12 Science Books for Your 2026 Reading List
Sometimes, you just want to sit back with a book and relax. Other times, you want to dive in and learn more about a new area of science. We're bringing the two together with this year's list of popular science recommendations, brought to you by faculty and staff in the Faculty of Science!
Otherlands: A World in the Making by Thomas Halliday
"The book paints a vivid picture of what life on earth was like, going back in time from ~ 20,000 years ago to 555 million years ago when plants first colonized land. Based on fossil evidence, Halliday describes the landscape and ecosystem in particular locations around the world at a point in time. It makes you appreciate the wonders of evolution and the endless diversity of life on Earth." - Barbara Hawkins, professor of biology
Otherlands is a journey into deep time, showing us the Earth as it used to exist and the worlds that were here before ours. Visit the mammoth steppe in Ice Age Alaska, the lush rainforests of Eocene Antarctica and Ediacaran Australia. This emotional narrative underscores the tenacity of life—and the fragility of seemingly permanent ecosystems.
"This book explores the fundamental question of why we look like our parents and walks through the history of inheritance from Aristotle to CRISPR. It not only explains the science, but also the people behind the work." - Gregory Owens, assistant professor of biology
Most people have a basic idea of genetics and heredity: our parents pass their genes on to their children, and those genes make us who we are. In this book, Carl Zimmer explores heredity, offering a new definition, unpacking urgent bioethical quandaries arising from new biomedical technologies and exploring long-standing presumptions about who we really are and what we can pass on to future generations.
Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer
"Braiding Sweetgrass is about an Indigenous woman who earns her Ph.D. in Botany and eventually, after a long academic and personal journey, finds a way to bring together her Western/scientific approach with Indigenous knowledge/tradition to forge her own combined epistemology." - Kate Plyley, graduate assistant in biochemistry and microbiology
If you're looking for ways to blend Western science with Indigenous knowledge, or you're just looking for beautiful prose that explores nature, gratitude and reciprocity, Braiding Sweetgrass may be the book for you. Robin Wall Kimmerer is a botanist who has been trained to ask questions of nature with the tools of science. But she's also a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, and embraces the notion that plants and animals are our oldest teacher. In Braiding Sweetgrass, she brings these two lenses of knowledge together to take us on a journey of awakening and celebration.
Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History by Stephen Jay Gould
"While it's from the late 80's, it's a fantastic detective story about understanding the starting point of all major groups of animals." - Andy Fraass, assistant professor, earth and ocean sciences
Come explore what the Burgess Shale—a small limestone quarry high in the Canadian Rockies that holds the remains of an ancient sea—might tell us about evolution and the nature of history. Using the Burgess Shale as a case study, Gould argues that chance was in fact one of the decisive factors in the evolution of life on this planet, and that with a flip of a coin, everything could have been very different.
"Material World explores material science, technology and some geology in a great general audience way." - Siobhan McGoldrick, senior lab instructor, earth and ocean sciences
Sand, salt, iron, copper, oil and lithium—these six fundamental materials have created empires, razed civilizations and fed our ingenuity and greed for thousands of years. In Material World, we journey across continents, cultures and epochs to explore these materials—their origins, the processes that turn them into technologies we rely on and the little known companies who make this all possible.
Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake
"Entangled Life is an accessible exploration into the world of fungi, providing insights into what goes on in the dark and mysterious underground that we often cannot see, and an argument as to how fungi has shaped our past and has the potential to shape our futures." - Brian Tuck, coop coordinator
In Entangled Life, we're introduced to the mysterious but massively diverse kingdom of life. When we think of fungi, we likely think of mushrooms, but most fungi live out of sight, supporting and sustaining nearly all living systems. Fungi throw our concepts of individuality and intelligence into question, and can change our minds, heal our bodies and even help us remediate environmental distaster. By examining fungi on their own terms, we can come to understand how these organisms—and our relationships with them—are changing our understanding of how life works.
Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach
"I picked it up as a class remainder from the bookstore a little while ago, but I loved it so much I have read it a few times and lent it to quite a few people. Stiff provides interesting information on a subject people often like to avoid. It was so interesting to see what happens when you donate your body to science, what processes happen from beginning to end, and it is written in a very approachable way." - Erin Hodgson, graduate secretary, chemistry
What happens to our bodies after we die? For two thousand years, cadavers—some willingly, some unwillingly—have been involved in science's boldest strides and weirdest undertakings. They've tested France's first guillotines, ridden NASA's space shuttle, helped solve the mystery of TWA Flight 800, and so much more. In Stiff, Roach visits the good deeds of cadavers over the centuries and tells the story of our bodies when we are no longer with them.
Uncle Tungsten by Oliver Sacks
"Uncle Tungsten bonds memoir and chemistry with real emotional valence. Ironically, OLiVEr SAcKS ended up being more famous for psychiatry, but that doesn't matter - it's a great stocking sulfur (or just zinc your teeth into it yourself)." - Scott McIndoe, professor of chemistry
Today, Oliver Sacks in well-known as a neurologist, but as a child, he was surrounded by a family full of doctors, metallurgists, chemists, physicists and teachers. Uncle Tungsten explores the post-war period of Sack's life, when as a 10-year-old, he performed chemistry experiments, investigated batteries and bulbs, and discovered his first great scientific heroes. This book draws us into a journey of discovery that reveals, through the enchantment and wonder of a childhood passion, the birth of an extraordinary and original mind.
The Blue Machine: How the Ocean Works by Helen Czerski
"The Blue Machine is a wonderful book about the world’s oceans and oceanography. Czerski explains ocean physics, chemistry and biology in a way that makes ocean science accessible and is entertaining and engaging while doing it." - Ed Nissen, senior lab instructor, earth and ocean sciences
The Blue Machine introduces us to the physics behind the ocean's systems, and why they matter. Voyage from the depths of the ocean floor to tropical coral reefs, estuaries that feed into shallow coastal seas and arctic ice floes to learn how water temperature, salinity, gravity and Earth's tectonic plates all interact to support ocean life. By understanding how the ocean works and its essential role in our global system, we can learn how to protect our blue machine.
Every Living Thing: The Great and Deadly Race to Know All Life by Jason Roberts
"It's an engaging, well-written account about two scientists who tried to document and name all life that was known to them in the eighteenth century. The story follows the careers of the two men, showing how each one advanced through serendipitous opportunity and political favour, and was either constrained or favoured by religious dogma. I am not a biologist, so the story was mostly new to me, and it was a captivating and enlightening read that I think will appeal to all backgrounds in science." - Ross Chapman, professor emeritus, earth and ocean sciences
In the eighteenth century, two men—exact contemporaries and polar opposites—dedicated their lives to identifying and describing all life on Earth. Both fell far short of their goal, but in the process they articulated starkly divergent views on nature, the future of the Earth and humanity itself. This book explores the lives and legacies of Carl Linnaeus and Georges-Louis de Buffon and traces an arc of insight and discovery that extends across three centuries into the present day.
Sing Like Fish by Amorina Kingdon
"As a group of interdisciplinary students and researchers in the marine sciences, we found Sing Like Fish to be an enjoyable and refreshingly approachable work on the not-so-silent underwater world. Kingdon’s talent for marrying rich prose and effective science communication draws the reader in and delivers a readable experience that is immersive, relatable, and educational." - Francis Juanes, professor of biology, and colleagues in a book review published in Fisheries
We're all aware that animals on land make noise, but the soundscape of the ocean is much less understood. Sing Like Fish synthesizes historical discoveries with the latest in scientific research in a clear and compelling portrait of the sonic undersea world. You'll learn about the swim-bladder drumming of the plainfin midshipman, the syntax of whale song, the deafening crackle of snapping shrimp, and more, while also exploring the impact that anthropogenic noise is having on the marine world's delicate acoustic ecosystems.
This one is a special addition to the list this year—a book published by our very own Jon Willis, assistant professor of physics! If you're curious to learn more, you can also read our Q&A with Willis about the search for alien life.
In The Pale Blue Data Point, Willis investigates the question “Is there life off Earth?” by joining astrobiologists to study life right here on our planet. By envisioning extraterrestrial landscapes through the exploration of Earth’s closest analogs, Willis conjures up alien worlds and unthought-of biological possibilities, speculating what life might look like on other planets by extrapolating from what we can see on Earth.
