"Why do we do the things we do? Over a decade in the making, this game-changing book is Robert Sapolsky's genre-shattering attempt to answer that question as fully as perhaps only he could, looking at it from every angle. Sapolsky's storytelling concept is delightful but it also has a powerful intrinsic logic: he starts by looking at the factors that bear on a person's reaction in the precise moment a behavior occurs, and then hops back in time from...

"One of the world's most renowned theoretical physicists, Carlo Rovelli has entranced millions of readers with his singular perspective on the cosmos. In Helgoland, Rovelli examines the enduring enigma of quantum theory. The quantum world Rovelli describes is as beautiful as it is unnerving. Helgoland is a treeless island in the North Sea where the 21-year-old Werner Heisenberg first developed quantum theory, setting off a century of scientific revolution....

"Just in time for the third North American total solar eclipse of the twenty-first century, this book explains how to safely observe solar eclipses, how long eclipses last, and why they result in a blackout period during the day"--

A noted meteoriticist shows how meteorites have helped build our planet and influenced humanity since the start of civilization. "The Solar System. Dinosaurs. Donkey Kong. What is the missing link? Surprisingly enough, it's meteorites. They explain our past, constructed our present, and could define our future. Impact argues that Earth would be a lifeless, inhospitable piece of rock without being fortuitously assaulted with meteorites throughout...

"For the whole of human history, we have lived alongside birds. We have hunted and domesticated them for food; venerated them in our mythologies, religions, and rituals; exploited them for their natural resources; and been inspired by them for our music, art, and poetry. In Ten Birds That Changed the World, naturalist and author Stephen Moss tells the gripping story of this long and intimate relationship through key species from all seven of the world's...

"The notion of a living world is one of humanity's oldest beliefs. Though scorned by scientists in the sixties and seventies, the facts supporting this concept have now become tenets of modern Earth system science, a relatively young field that studies the living and nonliving components of the planet as an integrated whole. Life did not evolve passively in response to its environment, as scientists have long assumed. Instead, it evolved with Earth,...

"A breakout bestseller in Italy, now available for American readers for the first time, Genesis: The Story of How Everything Began is a short, humanistic tour of the origins of the universe, earth, and life-drawing on the latest discoveries in physics to explain the seven most significant moments in the creation of the cosmos"-- Tonelli reveals the extraordinary story of our genesis: from the origins of the universe, to the emergence of life on Earth,...

Presents an examination of Israel that traces the events that led the country to its current state of conflict through the stories of everyday citizens to illuminate the importance of lesser-known historical events. It is an authoritative and deeply personal narrative history of the State of Israel, by one of the most influential journalists writing about the Middle East today. Here the author draws on interviews, historical documents, private diaries,...

"From one of the world's most influential spiritual thinkers, along-awaited book exploring what it means that Jesus was called "Christ," and how this forgotten truth can transform everything we see, hope for, and believe. In his decades as a globally recognized teacher, Richard Rohr has helped millions realize what is at stake in matters of faith and spirituality. Yet Rohr has never written on the most perennially talked about topic in Christianity:...

"For millennia, we have viewed thinking and feeling as fundamentally opposed processes. According to this persistent, age-old belief, to truly live well we must marshal our logical and rational capacities to master our emotions. This perceived dichotomy lies at the heart of our historical pursuits in theology, philosophy, and psychology. But extraordinary advances in psychology and neuroscience, including neuroimaging and other related technologies,...