CULTIVATING DELIGHT: A NATURAL HISTORY OF MY GARDEN
by Diane Ackerman 
A paean to nature in Ackerman’s lyrical prose as she celebrates the seasons of her garden. Every bloom, bird and bug enchants as Ackerman explores and describes a place you hope will last forever.

LEONARDO’S MOUNTAIN OF CLAMS AND DIET OF WORMS: ESSAYS ON NATURAL HISTORY   
by Stephen Jay Gould
From rock lobsters attacked by whelks to the preservation of Yiddish to a look at the camel’s hump, Gould roams natural phenomena with commentary from science and literature.

THE BIG QUESTIONS: PROBING THE PROMISE AND LIMITS OF SCIENCE
by Richard Morris
Have you ever wondered…Does the future already exist?  Are there parallel worlds?   What is Truth?  These and other ideas are examined in accessible essays that give a scientific slant to the search for answers.

MIND OVER MATTER: CONVERSATIONS WITH THE COSMOS
by K.C. Cole
Popular science correspondent Cole writes pithy columns at the merging point of art and science. She notices things that we take for granted and grabs us with anecdotes and explanations that make intimidating concepts familiar and fascinating.

GREETINGS CARBON-BASED BIPEDS: COLLECTED ESSAYS 1934-1998
by Arthur C. Clarke
The Science fiction master collected all his non-fiction writing and it’s a testament to his belief in the “spectacular possibilities of the distant future.” From the 1930s when he wrote of Rockets and Radar to the millennial “Is There Life After Television?” Clarke’s agile mind surveys the possibilities. Virtual sex?  Reading a lost art?  Computers unplugging humans???

A SENSE OF THE MYSTERIOUS: SCIENCE AND THE HUMAN SPIRIT
by Alan Lightman
Lightman is a physicist and a novelist; he has the ability to make complex concepts clear and to infuse the facts with imagination and emotion. Portraits of Einstein, Feynman, Teller and Rubin are included.


THE NEW HUMANISTS: SCIENCE AT THE EDGE
edited by John Brockman
Culled from conversations with the top intellectuals, these essays will jostle your perspective. Jared Diamond on population theory, Ray Kurzweil on technology and the human mind, Marc Hauser on animal minds, and many others will push your thinking beyond the familiar into a new fascination.

THE RURAL LIFE 
by Verlyn Klinkenborg
You have read his essays in the New York Times, New Yorker and Harper’s. Klinkenborg celebrates life on the farm in the tradition of E.B. White. In simple language he brings our attention to the ordinary beauty of daily life and gives respite from the stresses of our less-rural lives.