A rewarding combination of literary exploration and scientific discovery, The Science of Middle-earth reveals the hidden meaning of the Ring’s corruption, why Hobbits have big feet, the origins of the Dwarves, the animals which inspired the dragons, and even whether or not an Ent is possible.

Note, some ebooks have restrictive access and usage terms, for example theycan only be read by one personat a time. The story of who the first peoples in the Americas were, how and why they made the crossing, how they dispersed south, and how they lived based on a new and powerful kind of evidence: their complete genomes. Buy Starry Messenger: Cosmic Perspectives on Civilization by Neil deGrasse Tyson Did you know that bubbles of ancient air trapped inside the Antarctic ice core can reveal how Earth's climate has changed over time? Or that a piece of pumice thrown several miles into the air by a volcano helps to explain what happens when tectonic plates collide? Well, now you do! Learn all about our weird and wonderful planet with The Science of Earth. Michael Lewis’s taut and brilliant nonfiction thriller pits a band of medical visionaries against the wall of ignorance that was the official response of the Trump administration to the outbreak of COVID-19. Buy Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest, by Suzanne Simard

Become a Member

Tolkien was an acute observer of flora and fauna and mined the minds of his scientific friends about ocean currents and volcanoes. It is these layers science that give his imaginary universe—and the creatures and characters that inhabit it—such concreteness. Within this gorgeously illustrated edition, a range of scientists—from astrophysicists to physicians, botanists to volcanologists—explore Tolkien’s novels, poems, and letters to reveal their fascinating scientific roots. Easy-to-read explanations of large-scale Earth processes, such as weather systems and oceanic currents This year the news cycle was dominated again by stories about Covid-19, and rightly so, but other big discoveries were made throughout the sciences. NASA landed another rover on Mars, researchers discovered a new possible species of human, and scientists found ways climate change is influencing the evolution of animals—all topics that may lend themselves to future books. Hernandez grew up in Los Angeles, the child of immigrants pushed from their ancestral lands. Her Zapotec mother is from Oaxaca, Mexico, and her Maya Ch’orti’ father is from El Salvador. As Hernandez earned graduate degrees in environmental sciences in the United States, professors routinely belittled the Indigenous knowledge and perspectives she brought. Through Fresh Banana Leaves, Hernandez directly delivers Indigenous lessons that are missing from Western education and environmentalism.

A virtuosic debut from a gifted violinist searching for a new mode of artistic becoming. Buy Fresh Banana Leaves: Healing Indigenous Landscapes Through Indigenous Science by Jessica Hernandez

Success!

Our planet’s epic story possesses power, poetry and a lot of important details, so my five books span genres. Charles Lyell’s Principles of Geology and John Grotzinger and Tom Jordan’s Understanding Earth are elegant, accessible textbooks written almost two centuries apart. Andy Knoll’s Life on a Young Planet and David Beerling’s The Emerald Planet celebrate the 4-billion-year co-evolution of Earth and life from the perspective of paleontology. Finally, John McPhee’s rhapsodic Annals of the Former World provides a poetic tribute to our dynamic home and the geologists who devote their lives to its study. Ebooks are digital versions of written works. Broadly speaking they come in two forms: they are either 'born digital' or are digital reproductions of printed books. See the tabs above for details of different ebook resources relevantto those studying Earth Sciences. Features That man should have dominion “over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth” is a prophecy that has hardened into fact. So pervasive are human impacts on the planet that it’s said we live in a new geological epoch: the Anthropocene. In Under a White Sky, Elizabeth Kolbert takes a hard look at the new world we are creating. Buy The Premonition: A Pandemic Story, by Michael Lewis

But one essential facet of Tolkien and his Middle Earth has been overlooked: science. This great writer, creator of worlds and unforgettable character, and inventor of language was also a scientific autodidact, with an innate interest and grasp of botany, paleontologist and geologist, with additional passions for archeology and chemistry. Astronauts looking at Earth from orbit have reported a shift in their thinking. They feel more inclined to unify societies and protect the planet—a phenomenon called the overview effect. These are the feelings that astrophysicist and science communicator Neil deGrasse Tyson aims to elicit in Starry Messenger. He argues for taking a “cosmic,” evidence-based perspective when it comes to the hot-button issues that shape politics today. Explore the Earth’s natural riches with this beautiful book that brings every corner of the planet, from core to atmosphere, to life! Introducing The Science of Earth – an informative, visually arresting introduction to planet Earth.Native to Southeast Asia, banana trees were brought to the Americas by European colonists in the 1500s. The fruits adapted and flourished, nourishing Indigenous communities who have protected the plants and incorporated them into traditional dishes. To environmental scientist Jessica Hernandez, the transplanted fruits symbolize the resistance of Indigenous people, like her family; however their landscapes change, they find ways to adapt and nourish themselves. In the former camp was a man named Barnum Brown, who yearned to escape his humble origins in Kansas farm country. With sponsorship from curator Henry Fairfield Osborn of the American Museum of Natural History, Brown scoured the hills of Wyoming and Montana with, as Randall puts it, “a magical ability to unearth a specimen, like someone who can sit down and complete a jigsaw puzzle without first needing to find the edges.” Brown’s unassuming diligence contrasts with Osborn’s rigid—and skewed—vision of the natural world: Osborn saw the history of the Earth as a kind of morality tale, in which good prevails over evil, intelligence trumps brute strength (witness the extinction of the dinosaurs), and people of Anglo-Saxon descent inevitably rose to the top. The Monster’s Bones deftly weaves paleontology and adventure—and shows how “objective” science can be shaped by the personalities and ideologies of its practitioners. In Breathless, David Quammen has constructed a masterful book about scientists’ efforts to understand SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19. Make no mistake, the book is not about healthcare and our response to Covid-19. The main character in this tale is the virus, and Quammen crafts a detective tale about the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 by chronicling the efforts of scientists around the world to identify it, search for its origins, understand how it mutates and respond to it. He interviewed 95 scientists and allows readers to look over the shoulders of many of them as they use their specialized expertise to study the virus. To show how the scientific process works on a global scale, he details the work of a genomic epidemiologist here, an evolutionary virologist there and a computational biologist somewhere else. Each expert adds or refutes some important detail about the rapidly evolving virus that has created a pandemic. Each discovery builds on those that came before.