Science & Technology Biographies

'The book we need right now ... Essential reading' Professor Tom Ellis, Imperial College London 'Visionary and exhilarating ... A work of astonishing scope and imagination' Tim Coulson, author of A Little History of Everything: From the Big Bang to You 'A fascinating read ... I thoroughly recommend for all audiences' Professor Mumtaz Patel, President of the Royal College of...

A frank, comprehensive and often moving book... A powerful insider account that opens a door into a long-hidden world in which secrecy and shame have been weaponised against women for too long. Observer An unflinching insight into the reality of abortion. Irish Independent In 2015, Juno Carey left her job as a midwife, burnt out, frustrated and looking for a...

The #1 New York Times Bestseller `Walter Isaacson is not an art historian, he’s simply a lover of Leonardo, who manages to communicate the sheer joy of this remarkable man’Books of the Year - The Times `Walter Isaacson keeps the mortal man to the fore. For all his supernatural gifts as an artist and natural scientist. Leonardo was resolutely human...

Princess Vera Giedroytz was a towering, sweet-faced lesbian Princess who habitually wore a man’s suit, played billiards with brilliance, and regularly performed true medical miracles of surgery, while on occasion forcibly ejecting an inquisitive Rasputin from her operating theatre by throwing him down the stairs. In 1909, already lauded as a genius, Vera had been appointed by the doomed Tsarina...

Longlisted for the Women's Prize for Non-Fiction 2025: the profound and life-affirming memoir about finding our way in a chaotic world'A sumptuous, surprising, dark delight' Carmen Maria Machado'Fast-moving, deftly balanced, full of surprises' Guardian's Book of the Day'A bold and original blend of memoir and science' Elizabeth BuchananIf fish don't exist, what else do we have wrong?As a child, Lulu...

The number one Sunday Times bestseller. Twas the Nightshift Before Christmas is a short gift book of festive diaries from the author of multi-million-copy bestseller This is Going to Hurt. Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat . . . but 1.4 million NHS staff are heading off to work. In this perfect present for anyone who has ever...

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is a fascinating mix of memoir and science, telling the story of how one woman's cells have saved countless lives. Now an HBO film starring Oprah Winfrey & Rose Byrne. 'No dead woman has done more for the living . . . A fascinating, harrowing, necessary book.' - Hilary Mantel, Guardian Her name was...

Oliver Sacks died in August 2015 at his home in Greenwich Village, surrounded by his close friends and family. He was 82. He spent his final days doing what he loved: playing the piano, swimming, enjoying smoked salmon - and writing. As Dr Sacks looked back over his long, adventurous life his final thoughts were of gratitude. In a series...

Liberté, égalité, sororité! French women have always had so much more to say than ‘let them eat cake’! Whether kicking the English out of Orléans, marching on Versailles, or running messages for the French resistance, their stories of courage, creativity, and genius have long defined French history. Unveiling the lives of twenty-one women who changed the course of French history,...

Operating with bare hands, dressed in his street clothes, he had taken those first steps that every training surgeon must take—gripping the handle of a scalpel and making the first, irrevocable cut into live human flesh. For the surgeon training in the early 1840s, these first surgical milestones were performed on a person who would recoil in terror and horror,...

A Guardian Best Science Book of the Year The first biography - 'a stunning achievement' (Kai Bird, American Prometheus) - of the dazzling and painful life of Nobel Prize-winning physicist Roger Penrose. When he was six years old, Roger Penrose discovered a sundial in a clearing near his house. Through that machine made of light, shadow, and time, Roger glimpsed...

A warm and brilliant memoir that captures the medical and emotional intensity of paediatric neurosurgery. In this moving, unflinching, and inspiring book, Dr. David Sandberg, an internationally renowned paediatric neurosurgeon, brilliantly combines his deep scientific and medical knowledge with raw emotion and unforgettably powerful stories of courage and love. The brain is the most complicated and perplexing of our organs,...

A major new biography of the brilliant naturalist, traveller, humanitarian, and codiscoverer of natural selection. Alfred Russel Wallace (1823–1913) was perhaps the most famed naturalist of the Victorian age. His expeditions to remote Amazonia and southeast Asia were the stuff of legend. A collector of thousands of species new to science, he shared in the discovery of natural selection and...

Now in paperback, a biography of the German scientist who came up with the idea of continental drift, telling of how he ended up journeying to Greenland in the winter of 1930—and died there. How, in 1930, did Alfred Wegener, the son of a minister from Berlin, find himself in the most isolated spot on earth, attempting to survive an...

This famous book, the inspiration behind Kate Bush's 1985 hit song 'Cloudbusting', is the extraordinary account of life as friend, confidant, and child of the brilliant but persecuted psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich. Peter, his son, shared with his father the revolutionary concept of a world where dream and reality are virtually indistinguishable, and the sense of mission which set him and...

Everything you think you know about Nikola Tesla is wrong. The Truth About Tesla sets the record straight. Nikola Tesla was one of the greatest electrical inventors who ever lived. For years, this engineering genius was relegated to relative obscurity, with his contributions to humanity obscured by a number of nineteenth-century inventors and industrialists who took credit for his work...

NAMED A BEST BOOK OF 2022 BY PUBLISHERS WEEKLY After a few billion years of bearing witness to life on Earth, of watching one hundred billion humans go about their day-to-day lives, of feeling unbelievably lonely, and of hearing its own story told by others, The Milky Way would like a chance to speak for itself. All one hundred billion...

A Financial Times Best Summer Book 2023 Out now: a gripping look at the rise of the microchip and the British tech company behind the blueprint to it all. 'A gripping and inspiring read.' Sir James Dyson 'A revealing and insightful biography of the company whose blueprints define the digital world.' Chris Miller, author of CHIP WAR: The Fight for...

By developing the scale that bears his name, Charles Richter not only invented the concept of magnitude as a measure of earthquake size, he turned himself into nothing less than a household word. He remains the only seismologist whose name anyone outside of narrow scientific circles would likely recognise. Yet few understand the Richter scale itself, and even fewer have...

Russell Tregonning finished his fifty-year career in medicine as one of New Zealand's leading orthopaedic surgeons and as a Senior Clinical Lecturer at the Otago School of Medicine. This memoir takes the reader through his journey from medical student to orthopaedic surgeon - from introducing pioneering techniques in reconstructive surgery, to personal struggles with depression, medical mishaps, run-ins with senior...

“Moving, multifaceted, and deeply human...as eye-opening as it is compelling” - Cecile Richards, author of Make Trouble At a time when reproductive rights are at risk, these vital stories of diverse individuals serve as a reminder of the importance of empathy, finding community, and motivating advocacy. For a long time, when people asked Dr. Meera Shah, Chief Medical Officer of...

A heart-warming and thoroughly entertaining memoir of life as an emergency vet. When his father sat him down and told him to 'make something' of himself, young vet Marc Abraham decided to do it the hard way—by setting up an emergency 'out of hours' clinic. If getting used to the long night shifts wasn't bad enough, emergency cases are rarely...

Engrossing, emotionally honest and forensically fascinating - Dr Richard Shepherd, author of Unnatural Causes In Traces, Professor Patricia Wiltshire will take you on a journey through the fascinating edgeland where nature and crime are intertwined. She'll take you searching for bodies of loved ones – through woodlands, along hedgerows, field-edges, and through plantations – solving time since death, and disposal...

One of the most elusive and controversial figures in NASA's history, George W. S. Abbey was said to be secretive, despotic, a Space Age Machiavelli. Yet Abbey had more influence on human spaceflight than almost anyone in history. His story has never been told—until now. The Astronaut Maker takes readers inside NASA to learn the real story of how Abbey...

Tesla by W. Bernard Carlson explores the life and legacy of Nikola Tesla, a pivotal figure in the electrical revolution at the turn of the twentieth century. Tesla's groundbreaking inventions, patents, and theoretical work laid the foundation for modern AC electricity and significantly contributed to the development of radio and television. Like his competitor Thomas Edison, Tesla was among America's...

Robert Hooke’s Experimental Philosophy by Felicity Henderson delves into the life and work of Robert Hooke, England's first professional scientist and a groundbreaking figure in science communication. Hooke was unique among early scientists for leaving an intricate manual guiding others towards becoming 'experimental philosophers'. This biography begins with Hooke's scientific method, following his journey through the bustling shops of instrument...

In Nursing Homes, Assisted Living: The Good, The Bad, The Money, you will learn about the residents Ian Samuels has given care to and the stories his patients have shared with him. Caregiving in the wake of COVID, Samuels shares what he saw and how his patients have been treated up to the end of their lives. This book also...

As a child, Aomawa Shields' first great love was the sky. She would bump into things on the ground because her neck was always craned upward, and she longed to become an astronaut. Determined to make her dream a reality, Aomawa applied for and attended an elite high school with an astronomy observatory, graduated with a degree in astrophysics from...

Letters for the Ages: Great Scientists is a captivating collection of letters from the world’s greatest scientists, dating from Copernicus and Galileo to the contemporary figures of Crick and Watson, Dorothy Hodgkin, and Richard Doll. The letters in this volume are intensely personal. While they allude to the monumental scientific discoveries, they also reveal the emotional conflicts, battles, and jealousies...

The biography of Frank Whittle – RAF pilot, mathematician of genius, inventor of the jet engine and British hero. The story of Frank Whittle – RAF pilot, mathematician of genius, inventor of the jet engine and British hero. Jet Man is described as 'Wonderful' by David Edgerton, TLS, 'A fascinating account' by Aeroplane Monthly, and it 'Casts new light on...

Discover one of the Scottish Enlightenment's brightest stars. Among the giants of the Scottish Enlightenment, the name of James Hutton is overlooked. Yet his Theory of the Earth revolutionised the way we think about how our planet was formed and laid the foundation for the science of geology. He was in his time a doctor, a farmer, a businessman, a...

A beautifully written and compelling memoir of a largely unexplored area of medicine: transplant surgery. Leading transplant surgeon Dr Joshua Mezrich creates life from loss, moving organs from one body to another. In this intimate, profoundly moving work, he examines more than one hundred years of remarkable medical breakthroughs, connecting this fascinating history with the stories of his own patients....

God of Sperm tells the remarkable story of Dr. Cappy Miles Rothman, the son of notorious gangster Norman "Roughhouse" Rothman, who went on to become a trailblazer in the field of reproductive medicine. Rothman started the California Cryobank, one of the world's largest repositories of reproductive genetic material and cord-blood stem cells. Among other achievements, Rothman also pioneered the use...

Partly a memoir and partly a recent history of medicine, the definitive account of Michael Milken’s lifetime work to accelerate medicine's evolution from a dark past to a bright future. What if cleaning early-stage cancers from your body could become as routine as going to the dentist to clean your teeth, or if a single vaccine could protect you against...

SHORTLISTED FOR THE ROYAL SOCIETY TRIVEDI SCIENCE BOOK PRIZE 2024 ‘Fascinating, witty and perspective-shifting’ Oliver Burkeman ‘A remarkable book about a remarkable theorem’ Will Storr ‘Witty, lively and best of all, extremely nerdy. I learned a lot and so will you’ Tim Harford Thomas Bayes was an eighteenth-century Presbyterian minister and amateur mathematician whose obscure life belied the profound impact...

Combines a career's worth of expertise with a long history of pain treatment. For anyone concerned with pain treatment, or anyone who has struggled to manage pain of any kind, it's an important read. - GQ Pain is a universal human experience, but we understand very little about the mechanics behind it. We hurt ourselves, we feel pain, we seek...

SHORTLISTED FOR THE ROYAL SOCIETY TRIVEDI SCIENCE BOOK PRIZE 2024 'Fascinating, witty and perspective-shifting' - Oliver Burkeman 'A remarkable book about a remarkable theorem' - Will Storr 'Witty, lively and best of all, extremely nerdy. I learned a lot and so will you' - Tim Harford Thomas Bayes was an eighteenth-century Presbyterian minister and amateur mathematician whose obscure life belied...

Set amidst the unforgettable sights and smells of 18th and 19th Century Paris, Elixir tells the story of Edouard Laugier and Auguste Laurent, the son of a perfumer and a fellow aspiring chemist, who met on the Left Bank while pursuing their passion for science. Spurned by the scientific establishment of the time, the pair ended up working out of...

A FINANCIAL TIMES HISTORY BOOK OF THE YEAR A STRONG WORDS TOP 50 BOOKS OF THE YEAR 'Dizzying and fragrant . . . truly a captivating achievement!' Aimee Nezhukumatathil 'If you read this book you will be changed . . . this book feels like an actual elixir' Kiese Laymon 'A fascinating tale of discovery, wonder, and revolution' Matthew Stanley...

New perspectives on the iconic physicist's scientific and philosophical formation. At the end of World War II, Albert Einstein was invited to write his intellectual autobiography for the Library of Living Philosophers. The resulting book was his uniquely personal Autobiographical Notes, a classic work in the history of science that explains the development of his ideas with unmatched warmth and...

Physics Today, Notable Books of 2020 A finely drawn portrait of Einstein's sixteen months in Prague In the spring of 1911, Albert Einstein moved with his wife and two sons to Prague, the capital of Bohemia, where he accepted a post as a professor of theoretical physics. Though he intended to make Prague his home, he lived there for just...

John Romero, gaming's original rock star, is the co-creator of DOOM, Quake, and Wolfenstein 3-D, some of the biggest video games of all time. Considered the godfather of the first-person shooter, a genre that continues to dominate the market today, he holds a unique place in gaming history. In DOOM Guy: Life in First Person, Romero chronicles, for the first...

Gilded Age Americans lived cheek-by-jowl with free range animals. Cities and towns teemed with milk cows in dark tenement alleys, pigs rooting through garbage in the streets, geese and chickens harried by the packs of stray dogs that roamed the 19th century city. For all of American history, animals had been a ubiquitous and seemingly inevitable part of urban life,...

"He was courageous. He was ambitious. He was skilled. He was visionary. He could be ruthless. He was someone born of a new nation. But he was of a time now long past. And yet in the language of a later generation it could be said he had the 'right stuff'... Michael Molkentin captures Ross Smith brilliantly." - Andy Thomas,...

From a long-term planning lead for the Mars Exploration Rover Project comes this vivid insider account of some of NASA’s most vital and exciting missions to the Red Planet, illustrated with full-colour photographs—a wondrous chronicle of unprecedented scientific discovery and the search for evidence of life on Mars. ‘There are probably just a few of moments in human history when...

A prismatic look at the meeting of Marie Curie and Albert Einstein and the impact these two pillars of science had on the world of physics, which was in turmoil. In 1911, some of the greatest minds in science convened at the First Solvay Conference in Physics, a meeting like no other. Almost half of the attendees had won or...

‘Outstanding’ Bonnie Garmus, bestselling author of Lessons in Chemistry The remarkable untold story of how a group of sixteen determined women used the power of the collective and the tools of science to inspire ongoing radical change. This is a triumphant account of progress, whilst reminding us that further action is needed. These women scientists entered the workforce in the...

The grand story of the famous 'Birdman' John Gould and his talented wife Elizabeth, who revealed the astonishing world of Australian birds and wildlife in one of the most important naturalist expeditions in history – from the bestselling author of Sister Viv, Flinders, Banks, Mrs Kelly and The Remarkable Mrs Reibey. Longlisted for the Indie Book Awards 2025 John and...

One of Esquire's 50 Best Biographies of All Time One of The Economist's Best Books of 2022 A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice Nominated for The Next Big Idea Club The Week Magazine Book of the Week From Alec Nevala-Lee, the author of the Hugo and Locus Award finalist Astounding, comes a revelatory biography of the visionary designer...

A poignant and thought-provoking memoir following one psychiatrist and four of her patients as they deal with the unspoken mental and physical costs of caring for others. For Dr Jessi Gold, everything was absolutely fine – until it suddenly wasn’t. As an assistant professor, practising psychiatrist, and dedicated friend and family member, Jessi was used to being busy. After all,...

Nominated for the CWA Dagger Award 2023 ‘A wonderful book’ - Guardian Truth, murder and the birth of the lie detector Henry Wilkens burst through the doors of the emergency room covered in his wife’s blood. But was he a grieving husband, or a ruthless killer who’d conspired with bandits to have her murdered? To find out, the San Francisco...

'We, as GPs, are just one cog in the NHS. Just one of many, many cogs, all with a shared vision of saving lives. A vision, I should add, that is shared in - and out - of any crisis.' Here is an unbelievable journey to the truth of life as a GP, through spilt urine bottles, the patients who...

A lifelong Emerson lover, teacher, and spiritual seeker reveals how American philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson’s twelve essential teachings hold the answer to living an authentic and fulfilling life, one that is in harmony with our souls. In this wise, illuminating book, award-winning author Mark Matousek reveals how Emerson’s timeless wisdom can help us with the problems we’re facing today. America’s...

From the acclaimed biographer of explorers Magellan, Columbus, and Francis Drake comes a unique exploration of the life and influence of Jules Verne, the novelist whose mind spun the greatest adventures ever told. His daring and prescient imagination sparked a lasting transformation of modern society and technology, inspiring everyone from J.R.R. Tolkien to Kurt Vonnegut to Jeff Bezos. "We are...

10… 9… 8… 7… 6… That’s about as far as you get, counting backwards, as you wait for surgery to begin – and that’s all most people know about what I do. But what happens between you conking out and waking up? And what does the anaesthetist have to do with it all? Do they just sit around playing sudoku...

In the long run, we're all dead. But for some of the most influential figures in history, death marked the start of a new adventure. The famous deceased have been stolen, burned, sold, pickled, frozen, stuffed, impersonated, and even filed away in a lawyer's office. Their fingers, teeth, toes, arms, legs, skulls, hearts, lungs, and nether regions have embarked on...

LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION 2025 'A sumptuous, surprising, dark delight' Carmen Maria Machado 'Genre-defying . . . fast-moving, deftly balanced, full of surprises' Guardian's Books of the Day 'Her book took me to strange depths I never imagined, and I was smitten' New York Times Book Review 'A magical hybrid of science, portraiture and memoir' Susan Orlean...

Tracy Kidder is a winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the author of the bestsellers The Soul of a New Machine, House, Among Schoolchildren, and Strength in What Remains, amongst others. This compelling and inspiring book shows how one person can work wonders. In Mountains Beyond Mountains, author Tracy Kidder tells the true story of a gifted man who loves...

A spellbinding and often hilarious history of (almost) the entirety of science from world-renowned immunologist Luke O'Neill. The Irish Times Top 10 Bestseller Scientists have been participants in the best reality show of all time, with all the highs, lows, bust-ups, and strange personalities of any show on telly today. This hugely accessible history of science reveals the human stories...

The explosive story of the tech giant Nvidia - the producer of the only chip anyone involved in AI wants - and its charismatic, uncompromising, complicated CEO, Jensen Huang. The riveting account of Nvidia, the tech company that has exploded in value for its artificial intelligence computing hardware, and Jensen Huang, Nvidia's charismatic, uncompromising CEO. In June of 2024, spurred...

The moving memoir of a doctor who became a family caregiver and learned why care is so central to all our lives. When Dr Arthur Kleinman, an eminent Harvard psychiatrist and social anthropologist, began caring for his wife, Joan, after she was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's disease, he found just how far the act of caregiving extended beyond the boundaries...

Fascinating stories from the front-line of brain injury, as well as an account of an extraordinary friendship. In Tell Me the Planets, Ben Platts-Mills shares stories about his remarkable work with survivors of brain injury, offering a rare glimpse into the world as seen through their eyes. We meet charismatic Danny, whose criminal past has left him paralysed down one...

An intimate, powerful account of Stephen Hawking and his universe. An icon of the last fifty years, Stephen Hawking seems to encapsulate genius— not since Albert Einstein has a scientific figure held such a position in popular consciousness. In this enthralling memoir, writer and physicist Leonard Mlodinow tells the story of his friend and their friendship, offering an intimate account...

An astonishing, inspiring (and occasionally gruesome) history of transplant surgery, rich in untold stories and unsung heroes. We think of transplant surgery as one of the medical wonders of the modern world, but it's a lot older than you think. As ancient as the pyramids, its history is even more surprising. In Spare Parts, cultural historian Paul Craddock takes us...

From Archimedes to Einstein, discover the lives and works of the scientists who helped shape the world we live in today. Delve into the lives, inspirations, motivations, and achievements of the greatest scientists in the world and through all time. Explore the stories of more than 85 of the world's most inspirational and influential scientists with this innovative and boldly...

The fast-paced business story of Tesla—Elon Musk's battle to build the mass-market electric car to change the world. Inside the outrageous, come-from-behind story of Elon Musk and Tesla's bid to build the world's greatest car and the race to drive the future. Elon Musk is among the most controversial titans of Silicon Valley. To some, he's a genius and a...

Let It Go is an inspirational memoir from a woman who made a fortune in a man's world and then gave it all away. In 1962, Stephanie "Steve" Shirley founded an IT software company when the concept of software barely existed. The company created huge opportunities for women in tech, allowing them to work on projects like the programming of...

The No.1 bestselling account of one doctor's life facing some of medicine's most complicated challenges. As a trainee doctor, Niall Tubridy fell in love with neurology. Fascinated by the ways the brain and nervous system signal problems with the body's wiring, this was high stakes detective work where answers could be life-changing. The young doctor who relished the intellectual puzzle...

The story behind the real-life Iron Man - told especially for young readers. Elon Musk Young Readers’ Edition is an inspirational account of a remarkable role model for young entrepreneurs, Elon Musk, who continually breaks boundaries and revolutionises the tech world. Known as the real-life inspiration for the Iron Man series of films, starring Robert Downey Junior, Musk's journey is...

What can we learn about ourselves if we think like scientists? A scientist's journey from observation to discovery is anything but straightforward. It is littered with failure, unexpected diversions, and joyous realisations. Science helps us to understand ourselves in a world where we often feel like strangers; but what we know about the world around us, what has already been...

Hackers know everything about us. We know almost nothing about them. Until now. The hacker now known as Alien entered MIT in 1998, intending to major in aerospace engineering. Almost immediately, she was recruited to join a secret student group scaling walls, breaking into buildings, pulling elaborate pranks, and exploring computer systems. Within a year, one of her hall mates...

A spellbinding exploration of the emergence of the digital age and an unsettling vision of what comes next. In a world where humans coexist with technologies they no longer control or understand, who holds the future? George Dyson plots a thrilling and unexpected course through 300 years of history and science to reveal the hidden connections that underpin the digital...

A profoundly moving portrait of one doctor's life and work in the NHS, told with vivid compassion through 34 of his most memorable cases. We ask so much of our doctors. To heal. To trust. To care. To listen. To tell a man he'll die tomorrow. To help a man who doesn't want to live. To look into a parent's...

An illuminating celebration of more than 80 of the world's most important thinkers, this book explores the fascinating stories of their lives, their loves, and their pioneering ideas. Introduced with a stunning portrait of each featured philosopher, entries trace the ideas and beliefs, and the relationships and rivalries that inspired the great thinkers and influenced their work. This provides revealing...

An Exquisite Legacy is a compelling biography that delves deep into the life and achievements of George Vernon Hudson, one of New Zealand's most celebrated naturalist-artists. Written by his grandson, Dr George Gibbs, a prominent entomologist himself, this book offers an intimate and richly detailed portrait of Hudson's extraordinary dedication to the study and illustration of New Zealand’s insect fauna....

The Strangest Man by Graham Farmelo is a remarkable biographical account that delves deep into the life and achievements of Paul Dirac, one of the most enigmatic figures in the realm of quantum mechanics. This meticulously researched biography unveils the complex personality of Dirac, a physicist who played an instrumental role in the greatest scientific revolution of the 20th century....

‘Outstanding’ Bonnie Garmus, bestselling author of Lessons in Chemistry The remarkable untold story of how a group of sixteen determined women used the power of the collective and the tools of science to inspire ongoing radical change. This is a triumphant account of progress, whilst reminding us that further action is needed. These women scientists entered the workforce in the...

The Innovators by Walter Isaacson is an enthralling exploration of the individuals who conceived and built the computer and the Internet. Following the immense success of his biography of Steve Jobs, Isaacson crafts a compelling narrative marking the significant milestones of the digital revolution. This exhaustive chronicle will surely become the definitive history of technological advancements and a timeless guide...

From the Wall Street Journal’s Tripp Mickle, the dramatic, untold story inside Apple after the passing of Steve Jobs by following his top lieutenants—Jony Ive, the Chief Design Officer, and Tim Cook, the COO-turned-CEO—and how the fading of the former and the rise of the latter led to Apple losing its soul. Steve Jobs called Jony Ive his “spiritual partner...