Books

Here are seven fiction and nonfiction books we recommend from the past few months. They involve broken hearts, killer robots and epic failed experiments

Chicken takeovers, the missing histories of silk, a dazzling memoir of gravity, and more books out now

In a dark thriller, a sexbot questions her owner's demands for love

New insights into why animals play, how to hunt an asteroid, and more books out now

Plutonium-pit secrets, growing up in parallel universes, the strange aftermath of a fictional wildfire, and more books out now

Seventy-one essays of science trivia, from duck penises to hangover myths

Nell Greenfieldboyce discusses her new book Transient and Strange, the intimacy of the essays and the science that inspired them.

Lunar influences, parallel universes, taking over a dead relative’s online identity, and more books out now

A tender novel about savoring quantum memory

The best fiction, nonfiction, history and sci-fi books Scientific American staff read in 2023

Maria Smilios’ new book The Black Angels chronicles the history of the nurses of Sea View Hospital and the cure for tuberculosis

In Who Wrote This? linguist Naomi S. Baron discusses how artificial intelligence threatens our ability to express ourselves