Can you spot the Big Dipper in the night sky? Or Orion’s Belt? Or Cassiopeia? Even in cities, and without the aid of a telescope, these are a few of the easier constellations to find. In fact, a great deal can be seen in the night sky with the naked eye – if you know what you’re looking for. Night Sky presents 200 colour photographs of stunning nocturnal...

A groundbreaking study that transforms how we see and address the most misunderstood problem on college campuses: widespread sexual assault.

The fear of campus sexual assault has become an inextricable part of the college experience. And for far too many students, that fear is realized. Research has shown that by the time they graduate, as many as one in...

“Just what we need to get the job done” - Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall

Are you worried about the effects of climate change on our environment? Want to help but don’t know where to start? Natalie Fee’s new handbook to green living will help you to make small lifestyle changes which will make a big difference to our planet.

We know that a better world is...

Sleep. Memory. Pleasure. Fear. Language. We experience these things every day, but how do our brains create them? 

Your Brain, Explained is a personal tour around your gray matter. Neuroscientist Marc Dingman gives you a crash course in how your brain works and explains the latest research on the brain functions that affect you on a daily basis.

You'll...

Why is humanity by far the most successful animal in the animal kingdom, but when it comes to survival of the fittest, we pull against the impulse toward natural selection? Unique among vertebrates, humans develop and practice varied forms of dysfunctional or maladaptive behavior, the graver of which are categorized as mental disorders, which doesn’t...

For millennia, dominant societies have had the habit of believing their own people to be the best, deep down: the more powerful they become, the more power begins to be framed as natural, as well as cultural. When you see how power has shaped the idea of race, then you can start to understand its meaning.

In the twenty-first...

‘One of my absolute favourite writers’ Decca Aitkenhead

Who would we be without stories?

Stories mould who we are, from our character to our cultural identity. They drive us to act out our dreams and ambitions, and shape our politics and beliefs. We use them to construct our relationships, to keep order in...

August, 1755. Newcastle, on the north bank of the Tyne.

In the fields, men and women are getting the harvest in. Sunlight, or rain. Scudding clouds and backbreaking labour. Three hundred feet underground, young Charles Hutton is at the coalface. Cramped, dust-choked, wielding a five-pound pick by candlelight. Eighteen years old...

‘Fascinating … so enlightening that suddenly maths doesn’t seem so fearsome as it once did’ SIMON WINCHESTER

From Aristotle to Ada Lovelace: a brief history of the mathematical ideas that have forever changed the world and the everyday people and pioneers behind them. The story of our best invention yet.

From our ability to calculate...

A brilliant introductory guide to exploring the night sky, from the astronomers of the Royal Observatory Greenwich.

Offering complete advice from the ground up, Stargazing is the perfect manual for beginners to astronomy – introducing the world of telescopes, planets, stars, dark skies and celestial maps.

Discover how to tackle light pollution, how to...

THE TOP TEN SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER

TLS, OBSERVER, SUNDAY TIMES, FT, GUARDIAN, DAILY MAIL AND EVENING STANDARD BOOKS OF THE YEAR 2017

'Vital ... a life-raft' Guardian '

A top sleep scientist argues that sleep is more important for our health than diet or exercise' The Times

'It had a powerful effect on me' Observer

'I urge you all to read this book'...

Sigmund Freud's theories on the unconscious revolutionized the way we approach human behavior. This accessible and entertaining guide introduces Freud's key ideas, including:

• Psychoanalysis and its principles
• Therapeutic techniques such as dream analysis and hypnosis
• Psychosexual development, including the Oedipus complex
• The ego, id and superego
• Life...

Through his pioneering work in science, technology and language design, Stephen Wolfram has developed his own signature way of thinking about an impressive range of subjects. In this lively book of essays, Wolfram takes the reader along on some of his most surprising and engaging intellectual adventures. From science consulting for a Hollywood movie...

How robots will revolutionise our world

Some fear that robots could do half our jobs and even wipe us out. But is that likely? Hallo Robot reveals how robots see, feel, and act — and what they can and can't do.

Instead of harming humans, artificial intelligence could vastly improve our lives. Robots already make our cars and clean our homes. Soon they...

Murder by poison alarmed, enthralled, and in many ways encapsulated the Victorian age. Linda Stratmann's dark and splendid social history reveals the nineteenth century as a gruesome battleground where poisoners went head-to-head with authorities who strove to detect poisons, control their availability, and bring the guilty to justice. She corrects many...

Whether searching for extra-terrestrial life, managing the effects of space weather or learning about dark matter, the study astrophysics has profound implications for us all. NASA scientist and astronomer Sten Odenwald explains the key concepts of this vast topic, bringing clarity to some of the great mysteries of space. These include:

• The theory of...

Why do humans love animals? The bestselling author of In Defence of Dogs and Cat Sense gives us the answers. Keeping pets is expensive, time-consuming, and seemingly irrational - so why do so many of us have an animal in our lives? Modern-day pet-keeping has been justified for many reasons, from the potential therapeutic role pets can play, to...

'Pain is bad, right? In this fascinating book, Brock Bastian will convince you otherwise. Drawing on both vivid everyday examples and surprising laboratory findings, he shows how pain, suffering, and struggle give us pleasure, make us kinder, focus our thoughts, and give our life meaning. Bastian is a brilliant researcher and deep thinker and THE OTHER SIDE...

'Bite-sized, cutting edge science delivered with enormous enthusiasm - all you need to travel the cosmos' CHRIS LINTOTT

'A lot of astrophysics is packed into this neat little book . . . I guarantee you will come away knowing your dark matter from your supermassive black holes' JIM AL-KHALILI

This book is for anyone who wants to easily understand the...

The Only Way Out is Through tells the story of a mother’s sudden loss of a child and the impact on the family as a whole. It offers a comprehensive approach to healing for the bereaved and helps them reenter life on new terms. The Only Way Out is Through is not only a book about grieving, but a guide to successfully navigating transitions—the endings and...

George Murray Levick was the physician on Robert Falcon Scott’s tragic Antarctic expedition of 1910. Marooned for an Antarctic winter, Levick passed the time by becoming the first man to study penguins up close. His findings were so shocking to Victorian morals that they were quickly suppressed and seemingly lost to history. A century later, Lloyd Spencer...

Why did revolutionary China consider the humble sparrow an ‘animal of capitalism’, and what was the unintended consequence of their audacious plan to wipe them out?

Pope Formosus’s silence during a trial condemned him – why did he not speak out in his defence?

Why are conspiracy theories so popular, and what do conspiracy theorists consistently get...

Bone is a marvel, an adaptable and resilient building material developed over 500 million years of evolutionary history. It has manifested itself in wings, sails, horns, armour, and an even greater array of appendages since the time of its origin. In dinosaur fossils, skeletons are biological time capsules that tell us of lives we'll never see in the flesh...

A fascinating journey through the atmosphere that will leave you breathless.

With seven million early deaths a year linked to air pollution, air quality is headline news around the world. But how do we measure air pollution and what on earth is an odour panel? Why are property prices higher upwind of cities? Should we buy, hold on to, or avoid a diesel...

Maintaining its appealing style and presentation, the Yearbook of Astronomy 2020 contains comprehensive jargon-free monthly sky notes and an authoritative set of sky charts to enable backyard astronomers and sky gazers everywhere to plan their viewing of the year’s eclipses, comets, meteor showers and minor planets as well as detailing the phases of the...

From the Sunday Times bestselling author of The Man Who Couldn't Stop.

'Witty, sharp and enlightening . . . This book will make you smarter' Adam Rutherford.

What if there is a genius inside you, just waiting to be released? And what if the route to better brain power is not hard work or thousands of hours of practice but to simply swallow a pill? In The...

“People will be immersed in the concepts of translating other parallel universe ideas into visual/image interpretations of external quantum relativity theories.” —Stephen Hawking

What if the laws of physics as we understand them are incomplete, only half of the equations that explain reality?

Mankind has been blinded by the light, searching for answers in...

'A deft, frequently dramatic tour'
Nature

'A highly readable distillation of humankind's knowledge of our solar system, gleaned over many centuries, with surprisingly many mysteries yet to be solved'
Daily Mail

'The Secret Lives of Planets aims to be a "user's guide to the Solar System", but it also turns out to be an inspiration to look at the Solar System as...