The Last Stargazers: The Enduring Story of Astronomy's Vanishing Explores, Emily M. Levesque Humans from the earliest civilizations were spellbound by the night sky-craning their necks each night, they used the stars to orient themselves in the large, strange world around them. Stargazing is a pursuit that continues to fascinate us: from Copernicus to Carl Sagan, astronomers throughout history have spent their lives trying to answer the biggest questions in the universe. Now, award-winning astronomer Emily Levesque shares the stories of modern-day stargazers, the people willing to adventure across high mountaintops and to some of the most remote corners of the planet, all in the name of science.
In Defense of Food: an Eater’s Manifesto, Michael Pollan Pollan proposes a new answer to the question of what we should eat that comes down to seven simple but liberating words: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. Pollan's bracing and eloquent manifesto shows us how we can start making thoughtful food choices that will enrich our lives, enlarge our sense of what it means to be healthy, and bring pleasure back to eating.
The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science, Richard Holmes (2009 National Book Critics Circle Award) "Known for his biographies of Romantic writers, Holmes turns his attention to the science of the Romantic Age, and demonstrates the extent to which the era’s scientific and literary endeavors enriched each other and were animated by common ideals. Holmes begins with Joseph Banks, the official botanist on Captain Cook’s 1768 voyage to Tahiti, whose diaries of this paradisiacal island made him a scientific celebrity. Elected to serve as the president of the Royal Society, Banks championed, among others, William Herschel, a composer and self-taught astronomer who discovered the planet Uranus; Mungo Park, a Scottish doctor who embarked on a perilous journey through Africa seeking the riches of Timbuktu; and Humphry Davy, a self-taught chemist and poet who invented a safety lamp for miners." (The New Yorker)
Never Home Alone, Rob Dunn