Science & Health

Sonali Deraniyagala lost her husband, parents and two young sons in the terrifying Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004. They had been vacationing on the southern coast of her home country, Sri Lanka, when the wave struck. Wave is her brutal but lyrically written account of the awful moment and the grief-crazed months after, as she learned to live with her almost unbearable losses — and allow herself to remember details of her previous life.

A true story of obsessive love turning to obsessive hate, Give Me Everything You Have chronicles the author's harrowing ordeal at the hands of a former student whose campaign of hate mail, violently anti-Semitic online postings and false public accusations were orchestrated to destroy his professional and personal life.

Draws on the careers of five renowned scientists including Charles Darwin, William Thomson, Linus Pauling, Fred Hoyle and Albert Einstein to reveal the important roles of their mistakes in advancing science, from Pauling's error in his model of DNA molecule structure to Hoyle's dismissal of the "Big Bang" theory.

A physics and philosophy professor challenges modern beliefs about the definable nature of the cosmos, arguing that all things exist because of random imperfections, primordial asymmetries and outright accidents, in a report that also cites the importance of caring for the planet.

Evolution was not discovered single-handedly, Rebecca Stott argues, contrary to what has become standard lore, but is an idea that emerged over many centuries, advanced by daring individuals across the globe who had the imagination to speculate on nature's extraordinary ways, and who had the courage to articulate such speculations at a time when to do so was often considered heresy.

Traces the stories of Themistocles, Belisarius, William Tecumseh Sherman, Matthew Ridgway, and David Petraeus, evaluating their pivotal military roles and the controversies that marked their careers.

The history-making astronaut, aerospace engineer and respected advocate for space colonization outlines a plan for taking humans to Mars within the next quarter century. The book poses business-specific arguments, while outlining practical strategies for travel and planetary homesteading.

Drawn from her popular "Ask Wendy" segment, the outspoken host of The Wendy Williams Show tells it like it is in this collection of womanly wisdom that is filled with advice on everything from relationships, parenting, body image, beauty and more. 100,000 first printing.

Describes how meaning is conveyed and processed in the mind, answering questions about how people can understand information about things they have never seen in person and why they move their hands and arms when they speak.

With photographs and narratives, Benjamin Swett tells the stories of 60 trees, in all five of New York City boroughs.

Criminologist Adrian Raine argues that while there is a social and environmental element to violent behavior, biology also plays a role.

A theoretical physicist describes his new approach for thinking about the reality of time and explains his theory about the laws of physics not being timeless but rather capable of evolving.

From Beethoven to Woody Allen, from Leo Tolstoy to Charles Dickens and John Updike, here are artists on how they create (and avoid creating) their works. Writers, composers, painters, choreographers, playwrights, philosophers, caricaturists, comedians, poets, sculptors and scientists consider how they work in letters, diaries and interviews compiled and edited by Mason Currey.

Oliver Sacks investigates the types, physiological sources and cultural resonances of hallucinations, tracing everything from intoxication to the manifestations of injury and illness.