Stephen Hawking’s first book aimed at a popular audience, A Brief History of Time, became a surprise bestseller and turned the world of popular science writing upside down. We look back at this remarkable book, 30 years after its publication.

Featured Book: Life 3.0, by Max Tegmark

Artificial intelligence is set to change the world. Will humanity have what it takes to survive, in the age of intelligent machines? 

And on the nightstand: Prehension, by Colin McGinn; and The Social Conquest of Earth by E.O. Wilson.

Featured Book: The Big Picture, by Sean Carroll.

Do our lives have any significance in a universe of impersonal particles and forces and physical laws? That’s a big question – but a physicist with an eye on the big picture takes a shot at answering them.

And on the nightstand: You Belong to the Universe, by Jonathon Keats; and Time Travel, by James Gleick.

Featured Book: The Gene, by Siddhartha Mukherjee.

The gene shapes who we are. While the science of genetics is still fairly young, it’s advancing at a breakneck speed. What will we do with this new knowledge? 

And on the nightstand: Surfing Uncertainty, by Andy Clark; and Black Hole Blues, by Janna Levin.

Featured Book: Spooky Action at a Distance, by George Musser.

Quantum entanglement is one of the strangest ideas in modern physics – and could end up changing the way we think about space and time.

And on the nightstand: Why Information Grows, by César Hidalgo; and Inventology, by Pagan Kennedy.

Featured Book: Dark Matter and the Dinosaurs, by Lisa Randall.

A physicist puts forward a bold idea about how the dinosaurs met their demise – and the role that an exotic kind of matter may have played.

And on the nightstand:  The Brain, by David Eagleman; and Seven Brief Lessons on Physics by Carlo Rovelli.

Featured Books: Ada’s Algorithm, by James Essinger; and It Began with Babbage, by Subrata Dasgupta.

Two new books look at the history of the computer – the invention that would usher in the modern age.

Two new books look at the history of our species, the rise of science, and how one puny primate conquered the planet: The Upright Thinkers, by Leonard Mlodinov; and Sapiens, by Yuval Noah Harari.

Featured Book: The Patient Will See You Now, by Eric Topol.

Eric Topol says medicine itself has been sick for years – but he’s confident that we can use digital technology to improve the health care system.

And on the nightstand:  On the Move, by Oliver Sacks; and The Clockwork Universe, by Edward Dolnick.

Featured Book: Mind Change, by Susan Greenfield.

Digital technology is all around us, and there’s more of it every day. It’s changing the way we live our lives – and neuroscientist Susan Greenfield says it’s also affecting our brains.

And on the nightstand: Invisible, by Philip Ball; and Unflattening, by Nick Sousanis.