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24 books with the same feel
Include books by the same authorDr. Tatiana's Sex Advice to All Creation
Olivia Judson · 320 pages
Do your genitals explode? Are you 200,000 times smaller than your mate? Do you drug your lover with a potion that keeps her faithful? You may not get up to such tricks, but some creatures do: sex is one of the most powerful forces in nature, and generates an astounding diversity of forms and behaviors. But why? Dr Tatiana's Sex Advice to All Creation explores the science of sex, considering eve
The Genius of Birds
Jennifer Ackerman · 346 pages
"Birds are astonishingly intelligent creatures. In fact, according to revolutionary new research, some birds rival primates and even humans in their remarkable forms of intelligence. Like humans, many birds have enormous brains relative to their size. Although small, bird brains are packed with neurons that allow them to punch well above their weight. In The Genius of Birds, acclaimed author Jenni
Demonic Males: Apes and the Origins of Human Violence
Richard W. Wrangham, Dale Peterson · 350 pages
Whatever their virtues, men are more violent than women. Why do men kill, rape, and wage war, and what can we do about it? Drawing on the latest discoveries about human evolution and about our closest living relatives, the great apes, Demonic Males offers some startling new answers. Dramatic, vivid, and firmly grounded in meticulous research, this book will change the way you see the world.
Parasite Rex: Inside the Bizarre World of Nature's Most Dangerous Creatures
Carl Zimmer · 298 pages
A look inside the often hidden world of parasites turns the clock back to the beginning of life on Earth to answer key questions about these highly evolved and resilient life forms.
The Selfish Gene
Richard Dawkins · 352 pages
As influential today as when it was first published, The Selfish Gene has become a classic exposition of evolutionary thought. Professor Dawkins articulates a gene's eye view of evolution - a view giving centre stage to these persistent units of information, and in which organisms can be seen as vehicles for their replication. This imaginative, powerful, and stylistically brilliant work not only b
Sociobiology: The New Synthesis
Edward O. Wilson · 708 pages
Animal Wise: The Thoughts and Emotions of Our Fellow Creatures
Virginia Morell · 291 pages
This book explores the frontiers of research on animal cognition and emotion, offering a surprising examination into the hearts and minds of wild and domesticated animals. Have you ever wondered what it is like to be a fish? Or a parrot, dolphin, or an elephant? Do they experience thoughts that are similar to ours, or have feelings of grief and love? These are tough questions, but scientists are
The Origins of Virtue: Human Instincts and the Evolution of Cooperation
Matt Ridley · 295 pages
If evolution by natural selection relentlessly favors self-interest, why do human beings live in complex societies and show so much cooperative spirit? In The Origins of Virtue, Matt Ridley, a zoologist and former American editor of the Economist, shows that recent research in a number of fields has suggested a resolution of the apparent contradiction between self-interest and mutual aid. Brillia
The Beak of the Finch: A Story of Evolution in Our Time
Jonathan Weiner · 332 pages
On a desert island in the heart of the Galapagos archipelago, where Darwin received his first inklings of the theory of evolution, two scientists, Peter and Rosemary Grant, have spent twenty years proving that Darwin did not know the strength of his own theory. For among the finches of Daphne Major, natural selection is neither rare nor slow: it is taking place by the hour, and we can watch. In
The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals
Charles Darwin · 373 pages
In the Shadow of Man
Jane Goodall · 297 pages
Goodall's classic account of primate behavior combines a landmark scientific study with a fascinating adventure story of a determined young woman's struggle in remote Africa to approach primates in the wild as no one had ever done before.
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
Yuval Noah Harari · 456 pages
From a renowned historian comes a groundbreaking narrative of humanity’s creation and evolution—a #1 international bestseller—that explores the ways in which biology and history have defined us and enhanced our understanding of what it means to be “human.” One hundred thousand years ago, at least six different species of humans inhabited Earth. Yet today there is only one—homo sapiens. What hap
The Life of Mammals
David Attenborough · 320 pages
"Published in conjunction with a ten-part television series that will air on the Discovery Channel, The Life of Mammals brings us nose-to-nose with mammals in all of their beauty and immense variety. Renowned naturalist, writer, and filmmaker David Attenborough treks across every continent and kind of terrain to introduce us to such unusual and evolutionarily successful creatures as the Patagonian
Inside of a Dog: What Dogs See, Smell, and Know
Alexandra Horowitz · 352 pages
The #1 New York Times bestselling book from the author of *The Year of the Puppy* that asks what dogs know and how they think. The answers will surprise and delight you as Alexandra Horowitz, a cognitive scientist, explains how dogs perceive their daily worlds, each other, and that other quirky animal, the human. Horowitz introduces the reader to dogs’ perceptual and cognitive abilities and the
Venomous: How Earth's Deadliest Creatures Mastered Biochemistry
Christie Wilcox · 256 pages
Bonobo: The Forgotten Ape
Frans de Waal, Frans Lanting · 200 pages
Most people have never heard of the bonobo, an intriguing member of the great ape family, despite the fact that bonobos are as close to us as their much better known relatives, the chimpanzees. Scientists are only beginning to explore the social life of the bonobo. Whereas chimpanzees are known for male power politics, cooperative hunting, and intergroup warfare, bonobo society is egalitarian and
Creation: How Science Is Reinventing Life Itself
Adam Rutherford · 278 pages
"How scientists are closer than ever to not only uncovering the mystery of how life was created, but to replicating that moment Within the first billion years after this planet formed, a spark of life spontaneously ignited, turning inanimate chemicals into what we now would recognize as a living thing: a cell. Four billion years later, science has catalogued more than a million species. Science wr
Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness
Peter Godfrey-Smith · 272 pages
"Peter Godfrey-Smith is a leading philosopher of science. He is also a scuba diver whose underwater videos of warring octopuses have attracted wide notice. In this book, he brings his parallel careers together to tell a bold new story of how nature became aware of itself. Mammals and birds are widely seen as the smartest creatures on earth. But one other branch of the tree of life has also sproute
The Genius of Dogs: How Dogs Are Smarter than You Think
Brian Hare, Vanessa Woods · 367 pages
I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life
Ed Yong · 368 pages
Joining the ranks of popular science classics like The Botany of Desire and The Selfish Gene, a groundbreaking, wondrously informative, and vastly entertaining examination of the most significant revolution in biology since Darwin—a “microbe’s-eye view” of the world that reveals a marvelous, radically reconceived picture of life on earth. Every animal, whether human, squid, or wasp, is home to
Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel
Carl Safina · 461 pages
"Weaving decades of field observations with exciting new discoveries about the brain, Carl Safina's landmark book offers an intimate view of animal behavior to challenge the fixed boundary between humans and nonhuman animals. In Beyond Words, readers travel to Amboseli National Park in the threatened landscape of Kenya and witness struggling elephant families work out how to survive poaching and d
Mother Nature Is Trying to Kill You: A Lively Tour Through the Dark Side of the Natural World
Dan Riskin · 272 pages
Using the seven deadly sins as a road map, Riskin offers dozens of jaw-dropping examples that illuminate how brutal nature can truly be and shows ways this deadly world has shaped us as humans and what our responsibilities are to this terrible, wonderful planet we call home.
Bird Sense: What It's Like to Be a Bird
Tim Birkhead · 276 pages
Looks at the adaptive significance of bird behavior. A lifetime spent in ornithological research and old-fashioned bird-watching has convinced the author that "we have consistently underestimated what goes on in a bird's head." He describes how using the latest available tools, neurobiologists have uncovered new aspects of bird perception--e.g., the fact that female birds that see in the ultraviol