Beaverland tells the tumultuous, eye-opening story of how beavers and the beaver fur trade shaped America's history, culture, and environment. What emerges is a startling portrait of the secretive, largely hidden world of the contemporary fur trade and an immersive ecological and historical investigation of these animals that, once trapped to the point of extinction, have rebounded to become one of the greatest conservation stories of the 20th century. Now, beavers offer surprising solutions to some of the most urgent problems caused by climate change.

Source: Publisher via WorldCat

From legendary science fiction author Kim Stanley Robinson comes a vision of climate change unlike any ever imagined. Robinson turns his eye to themes of climate change, technology, politics, and the human behaviors that drive these forces. But his setting is not a desolate, post-apocalyptic world — rather, he imagines a more hopeful future, one where humanity has managed to overcome our challenges and thrive.

Source: Publisher via WorldCat

In The Grieving Brain, neuroscientist and psychologist Mary-Frances O’Connor, PhD, gives us a fascinating new window into one of the hallmark experiences of being human. O’Connor has devoted decades to researching the effects of grief on the brain, and in this book, she makes cutting-edge neuroscience accessible through her contagious enthusiasm, and guides us through how we encode love and grief. The Grieving Brain does what the best popular science books do, combining storytelling, accessible science, and practical knowledge that will help us better understand what happens when we grieve and how to navigate loss with more ease and grace.

Source: maryfrancesoconnor.org

Phosphorus has played a critical role in some of the most lethal substances on earth: firebombs, rat poison, nerve gas. But it’s also the key component of one of the most vital: fertilizer, which has sustained life for billions of people. In this major work of explanatory science and environmental journalism, Pulitzer Prize finalist Dan Egan investigates the past, present, and future of what has been called “the oil of our time.”

Source: wwnorton.com

A dazzling cultural and scientific exploration of alien life and the cosmos, examining how the possibility of life on other planets shapes our understanding of humanity. Acclaimed science journalist Jaime Green traces the history of our understanding, from the days of Galileo and Copernicus up through to our contemporary quest for exoplanets in the "Goldilocks zone," where life akin to ours on Earth might exist. Along the way, she interweaves insights from a long-standing tradition of science fiction writers who use the power of imagination to extrapolate and construct worlds that in turn inspire scientists.

Source: jaimegreen.net