May 2018 list by L. Berube
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Microbia: A Journey into the Unseen World Around You
by Eugenia Bone
Set against a backdrop of [the author's] misadventures in academia, [this work] explores what microbes are and how they live and compares the microbiomes of soil, plants, animals (that includes us), and places, explaining such things as the wrongheadedness of labeling some bacteria 'good' and others 'bad' ... [and] walks you through this incredible garden of the unseen and helps you realize that we share everything.
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Disappointment River: Finding and Losing the Northwest Passage
by Brian Castner
A decorated Iraq War veteran and author of The Long Walk describes his journey in the footsteps of 18th-century explorer Alexander Mackenzie and his discovery of the fabled Northwest Passage that Mackenzie never realized he had found.
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The Consciousness Instinct: Unraveling the Mystery of How the Brain Makes the Mind
by Michael S. Gazzaniga
How do neurons turn into minds? How does physical "stuff"--atoms, molecules, chemicals, and cells--create the vivid and various worlds inside our heads? The problem of consciousness has gnawed at us for millennia. In the last century there have been massive breakthroughs that have rewritten the science of the brain, and yet the puzzles faced by the ancient Greeks are still present. In The Consciousness Instinct, the neuroscience pioneer Michael S. Gazzaniga puts the latest research in conversation with the history of human thinking about the mind, giving a big-picture view of what science has revealed about consciousness.
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Searching for Stars on an Island in Maine
by Alan P. Lightman
The acclaimed author of Einstein's Dreams presents a lyrical meditation on religion and science as they relate to the human yearning for permanence and certainty in spite of discoveries that prove the world's impermanent and uncertain nature.
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The Neuroscientist Who Lost Her Mind: My Tale of Madness and Recovery
by Barbara Lipska
Describes how the author, a leading expert on the neuroscience of mental illness, endured months of terrifying symptoms related to a brain melanoma before immunotherapy enabled a cure, recounting in vivid detail her recollection of the experience and what it revealed about the role of mental illness, brain injury and age on behavior, personality and memory.
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