Science & Nature

If Mary Roach wrote about cardboard, I’d buy the book immediately and stay up all night reading it. Thankfully, her most recent book is concerned with space travel, which happens to be one of my favorite topics. With her trademark humor and endless curiosity, Roach delves into the very human aspects of space flight, including the body’s reaction to zero gravity, the mental effects of being confined to small spaces without showering, and yes, space toilets. —Kat

I love Bill McKibben and this is not the first time I’ve professed this in print. He is a phenomenal writer, activist, and environmental champion, and he’s my pretend boyfriend in my mind because of these things. In Eaarth, he describes in grim yet not horribly pessimistic language the new planet we now inhabit. Our new Earth is a result of irreversible damage from global warming, and boy, do we need a new introduction to it. Here’s your chance to read the data, hear the argument, don your spacesuit, and join the legions of new pioneers in search of climate balance. —Adrienne

Each talented writer in this collection mines their experience in a different way, giving it an emotionally intense depth and breadth that is cathartic and philosophical. Robin Romm says in her piece, “Hope,” that the loss of a pet is often more “accessible” than the loss of a person—in her case, a parent. It is this emotional approachability that makes the collection so powerful and so fulfilling. —Nici