10 of the best popular science books out in May 2021
Treat yourself to a new science book this month and you’ll learn things you didn’t know you didn’t know. Solve the biggest outstanding problems in physics with The Science of Can and Can’t, change your personality for the better with Be Who You Want, and discover the hidden world of geometry with Shape.
If those don’t sound like your cup of tea, Andy Weir’s newest novel Project Hail Mary is also out this month, and comedian Rosie Wilby’s The Breakup Monologues is sure to lift your spirits.
To hear about all the latest great non-fiction, join us over at the Science Focus Book Club. You’ll get free samples of new and popular books, plus reading recommendations and bookish news sent directly to your inbox. Just sign up to the Science Focus Book Club Newsletter.
10 of the best popular science books out in May 2021
Project Hail Mary
By Andy Weir
An important memo to all fans of Andy Weir’s debut novel The Martian (and the Hollywood adaptation): read Project Hail Mary. Now.
While the premise of the new story sounds near identical to the author’s earlier work – a lone man is forced to use his scientific cunning after he becomes stranded from Earth – the introduction of a mystery lifeforce, which we won’t spoil here, blasts the plot in an unexpected direction.
Significantly, the protagonist is no Mark Watney, the astronaut played by Matt Damon in The Martian movie, either. The main character is, well, he doesn’t know what he is, waking from a coma next to two corpses, his memory banks empty. And if that’s not enough to draw you in, we don’t know what will.
- Buy now from Amazon UK, Bookshop.org and Waterstones
- Andy Weir: Building a base on the Moon, and crafting believable sci-fi
The Science of Can and Can’t: A Physicist’s Journey Through the Land of Counterfactuals
By Chiara Marletto
Most laws of physics tell us what must happen. Throw a ball in the air and it will come back down. But physicist Chiara Marletto, a Research Fellow at the University of Oxford, says that laws like this only tell us part of the story.
The rest, she says, lie in ‘counterfactuals’: things that could be. A notebook could be written in. There is no law of physics that tells us whether it will be – but we can’t describe what it’s for without talking about the possibility.
Marletto believes that counterfactual properties like this could hold the key to solving some of the biggest problems in science, from the biology of life, to artificial intelligence, to climate change.
- Buy now from Amazon UK, Bookshop.org and Waterstones
- Listen to Chiara on the Science Focus Podcast
Foodology: A Food-lover’s Guide to Digestive Health and Happiness
By Saliha Mahmood Ahmed
Foodology is part recipe book, part science book, all food. Gastroenterologist and food writer Saliha Mahmood Ahmed takes us on a tour of the digestive system, from the very first bite to… the other end. On the way, she also dives into why food makes us so happy and how a delicious smell can make our mouths water.
On top of all of this, of course, are 50 recipes designed not just to be delicious, but to support your gut health.
- Buy now from Amazon UK, Bookshop.org and Waterstones
Always On: Hope and Fear in the Social Smartphone Era
Bloomsbury Continuum, 13 May, £18.99
By Rory Cellan-Jones
Wake up. Check social media. Send a ‘good morning’ text. Check the weather app. Check the news… From the moment our alarm apps go off in the morning to when we finally log off Instagram at night, our smartphones are always by our sides.
On the one hand, we can connect with more people than ever before and we have unlimited access to information. But on the other, these devices are encroaching on every aspect of our lives, giving tech companies more access to and more control over everything about us.
Either way, the smartphone has arguably changed our lives more than almost any tool ever invented. In Always On, Rory Cellan-Jones, the BBC’s chief technology correspondent, explores whether this is cause for hope or fear.
- Buy now from Amazon UK, Waterstones and WHSmith
Handmade: A Scientist’s Search for Meaning through Making
Bloomsbury Sigma, 13 May, £17.99
By Anna Ploszajski
Scientists tend to think about materials in terms of quantities like their melting point, their density and how much pressure they can withstand. But humanity’s earliest materials scientists didn’t work in a lab measuring how much stress an object could withstand: they worked with their hands and made things.
Anna Ploszajski, herself a materials scientist, goes back to these ancient roots to explore in a hands-on way. She learns from the trial-and-error wisdom of generations of experts in clay, sugar, steel, glass, paper and more.
- Buy now from Amazon UK, Bookshop.org and Waterstones
Be Who You Want: Unlocking the Science of Personality Change
By Christian Jarrett
The promise of changing your personality to become who you aspire to be might sound like the domain of life coaches and unconvincing self-help books. But it turns out that such a thing is possible, says psychologist Dr Christian Jarrett.
Using genuine science, Jarrett explains how you really can alter your personality to your liking, whether that’s becoming more extroverted or conscientious, or even learning to use the ‘Dark Triad’ – narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy – to your advantage.
- Buy now from Amazon UK, Bookshop.org and Waterstones
- Read an extract from Be Who You Want
Stop Saving the Planet! An Environmentalist Manifesto
W. W. Norton & Company, 20 May, £7.99
By Jenny Price
Do you care about the environment? What do you do to protect the planet? Do you recycle, eat a plant-based diet, even drive an electric car?
Lots of us have made these lifestyle changes to be more eco-friendly. And yet we’re still nowhere near reversing the damage that humans have done to the environment.
In Stop Saving the Planet!, Jenny Price argues that our approach to stopping climate change is at times ineffective, at others totally counterproductive. She believes that we need a radically different approach if we actually hope to save the planet.
- Buy now from Amazon UK, Bookshop.org and Waterstones
The Motherhood Complex: The Story of Our Changing Selves
By Melissa Hogenboom
People often say that becoming a parent is one of the best things someone can do. But we talk a lot less about how pregnancy and giving birth change the body.
Science journalist Melissa Hogenboom takes on this topic in The Motherhood Complex. She describes every aspect of the experience, from the psychological effect of your changing body to how pregnancy affects the brain.
She also looks at the social side of parenting, drawing on her experience as a mother of two to explore how a parent’s sense of self and relationship to the rest of the world are altered after they have a child.
- Buy now from Amazon UK, Bookshop.org and Waterstones
The Breakup Monologues: The Unexpected Joy of Heartbreak
By Rosie Wilby
Breakups. They’re an unfortunate fact of life that almost all of us will go through at some point. But could there be some upsides to heartbreak?
In The Breakup Monologues, comedian Rosie Wilby takes on the psychology of the end of relationships. Is a breakup really like drug withdrawal? Why are friendship breakups so hard? And could a breakup ultimately lead to greater happiness later on?
- Buy now from Amazon UK, Bookshop.org and Waterstones
Shape
By Jordan Ellenberg
Geometry is undoubtedly among most people’s least favourite topics from school. Not only is it complicated, it often seems to have no value for the real world. When am I ever going to need to know how to draw an equilateral triangle using only a ruler and a pair of compasses?
It turns out, though, that geometry really does have real-world uses. As Jordan Ellenberg explains in Shape, not only does geometry have uses in physics and artificial intelligence, it also pops up in finance, US politics and even poetry.
- Buy now from Amazon UK, Bookshop.org and Waterstones
The best books of all time
We reckon this is a fine selection of books to read this month, but there are plenty more that are well worth your time from the annals of history. If you’re looking for a little inspiration, here are a few more of our book recommendations to mull over:
- 28 of the best non-fiction and fiction books we read in 2020
- 20 of the best wildlife books and nature writing
- 16 of the best maths books
- 5 best physics books, according to Jim Al-Khalili
- AI: 5 of the best must-read artificial intelligence books
- 5 race science books you must read
- Science books for kids: 5 books for budding scientists
Are you excited to read any of the books on this list? Let us know what you think of our pick of the best science books out this month by messaging us on Twitter or Facebook, tag us in a picture of you reading any of the books on Instagram, and join the Science Focus Book Club for a community of other science book lovers.
from... sciencefocus.com
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