Book 1 - Say you've spent the first 10 years of your life sleeping under the stairs of a family who loathes you. Then, in an absurd, magical twist of fate you find yourself surrounded by wizards, a caged snowy owl, a phoenix-feather wand, a...

A fascinating and thought-provoking journey through the mysteries of space, time, and matter. Today physicists and mathematicians throughout the world are feverishly working on one of the most ambitious theories ever proposed: superstring t...

There is no one way to describe Philippe Starck - architect, inventor, pop star, philosopher, celebrity, and all of these par excellence, but it is as a designer that he has made such a huge impact on contemporary culture. Without a doubt,...

As you read this, at some level you're aware that you're reading, thanks to a standard human feature commonly referred to as consciousness. What is it--a spiritual phenomenon, an evolutionary tool, a neurological side effect? The best scien...

I absolutely loved, loved, loved this book. It's technically classified as a mystery because the heroine, 30ish Precious Ramotswe, operates Botswana's first female-owned detective agency, The Ladies No. 1 Detective Agency.But to pigeonhole...

A History of Philosophy from the Greeks to the Renaissance. Gottlieb's elegant survey brings a breath of fresh air. Executive editor of The Economist, Gottlieb mines primary sources with a remarkably even hand. He demonstrates that, while c...

This second entry in Smith's Botswana-set series picks up right where the wonderful The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency left off. Indeed, the two books are utterly seamless, and it'd be a real shame to read this without reading its predecess...

With The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown masterfully concocts an intelligent and lucid thriller that marries the gusto of an international murder mystery with a collection of fascinating esoteria culled from 2,000 years of Western history....

As he seeks to unlock the secrets of such things as joy and sorrow, Antonio Damasio pursues a unifying theory in Looking for Spinoza. Why Spinoza? The philosopher, whom Damasio calls a "protobiologist," firmly linked mind and body, paving t...

Assuming an audience of non-specialists, Greene has set himself a daunting task: to explain non-intuitive, mathematical concepts like String Theory, the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, and Inflationary Cosmology with analogies drawn from...

Precious Ramotswe is on the case again in this delightful fifth installment in the bestselling No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series, this time assisting the self-made founder of a chain of hairdressing salons who wants to unearth the real...

De La Mettrie's Ghost : The Story of Decisions. This book is about how we make choices. It is a compelling analysis of the nature of free will, drawing together evidence from chemistry, literature, politics, history and beyond. Psychiatrist...