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Martian summer: robot arms, cowboy spacemen, and my 90 days with the Phoenix Mars Mission
By Andrew Kessler. 2011
Author recounts spending the summer of 2008 in mission control of the Phoenix Mars expedition with one hundred thirty scientists…
and engineers. Describes the team's discovery of ice on Mars, discusses the possibility of life on the planet, and addresses conspiracy stories about the mission's findings. 2011
Sex on the moon: the amazing story behind the most audacious heist in history
By Ben Mezrich. 2011
Detailed account of college intern Thad Roberts's theft of moon rocks from NASA in 2002 and the FBI sting that…
snared him. Describes Roberts's sheltered upbringing, his estrangement from his parents, and his romance with a coworker that motivated the heist. Some strong language. 2011
The faith club: a Muslim, a Christian, a Jew-- three women search for understanding
By Priscilla Warner, Suzanne Oliver, Ranya Idliby. 2007
After the 9/11 attacks three American women--one Jewish, one Christian, and one Muslim--decided to collaborate on an interfaith children's book…
to show the similarities among their religions. They discovered that their own misunderstandings had to be addressed first, leading to candid dialogue as their faith club sought common ground. 2006
Theoretical physicist and author of From Eternity to Here (DB 71474) explains the research involved in and the potential impact…
of the 2012 discovery of the Higgs boson, also known as the God particle, that gives particles their mass. Details the role of engineers, theorists, and experimentalists. 2012
A grand complication: the race to build the world's most legendary watch
By Stacy Perman. 2013
Journalist explores the rivalry between financier Henry Graves Jr. and automobile magnate James Ward Packard to build and own the…
most remarkable watch in history. Graves and Packard spurred Swiss watchmaker Patek Phillipe to manufacture the Graves Supercomplication--the most complex mechanical watch ever created. Details early-twentieth-century watchmaking techniques. 2013
A universe from nothing: why there is something rather than nothing
By Lawrence M. Krauss, Lawrence Maxwell Krauss. 2012
Arizona State University cosmologist challenges belief in a divine creator and describes modern research in quantum mechanics that suggests the…
universe originated out of nothing--and could eventually return to that. Includes afterword by evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, author of The Greatest Show on Earth (DB 70102). 2012
The world's religions
By Huston Smith. 2009
Fiftieth anniversary edition of Smith's work originally titled The Religions of Man (RD 06327). Offers explanations of the basic tenets…
of seven major historical religions--Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, Islam, Judaism, and Christianity--revealing the spirit of each faith. Also discusses primal, or tribal, religions. 1958
Paradox: the nine greatest enigmas in physics
By Jim Al-Khalili. 2012
Physicist and author of The House of Wisdom (DB 75023) discusses nine theories and ideas that seem to defy common…
sense, including the Paradox of the Twins and Achilles and the Tortoise. Explains the science and math required to understand these brainteasers. 2012
A journalist recounts the efforts of a small group of librarians and archivists in Mali to rescue thousands of rare…
manuscripts before they fell into the hands of the jihadists attacking the city of Timbuktu. Some strong language. 2016
Islam and the future of tolerance: a dialogue
By Sam Harris, Maajid Nawaz. 2015
Harris, author of The End of Faith (DB 62053), and Nawaz, chair of a think tank focusing on religious freedom,…
extremism, and citizenship, examine the role of the Islamic religion in extremist violence in the twenty-first century. Presented as the authors speaking back and forth. 2015
Journalist relates her educational journey learning about the Quran. Sheikh Mohammad Akram Nadwi, a scholar of women in Islam, serves…
as her mentor. Power discusses her personal history in Arabic and Islamic countries, the Sheikh's educational journey, and the importance of cross-cultural education. 2015
Light: a radiant history, from creation to the quantum age
By Bruce Watson. 2016
Journalist chronicles historical and contemporary explorations into the nature of light, both scientific and artistic. Discusses creation myths, Greek philosophers,…
religious representations, scientific investigations and feuds, filmmaking, and the development of such artistic movements as Romanticism. 2016
Islamic scholar discusses the development of Islamic law, from the days of Muhammad to the twenty-first century. Examines source scripture,…
the influence of different traditions, and the impact of changing social mores due to interaction with western cultures. 2014
The science of Interstellar
By Kip Thorne, Kip S Thorne. 2014
Theoretical physicist Kip Thorne, scientific advisor for Christopher Nolan's film Interstellar, guides readers through the science at work throughout the…
movie. Chapters provide context for each of the film's scientific concepts, in addition to explaining the theory and mechanics of such subjects as wormholes, planet dynamics, and quantum gravity. 2014
The quantum moment: how Planck, Bohr, Einstein, and Heisenberg taught us to love uncertainty
By Robert P. Crease, Alfred Scharff Goldhaber, Robert P Crease. 2014
Philosopher Crease and physicist Goldhaber discuss the lasting legacy of the research into quantum physics in the early 1900s. Present…
material from their cross-disciplinary course that explores how science and human behavior meet in the definition of "quantum." Describe the impact of quantum research on science and popular culture. 2014
The children of Abraham: Judaism, Christianity, Islam (Princeton classic editions)
By F. E. Peters. 2004
Comparative-religion scholar traces the development of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam from the sixth century BCE to the middle ages. Considers…
the scriptures, spiritual promises, communities, laws, ways of worshipping, and other topics of each religion. Discusses their confluences and divergences. 2004
To explain the world: the discovery of modern science
By Steven Weinberg. 2015
Nobel Prize-winning physicist Weinberg examines the development of scientific reasoning across the world in a number of different fields. Chronologically…
examines the advancements of the ancient Greeks, Europe, and the Arab world in the Middle Ages, and the scientific revolution during the Enlightenment. 2015
The forgotten queens of Islam
By Fatima Mernissi. 1997
Sociologist examines the history of female leaders of Islamic states, from the founding of Islam in AD 622 until 1988,…
when Benazir Bhutto (1953-2007) was elected president of Pakistan. Examines the role of religion in the political sphere. Translated from the original 1990 French edition. 1993
The rose hotel: a memoir of secrets, loss, and love from Iran to America
By Rahimeh Andalibian. 2015
Clinical psychologist shares her family's story of leaving Iran after the 1979 revolution and eventually immigrating to America. Discusses her…
father being recruited into avenging a rape prior to their leaving, and her brother later standing trial for murder. Discusses the stresses of immigration and keeping secrets. Some violence. 2015
Five billion years of solitude: the search for life among the stars
By Lee Billings. 2013
Journalist examines the growth of discoveries of exoplanets--planets that orbit stars other than the Sun--in the late twentieth and early…
twenty-first centuries and what it means for the identification of extraterrestrial life. Profiles astronomers and planetary scientists responsible for this batch of identified planets. 2013