4 Nonfiction Books Scientific American Recommended In June

See the 4 Scientific American Aimé Reading books in June

By Brianne Kane Edited by Andrea Gawrylewski

Summer reading is a secular tradition. The experience of diving in a captivating thriller or a new spicy romance is loved by many readers for life. But what is there for curious and scientifically inclined readers to enjoy it? There are new books this year on all kinds of fascinating scientific subjects, such as science attempts to understand the “sensory smog” that we create in the nature court, terrifying and slippery snakes that teach us climate change, and even the sensitivity, power and importance of rivers.

You will find below a collection of criticism of exclusive books from our newsletter Today in Science for those who seek to learn something new while relaxing by the swimming pool this summer. Every Friday this summer, we will give you a recommended reading to bring to the swimming pool, the airport or just to your porch.

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Clamour: How noise has taken up the world and how we can bring it back

By Chris Berdik

Ww Norton, 2025

Sometimes the lights are too shiny, there is too much noise and it is too distracting. Ecologists have nicknamed this scourge in particular a “sensory smog”, and this happens more and more while humans introduce mechanized, noisy and shocking sounds in daily life. In Clamor, Scientific journalist Chris Berdik travels in the sound landscape of our lives, aimed at a large objective on the origin of sounds, how they affect our health and how they could shape our collective future. The latest research shows that years of hearing damage can silence the quieter tones, such as the purring of a cat that sets up on your knees. Animals can say that the world around them has become stronger. In the middle of the underwater racket made by the man of cargo ships and the exploration of seabed, the whales seem to act like people in a noisy bar – are getting closer, speaking stronger and less often, or do not bother at all. We must protect our own eardrums, yes, but “hearing anxiety” (too many noises keeping heart rate and high stress is also a problem to be solved for future generations and almost all other lives on this planet. –Brianne Kane

Slither: how the most delicate creatures of nature illuminate our world

By Stephen S. Hall.

Grand Central Publishing, April 2025

Snakes crawl most people: they slide in and out of sight, hide in surprising places and sometimes inflict fatal stings on without distrust prey. But the scientific writer Stephen S. Hall, whose last book is called Slide, is an admirer of a life of life. For him, snakes are more than threatening. They are incredibly diverse and capable of surviving on all continents except Antarctica, said Hall during a recent appearance on our podcast Science quickly. The snake’s ability to endure a range of conditions caught its attention, “not only because of the intelligence of the evolution or the selective process, but also, it is a warning for us in terms of climate change and changes in global meteorological systems”, he explained. “Snakes have a way to adapt to [such changes] that we do not have, and maybe we can learn something from them. Snakes may also have influenced human evolution, he added.BK

Everything is tuberculosis: the history and persistence of our deadliest infection

By John Green

Crash Race Books, March 2025

Tuberculosis (TB) has thousands of years and has been healed since the 1950s. However, worldwide, around 10 million people contract it each year, and around 1.25 million die from the disease. Tuberculosis is a bacterial infection. We have good antibiotics to fight it, thanks in part to a forgotten group of black nurses on Staten Island, who took care of patients with tuberculosis at the beginning of the 20th century and participated in drug trials: nurses meticulously recorded the data of patients, who were essential for the development of a remedy. In his latest book, Everything is tuberculosis, The author John Green argues that tuberculosis is still a modern crisis. He follows the case of a boy with tuberculosis in Sierra Leone whose struggle that lasted years has become an emblem of the way these diseases thrive in inequitable poverty and societies. “We do not keep our promise that everyone has been created equal. And that is why we still have tuberculosis,” he said in an interview on our podcast Science quickly. –BK

Is a river alive?

by Robert MacFarlane

WW NORTON, May 2025

In 2008, the equator surprised the world. Articles 71 to 74 of the country’s newly ratified constitution indicated that nature had rights—Aris to be respected for its existence and the crucial and invigorating services it has provided and the rights to restore when they are damaged. In addition, he said the government could intervene when human activities could disrupt these inherent rights. In his latest book, Is a river alive ?, MacFarlane goes to three very different rivers (in Ecuador, India and Quebec) to examine the question of the sovereignty of a river. He discovers that rivers create interconnected (and often fragile) worlds of plant and animal species – concrete that they live their lives wherever they run, because many indigenous populations around the world have recognized it for thousands of years. Now, rivers are fighting for their lives as societies, governments, pollution and climate change violently their flow of vitalization. “Muscular, voluntary, adored and mistreated, rivers have long existed in the threshold space between geology and theology,” writes Macfarlane. “The rivers are – I found it – powerful presences with which to imagine water differently. We will never think like a river, but maybe we can think with them. ” –Andrea Gawrylewski