Weird Science! The Best New Sci-Tech Books

You’d never know it from reading the books listed here, but good science writing is incredibly difficult to pull off.

There is both an art and, yes, a science to writing about complex or highly specialized topics, then making the information engaging and readable for a “civilian” audience. The authors below are so good at this that you won’t even notice the effort involved. And that, of course, is the greatest trick of all.

Walter Issacson’s Code Breaker, a good case in point, breaks down the complex scientific and ethical issues around gene editing technology, which will quite literally change the world in the next few decades. Harvard University astronomer Avi Loeb makes a persuasive case in an extremely controversial topic area with Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth. And science reporter Erika Engelhaupt brings all manner of wit and weirdness to her new book, Gory Details: Adventures from the Dark Side of Science.

Scroll over the covers below to learn more about each book, and be sure to add the books that pique your interest to your Want to Read shelf!