Featured Science Author

Mary Roach

The bestselling author of Stiff, Spook, Packing for Mars, and Bonk is back with another riveting exploration -- this time of the alimentary canal. Its title? Gulp, of course. We asked the inimitable Mary Roach to recommend some of her favorite books and authors. "My list of beloved nonfiction authors is a long one," she said,"that usually begins something like this: Bill Bryson, Susan Orlean, Jon Ronson, Nathaniel Philbrick, Peter Hessler. Here I decided to share some authors and works slightly less known, but, to my mind, no less wondrous." See her list below.

Mary Roach
Book Cover Image. Title: Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal, Author: Mary Roach
Book Cover Image. Title: Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers, Author: Mary Roach
Book Cover Image. Title: Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife, Author: Mary Roach
Book Cover Image. Title: Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void, Author: Mary Roach
Book Cover Image. Title: Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex, Author: Mary Roach
Book Cover Image. Title: Under a Flaming Sky: The Great Hinckley Firestorm of 1894, Author: Daniel James Brown

Under a Flaming Sky

Daniel James Brown

This should have been a bestseller on the same scale as The Perfect Storm. Substitute fire for water, and the rest is comparably compelling. The book is a moment-by-moment account of a freak convergence of wind and heat, a deftly braided triple narrative of clear, clean, galloping prose. Brown works similar narrative magic in his 2010 account of the Donner Party tragedy, The Indifferent Stars Above. Buy Now

Book Cover Image. Title: The Fruit Hunters: A Story of Nature, Adventure, Commerce, and Obsession, Author: Adam Leith Gollner

The Fruit Hunters

Adam Leith Gollner

A paean to the overwhelming diversity of fruits on this planet, both botanical and human. Gollner's is not the sort of talent one can develop. It is genetic, physical -- an exquisite sensitivity of tongue, nose, and eye. He describes one variety of the stinking durian fruit as tasting like "undercooked peanut butter-mint omelets in body-odor sauce"; langsats are "tangy-sweet detonations of citric perfection"; biting into a monkey tamarind is "like eating cloud." Buy Now

Book Cover Image. Title: Quirk: Brain Science Makes Sense of Your Peculiar Personality, Author: Hannah Holmes

Quirk

Hannah Holmes

I read this book and a light went on. Suddenly the nervous people in my life weren't neurotic or overprotective. They were just people with an active amygdala, perceiving threat where others don't. And so on, for all the basic traits of human personality. To learn that we are motivated by the same basic brain chemicals and structures as mice is oddly, profoundly liberating. Plus, Holmes's prose is a constant witty delight. Equally delightful is her Suburban Safari: A Year on the Lawn. Buy Now

Book Cover Image. Title: The Universal Sense: How Hearing Shapes the Mind, Author: Seth S. Horowitz

The Universal Sense

Seth S. Horowitz

Sound is a madly fascinating universe going on around us all the time. Herrings in the sea are speaking to one another by farting. Bats are screeching at subway-loud levels right over our heads. Military operatives are blasting Guns 'n Roses at enemy generals. Horowitz's expertise, enthusiasm, and wit make him the perfect ambassador to this surreal, secret world. Buy Now