 64 Butterflies Taught Me About Nature’s Great Mysteries and the Meaning of Life by Lea Korsgaard, trans. by Sherilyn Nicolette Hellberg (Sept. 15, $32, ISBN 979-8-217-20886-9). This blend of nature writing, philosophy, and science recounts Korsgaard’s yearlong attempt to track every butterfly in Denmark.

Togetherness: Symbiosis and the Hidden Story of Life’s Greatest Collaborations by Rowan Hooper (Aug. 18, $35, ISBN 978-
0-593-80266-3). Evolutionary biologist Hooper examines relationships between organisms—like moths and sloths or orchids and fungi—to reveal the importance of connection for every living thing.

Melville House

God AI: What to Expect When Machines Outsmart Us by Toby Walsh (Dec. 1, $20.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-68589-301-9). As AI threatens to outpace human capabilities, researcher Walsh outlines the technology’s evolution and how to navigate its impact.

MIT

Life’s Chemical Secret: The Origin of Purpose and Mind by Addy Pross (Sept. 8, $27.95, ISBN 978-0-262-05483-6) relays how the discovery of a new material form in chemistry, dynamic kinetic states of matter, is helping scientists understand cognition.

A Mother’s Brain: The New Science of the Neuro-Maternal Revolution by Susana Carmona, trans. by Lily Meyer (Oct. 6, $27.95, ISBN 978-0-262-05478-2). Drawing on studies of mothers from before conception to years after childbirth, neuroscientist Carmona reveals how pregnancy transforms women’s brains more than adolescence does.

New Page

Rotten Botany: Darkly Deceptive, Bizarrely Beautiful & Oddly Alluring Plants by Varla A. Ventura (Oct. 5, $18.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-63748-023-6) guides readers through unique plants around the world—from vampire lilies to strangler figs—highlighting uses, lore, and cultivation tips.

Norton

How to Use a Fork: Stories of Mending the Broken Brain by Orlando Swayne (Nov. 17, $29.99, ISBN 978-1-324-11073-6) highlights how patients with brain injuries have regained lost capabilities, which previous generations of scientists thought impossible.

Minds I’ve Met: From Denying to Embracing the Inner Lives of Animals by Frans de Waal (Oct. 13, $29.99 ISBN 978-1-324-07638-4). Primatologist de Waal, who died in 2024, traces how humans have come to view animals as intentional beings capable of empathy and self-awareness.

One Signal

Save Our Sky: Reclaiming Outer Space from Greed and Empire by Moriba Jah (Dec. 1, $29, ISBN 978-1-6682-0600-3). The MacArthur “genius grant” winner and U.S. Air Force veteran calls for treating Earth and space as a connected ecosystem that needs stewardship, accountability, and repair.

Penguin Press

The Co-Creation: How Earth Made Life and Life Made Earth by Olivia Judson (Oct. 13, $35, ISBN 978-0-593-83104-5) presents a theory of evolution that explains how Earth gave rise to life-forms and these organisms in turn transformed the Earth.

Princeton Univ.

Animals Matter: The Case for a Kinder World by Cass R. Sunstein (Jan. 19, $24.95, ISBN 978-0-691-28903-8) proposes a framework for adopting robust legal protections for animals to prevent their abuse and improve their welfare.

The Ends of Race: The Rise and Fall of a Scientific Myth by Geoffrey Galt Harpham (Oct. 27, $35, ISBN 978-0-691-29162-8) chronicles scientists’ failed attempts to locate genetic underpinnings of race in the 18th and 19th centuries.

The Last Animal: Human History and the Fate of Life on Earth from the Ice Age to the Sixth Extinction by Kyle Harper (Oct. 20, $39.95, ISBN 978-0-691-25422-7) recounts the toll humans have had on animal biodiversity.

Prometheus

Embryo: The Science of Becoming Human by Alfonso Martinez Arias (Nov. 17, $32.95, ISBN 978-1-4930-9518-6) explains how genetic modification of embryos can help cure diseases, but also prompts questions about how far this technology should be taken.

PublicAffairs

The Eureka Machine: Why AI Is the Key to Unlocking a New Era of Scientific Discoveries by Richard Socher (Sept. 22, $30, ISBN 978-1-5417-0570-8) reveals how AI is transforming scientific fields including medicine, cell biology, neuroscience, and astronomy.

Random House

A Feast in Every Sense: The Mystery, Marvel, and New Science of Our Senses by Diane Ackerman (Jan. 19, $32, ISBN 978-0-593-73099-7) delves into how external stimuli combine with people’s inner lives to form thoughts and feelings.

The World Beneath Our Feet: The Hidden Life of Soil and Why It Matters to Us All by Frank Ashwood (Sept. 29, $30, ISBN 978-
0-593-97832-0) illuminates the abundance of life that dwells in soil and soil’s essential role in the planet’s well-being.

Riverhead

The Ghost of the Mountains: Unraveling the Secrets of the Snow Leopard by Kulbhushansingh Suryawanshi (Aug. 25, $32, ISBN 979-8-217-04373-6). Conservationist Suryawanshi documents efforts to study and protect snow leopards as development, armed conflict, and climate change threaten their habitats.

Scribe US

Sentinels: When Diseases Spread Between Animals and Humans by Michael Dulaney (Oct. 6, $19.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-964992-24-2) explores the growing threat of diseases that spread between animals and humans as a result of environmental destruction.

Scribner

Nature’s Magicians: How Leaves Conjure Up Our World by Jonathan Silvertown (Oct. 6, $29, ISBN 978-1-6680-9843-1) highlights the vital role leaves play in life on Earth, outlining how they evolved and their many diverse forms.

On the Equality of All Things: Lessons on Physics and Philosophy by Carlo Rovelli (Sept. 15, $27, ISBN 978-1-6680-9242-2) draws on new scientific discoveries to posit the universe is not made up of separate things but interconnected relationships.

Simon & Schuster

The Age of Cures: How American Scientists Saved Your Life by Barry Werth (Sept. 22, $32, ISBN 978-1-6680-6783-3) recounts the birth of the pharmaceutical industry in 20th-century America, when “miracle drugs” like penicillin and the polio vaccine became available.

Skipstone

Wild Work: Adventures of Women Field Biologists, edited by Susan B. Adams and Sophie A.H. Osborn (Sept. 1, $26.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-68051-877-1), shares the stories of female wildlife scientists who wade through rivers filled with venomous snakes, run with wolves, and evade poachers.

Skyhorse

Hidden Wonders: New Species and Rediscoveries in an Age of Extinction by David Alderton (Oct. 27, $32.99, ISBN 978-1-5107-8241-9). As many animals face extinction, naturalist Alderton highlights stories of species discovery, like the world’s smallest serpent, the Barbados threadsnake, and the Fernandina Island Galápagos tortoise, which was once thought to be extinct.

St. Martin’s

Tyrant Lizard Queen: The Love, Life, and Terror of Earth’s Greatest Carnivore by Riley Black (Oct. 27, $29, ISBN 978-1-250-40348-3) blends scientific research and imaginative storytelling to chronicle the life of a Tyrannosaurus rex from birth through adulthood.

Timber

The Forest Year: Finding Hope in a World Worth Saving by Ethan Tapper (Oct. 6, $28, ISBN 978-1-64326-651-0). Forester Tapper shares his experience stewarding a forest for a year, reflecting on biodiversity and the practice of caretaking.

Tuttle

Phantom Wolves of Japan: In Search of a Lost Mountain Guardian by Alex K.T. Martin (Sept. 29, $19.99 trade paper,
ISBN 978-4-8053-1974-1). Journalist Martin investigates whether a wolf species last seen in 1905 still roams the mountains of Japan.

Univ. of Florida

Climate Crossroads: Action and Reckoning in the American South by John M. Dunn (Sept. 29, $29.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-8130-8169-4) highlights climate challenges in the South and how communities are seeking solutions.

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