Poetry, Essays, Nature, Philosophy, Art, History
Maria Popova
"Maria Popova is a Bulgarian-born, American-based essayist, book author, poet, and writer of literary and arts commentary and cultural criticism that has found wide appeal both for her writing and for the visual stylistics that accompany it."
Chemistry, History, Technology, Popular
Mark Miodownik
"Mark Miodownik is the UCL Professor of Materials & Society. He received his Ph.D in turbine jet engine alloys from Oxford University, and has worked as a materials scientist in the USA, Ireland and the UK. For more than twenty years he has championed materials science research that links to the arts and humanities, medicine, and society. This culminated in the establishment of the UCL Institute of Making, where he is a director and runs the research programme. In 2019 Mark set up the Plastic Waste Innovation Hub to carry our research into solving the environmental catastrophe of plastic waste dealing with topics such as biodegradable plastics and product reuse and repairability. Mark is the multi-award winning author of New York Times bestselling book Stuff Matters. He regularly presents BBC TV and radio programmes on materials science and engineering. In 2014 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering. In 2018 he was awarded an MBE for services to materials science, engineering and broadcasting. In 2025 he was appointed the Royal Society Professor of Public Engagement with Science."
Source: Mark's Website
Photo Credit: Ruby Wright
Physics, Astronomy, Popular Science, Space, Philosophy, Mathematics
Brian Greene
"Brian Greene, professor of physics and mathematics, is renowned for his groundbreaking discoveries in superstring theory, including the co-discovery of mirror symmetry and of spatial topology change. He is known to the public through his books, The Elegant Universe, The Fabric of the Cosmos, and The Hidden Reality, which have collectively spent 65 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and sold more than 2 million copies worldwide. The Washington Post called him “the single best explainer of abstruse concepts in the world today.” Professor Greene hosted two Peabody and Emmy Award winning NOVA miniseries based on his books and is a frequent television guest, joining Stephen Colbert seven times and playing himself in an episode of The Big Bang Theory. He has also had cameo roles in a number of Hollywood films including Frequency, Maze and The Last Mimzy. With producer Tracy Day, Greene co-founded the World Science Festival and he is the Director of Columbia University’s Center for Theoretical Physics."
Source: the author's website briangreene.org
About the location: Panera Bread - Counter-serve bakery/cafe chain serving sandwiches, salads, soups, smoothies, coffee, tea, and pastries...
Come for a Dutch treat at 6:45 pm, place your order, and we'll get started on the discussion about 7 pm.
Upcoming Schedule
January 19, 2026
February 23, 2026
April 20, 2026
TBA - May/June 2026
TBA - September 2026
TBA - October/November 2026
TBA - November/December 2026
Our Books By the Numbers
We have over 240 books...
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankin
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers
Thinking, Fast and Slow
Einstein: His Life and Universe
The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
When Breath Becomes Air
Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void
Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams
The Great Penguin Rescue
The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma
Astrophysics for People in a Hurry
The Body: A Guide for Occupants
The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women
What the Eyes Don't See: A Story of Crisis, Resistance, and Hope in an American City
Heart: A History
The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements
Bitter Almonds: The True Story of Mothers, Daughters, and the Seattle Cyanide Murders
Liquid Rules: The Delightful and Dangerous Substances That Flow Through Our Lives
Midnight in Chernobyl: The Untold Story of the World's Greatest Nuclear Disaster
Reaching for the Moon: The Autobiography of NASA Mathematician Katherine Johnson
American Overdose: The Opioid Tragedy in Three Acts
Equity in Science: Representation, Culture, and the Dynamics of Change in Graduate Education
The Birds of Pandemonium
Uncle Tungsten
Obsessive Genius: The Inner World of Marie Curie
Culinary Reactions: The Everyday Chemistry of Cooking
Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World
The Woman They Could Not Silence: One Woman, Her Incredible Fight for Freedom, and the Men Who Tried to Make Her Disappear
The Hot Zone: The Terrifying True Story of the Origins of the Ebola Virus
The Joy of Sweat: The Strange Science of Perspiration
Doctored: The Disillunsionment of an American Physician
Hundreds of Interlaced Fingers: A Kidney Doctor's Search for the Perfect Match
The Future Earth: A Radical Vision for What's Possible in the Age of Warming
Lessons from Plants
Silent Spring
The Private Life of Plants: A Natural History of Plant Behaviour
I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life
Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise
The Story of Trees: And How They Changed the World
A Life on Our Planet: My Witness Statement and a Vision for the Future
Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company that Addicted America
The Snow Leopard
Belonging: The Science of Creating Connection and Bridging Divides
The Ripple Effect: The Fate of Fresh Water in the Twenty-First Century
Dancing Cockatoos and the Dead Man Test: How Behavior Evolves and Why It Matters
The Rise and Reign of the Mammals: A New History, from the Shadow of the Dinosaurs to Us
The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs: A New History of a Lost World
It's Elemental: The Hidden Chemistry in Everything
Lab Girl
The Other Einstein
Chemistry
The Scientists: A History of Science Told Through the Lives of It's Greatest Inventors
Caesar's Last Breath: Decoding the Secrets of the Air Around Us
The Violinist's Thumb: And Other Lost Tales of Love, War, and Genius, as Written by Our Genetic Code
The Tale of the Deuling Neurosurgeons: The History of the Human Brain as Revealed by True Stories of Trauma, Madness, and Recovery
Flights of Fancy: Defying Gravity by Design and Evolution
Proving Ground: The Untold Story of the Six Women Who Programmed the World's First Modern Computer
Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynam
What Do You Care What Other People Think
Ingredients: The Strange Chemistry of What We Put in Us and on Us
A Molecule Away from Madness: Tales of the Hijacked Brain
Ten Drugs: How Plants, Powders, and Pills Have Shaped the History of Medicine
Count Down: How Our Modern World Is Threatening Sperm Counts, Altering Male and Female Reproductive Development, and Imperiling the Future of the Human Race
Elemental: How the Periodic Table Can Now Explain (Nearly) Everything
The Science of Cooking: Every Question Anwered to Perfect your Cooking
The Demon in the Machine: How Hidden Webs of Information Are Solving the Mystery of Life
Napoleon's Buttons: How 17 Molecules Changed History
Nature's Building Blocks: An A-Z Guide to the Elements
Sympohony in C: Carbon and the Evolution of (Almost) Everything
Birds and Us: A 12,000 Year History, from Cave Art to Conservation
Dreamland: The True Tale of America's Opiate Epidemic
Vitamin C: A 500-Year Scientific Biography from Scurvy to Pseudoscience
Fen, Bog and Swamp: A Short History of Peatland Descruction and Its Role in the Climate Crisis
Starry Messenger: Cosmic Persepctives on Civilization
Braiding Sweetgrass
Pathogenesis: A History of the World in Eight Plagues
It's a Gas: The Sublime and Elusive Elements That Expand Our World
A Brief History of Earth: Four Billion Years in Eight Chapters
Your Brain on Art: How the Arts Transform Us
Planta Sapiens: The New Science of Plant Intelligence
The Death and Life of the Great Lakes
The Big Book of Blooms
Nature's Best Hope: A New Approach to Conservation that Starts in Your Yard A New Approach to Conservation that Starts in Your Yard
Chemistry of Medals
The Heat Will Kill You First: Life and Death on a Scorched Planet
Kings of Their Own Ocean: Tuna, Obsession, and the Future of Our Seas
Waste: One Woman's Fight Against America's Dirty Secret
Pests: How Humans Create Animal Villains
The Brilliant Abyss
The Secret Lives of Bats: My Adventures with the World's Most Misunderstood Mammals
Great Lakes Sea Lamprey: The 70 Year War on a Biological Invader
The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race
Nuts and Bolts: Seven Small Inventions That Changed the World in a Big Way
Jellyfish Age Backwards: Nature's Secrets to Longevity
Taking Flight: The evolutionary story of life on the wing
Breathless: The Scientific Race to Defeat a Deadly Virus
The Exceptions: Nancy Hopkins, MIT, and the Fight for Women in Science
The Bastard Brigade: The True Story of the Renegade Scientists and Spies Who Sabotaged the Nazi Atomic Bomb
The Brill Pill
Fire Weather: A True Story from a Hotter World
Of Time and Turtles: Mending the World, Shell by Shattered Shell
Crossings: How Road Ecology is Shaping the Future of Our Planet
Starborn: How the Stars Made Us
Rough Sleepers: Dr. Jim O’Connell’s Urgent Mission to Bring Healing to Homeless People
How Far the Light Reaches: A Life in Ten Sea Creatures
The Devil's Element: Phosphorus and a World Out of Balance
My Father's Brain: Life in the Shadow of Alzheimer's
The Underworld: Journeys to the Depths of the Ocean
Better Living Through Birding: Notes from a Black Man in the Natural World
Steeped: The Chemistry of Tea
The Triumph of Seeds: How Grains, Nuts, Kernels, Pulses, and Pips Conquered the Plant Kingdom and Shaped Human History
Chasing the Sun: How the Science of Sunlight Shapes our Bodies and Minds
The Legacy of Luna: The Story of a Tree, a Woman, and the Struggle to Save the Redwoods
Alien Earths: The New Science of Planet Hunting in the Cosmos
Poison Town
On the Origin of Time: Stephen Hawking's Final Theory
Great Lakes Champions: Grassroots Efforts to Clean Up Polluted Watersheds
Waterfront Porch: Reclaiming Detroit's Industrial Waterfront as a Gathering Place for All
The Melting World: A Journey Across America's Vanishing Glaciers
The Six: The Untold Story of America's First Women Astronauts
Primates: The Fearless Science of Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey, and Birute Galdikas
Feynman
Astronauts: Women on the Final Frontier
Hawking
Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution
When Science Goes Wrong: The Desire and Search for Truth
Brother Astronomer: Adventures of a Vatican Scientist
Everything is Predictable: How Bayesian Statistics Explain Our World
Your Face Belongs to Us: A Secretive Startup's Quest to End Privacy as We Know it
The Last of Its Kind: The Search for the Great Auk and the Discovery of Extinction
Why We Die: The New Science of Aging and the Quest for Immortality
A City on Mars: Can We Settle Space, Should We Settle Space, and Have We Really Thought This Through
Cloudspotting for Beginners
We the Poisoned: Exposing the Flint Water Crisis Cover-Up and the Poisoning of 100,000 Americans
The Orchid Thief
The Elements of Marie Curie: How the Glow of Radium Lit a Path for Women in Science
How Great Thinkers Transformed Our Ideas: Share the Insights of Newton, Hawking, Curie and Other Geniuses
Lessons in Chemistry
The Universe in Verse: 15 Portals to Wonder through Science & Poetry
Have a Good Trip: Exploring the Magic Mushroom Experience
Father Nature: The Science of Paternal Potential
Playing Possum: How Animals Understand Death
The Suggestible Brain: The Science and Magic of How We Make Up Our Minds
Crisis Averted: The Hidden Science of Fighting Outbreaks
Hidden in the Heavens: How the Kepler Mission's Quest for New Planets Changed How We View Our Own
Our Moon: How Earth's Celestial Companion Transformed the Planet, Guided Evolution, and Made Us Who We Are
Get Well Soon: History's Worst Plagues and the Heros Who Fought Them
Math in Drag
The Worlds I See: Curiosity, Exploration, and Discovery at the Dawn of AI
The Cold Case Foundation: How a Team of Experts Solves Murders and Missing Persons Cases
Weighing Animal Welfare: Comparing Well-Being Across Species
Reversing Deforestation: How Market Forces and Local Ownership Are Saving Forests in Latin America
The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World
Lost Wonders: 10 Tales of Extinction from the 21st Century
Chain Reactions: The Hopeful History of Uranium
Vanishing Treasures: A Bestiary of Extraordinary Endangered Creatures
Power Metal: The Race for the Resources That Will Shape the Future
What the Chicken Knows: A New Appreciation of the World's Most Familiar Bird
Into the Thaw: Witnessing Wonder Amid the Arctic Climate Crises
Sisters in Science
Women in White Coats: How the First Women Doctors Changed the World of Medicine
The Skeleton Revealed: An Illustrated Tour of the Vertebrates
The Galapagos: A Natural History
Chemistry for Breakfast: The Amazing Science of Everyday Life
The Skeptics' Guide to the Future: What Yesterday's Science and Science Fiction Tell Us About the World of Tomorrow
The Year in Space
Sharks Don't Sink: Adventures of a Rogue Shark Scientist
Waste Wars: The Wild Afterlife of Your Trash
Frostbite: How Refrigeration Changed Our Food, Our Planet, and Ourselves
Booster Shots: The Urgent Lessons of Measles and the Uncertain Future of Children's Health
TreeNotes: A Year in the Company of Trees
Doctored: Fraud, Arrogance, and Tragedy in the Quest to Cure Alzheimer's
Ends of the Earth: Journeys to the Polar Regions in Search of Life, the Cosmos, and Our Future
When the Earth Was Green: Plants, Animals, and Evolution's Greatest Romance
Air-Borne: The Hidden History of the Life We Breathe
Painting the Cosmos: How Art and Science Intersect to Reveal the Secrets of the Universe
The Science of Racism: Everything You Need to Know but Probably Don’t―Yet
Notes From Deep Time: A Journey Through Our Past and Future Worlds
American Poison: A Deadly Invention and the Woman Who Battled for Environmental Justice
The Language of Water: Ancient Techniques and Community Stories for a Water Secure Future
Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection
The Science of Revenge: Understanding the World's Deadliest Addiction—and How to Overcome It
A Billion Butterflies: A Life in Climate and Chaos Theory
Cloud Warriors: Deadly Storms, Climate Chaos―and the Pioneers Creating a Revolution in Weather Forecasting
On Muscle: The Stuff That Moves Us and Why It Matters
Is a River Alive?
What We Value: The Neuroscience of Choice and Change
Off the Spectrum: Why the Science of Autism Has Failed Women and Girls
Feminism in the Wild: How Human Biases Shape Our Understanding of Animal Behavior
Phenology
Standards
Shelter and Storm: At Home in the Driftless
Stronger: The Untold Story of Muscle in Our Lives
They Poisoned the World: Life and Death in the Age of Forever Chemicals
The Lost Trees of Willow Avenue: A Story of Climate and Hope on One American Street
Carbon: The Book of Life
The Sea Around Us
The Imitation Game
What's Gotten Into You
Slither
Atomic Dreams
Earthly Materials: Journeys Through Our Bodies' Emissions, Excretions, and Disintegrations
Nature at Night: Discover the Hidden World That Comes Alive After Dark
The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory
An Inconvenience of Penguins: Epic voyages in pursuit of the world's most beloved bird
Blueprints: How Mathematics Shapes Creativity
Science Under Siege: How to Fight the Five Most Powerful Forces that Threaten Our World
The Shape of Wonder: How Scientists Think, Work, and Live
The Man Who Lost His Head: On Illusions and Delusions of the Mind
The Genius of Trees: How They Mastered the Elements and Shaped the World
Dangerous Miracle: The Astonishing Rise and Looming Disaster of Antibiotics
Super Natural: How Life Thrives in Impossible Places
Replaceable You: Adventures in Human Anatomy
Curing Coral: A Marine Biologist’s Guide to Coral Reefs and How They Help Us Combat Climate Change
Rad Future: The Untold Story of Nuclear Electricity and How It Will Save the World
Outback Astronomer: The extraordinary story of how an amateur astronomer's unwavering passion for the cosmos propelled him from the mines of Broken Hill to working with NASA
A Perfect Harmony: Music, Mathematics and Science
Before the Next Crisis: Untold Stories of Public Health and Why They Matter
Labwork to Leadership: A Concise Guide to Thriving in the Science Job You Weren’t Trained For
Going Nuclear: How the Atom Will Save the World
Among the Giants: A Year at Kew's Arboretum
The Secret World of Denisovans: The Epic Story of the Ancient Cousins to Sapiens and Neanderthals
The Devil Reached Toward the Sky: An Oral History of the Making and Unleashing of the Atomic Bomb
The Lobster Trap: The Global Fight for a Seafood on the Brink
Tales of Militant Chemistry: The Film Factory in a Century of War
Here Comes the Sun: A Last Chance for the Climate and a Fresh Chance for Civilization
The Age-Proof Brain
Doctors by Nature: How Ants, Apes, and Other Animals Heal Themselves
Immune: a Journey into the Mysterious System that Keeps You Alive
How it All Works: All scientific laws and phenomena illustrated & demonstrated
Squid Empire: The Rise and Fall of the Cephalopods
The Cloudspotter's Guide
Rebugging the Planet: The Remarkable Things that Insects (and Other Invertebrates) Do And Why We Need to Love Them More
Secret Life of the City: How Nature Thrives in the Urban Wild
The Miraculous from the Material: Understanding the Wonders of Nature
So Very Small: How Humans Discovered the Microcosmos, Defeated Germs—and May Still Lose the War Against Infectious Disease
The Odyssey of KP2: An Orphan Seal, a Marine Biologist, and the Fight to Save a Species
Ocean: Earth's Last Wilderness
No More Tears: The Dark Secrets of Johnson & Johnson
-Last updated December 2025-