If you read one book this year, make it this one

A journey through billions of years that nails home the point: Life is a miracle ... [A] remarkably cogent and compelling history of everything

Rather like the Big Bang, the book is awe-inspiring. The processes it describes are all familiar, but I'd never seen them explained with such clarity and verve ... Superb

[Origin Story is] long-haul science with wit and oomph

Christian tells this story very well, providing, in effect, a short course in modern science. This is a brief history of the universe, and an excellent one

I have long been a fan of David Christian. In Origin Story, he elegantly weaves evidence and insights from many scientific and historical disciplines into a single, accessible historical narrative

In Origin Story, David Christian has found a spectacular way to use history to put order in the entire set of our knowledge about the world. This is a wonderful achievement

Origin Story is a majestic distillation of our current understanding of the birth of the universe, of the solar system, of the oceans, of mountains and minerals, of all life on earth and of the driving dynamics of human culture and achievement. All of this in just over 300 pages of captivating prose that weaves together innumerable insights from the sciences, arts and humanities. With fascinating ideas on every page and the page turning energy of a good thriller, this is a landmark work that comes at a time when it has never been more important for humanity to have a clearer, more informed understanding of our place on earth and of the earth's place in the cosmos. A spellbinding synthesis

A remarkable book that puts us self-important humans in our proper place in the cosmos, yet also explains why the story of human culture and knowledge - what Christian calls collective learning - matters for understanding our present world and shaping its future

Johnson’s narrative entertainingly recounts not just Rist’s strange story but that of the pioneering Victorian ornithologists too

Unusual and engrossing page-turner… A wide-ranging, captivating work

The Feather Thief is a compelling blend of mystery, quirky salmon flytiers, and dogged natural-history enthusiasts, and it highlights the obsessive lengths that people will go to destroy—and protect—some of the world’s most valuable treasures

A stirring examination of the devastating effects of human greed on endangered birds, a powerful argument for protecting our environment—and, above all, a captivating crime story

The kind of beguiling spiral of a non-fiction work which I adore

A captivating account

A true-crime tale that weaves seemingly unrelated threads into a spellbinding narrative tapestry

A real page-turner, while at the same time meditative, thoughtful and stylish, The Feather Thief takes us on a fascinating journey inside a bizarre and secretive underworld unlike any other.

A bizarre and yet utterly gripping tale

A captivating tale of an unlikely thief and his even more unlikely crime, and a meditation on obsession, greed, and the sheer fascination in something as seemingly simple as a feather

This is the type of book I absolutely love – one that takes a seemingly obscure topic and shines a brilliant and bizarre and endlessly fascinating light upon it. Kirk Wallace Johnson’s portrayal of the crazy world of feather fanatics makes this an unforgettable read

This gem of a book, is marvelous, moving, and transcendent. I can’t stop thinking about it

Fascinating… An engagingly written story … you’ll be reading it when you should be doing other things

This extraordinary book exposes an international underground that traffics in rare and precious natural resources, yet was previously unknown to all but a few. A page-turning read you won’t soon forget, The Feather Thief tells us as much about our cultural priorities as it does about the crimes themselves. There’s never been anything like it

Johnson (To Be a Friend Is Fatal) makes his true-crime debut with this enthralling account of a truly bizarre crime…. Johnson goes deep into the exotic bird and feather trade and concludes that though obsession and greed know no bounds, they certainly make for a fascinating tale. The result is a page-turner that will likely appeal to science, history, and true crime readers

A riveting detective story

This true story about the theft of a bunch of bird skins is one of the most peculiar and memorable true-crime books ever

The very best sort of nonfiction: wide-ranging, intelligent and gripping

As well as recounting a crime this text provokes its readers to think about human obsession and greed about the fate of avian species which, by an accident of plumage, have vanished from the earth. I warmly recommend this unusual, rich book.

A gripping natural-history detective story. Was Rist a cunning con-artist who more or less got away with the perfect, albeit clumsy crime? Or was he hopelessly addicted to feathers, to his hobby, and to his status as a young fly-tying protégé without the economic means to realise his dreams and potential?

This well written account of the known facts is well worth a read

It was hard to put the book down… Read it yourselves, enjoy it and learn from it!

If we don't want our grandchildren to curse us, we had better read this book.

David Wallace-Wells argues that the impacts of climate change will much graver than most people realize, and he's right. The Uninhabitable Earth is a timely and provocative work.

Trigger warning: when scientists conclude that yesterday's worst-case scenario for global warming is probably unwarranted optimism, it's time to ask Scotty to beam you up. At least that was my reaction upon finishing Wallace-Wells' brilliant and unsparing analysis of a nightmare that is no longer a distant future but our chaotic, burning present.

A lucid and thorough description of our unprecedented crisis, and of the mechanisms of denial with which we seek to avoid its fullest recognition.

Brilliant at the futility of human action.

A masterpiece of operatic proportions … What Powers means to explore is a sense of how we become who we are, individually and collectively, and our responsibility to the planet and to ourselves … A magnificent achievement: a novel that is, by turns, both optimistic and fatalistic, idealistic without being naïve.

His masterpiece.

You will careen through this book. The prose is driven. You don’t really get to draw breath … The writing is steel-edged, laser-sharp when Richard Powers wants it to be. When he sets out to nail meaning, it’s done. There are sentences you return to and wonder at.

This walk through the woods via words is a passionate paean to the natural world that prompts us to appreciate afresh our place on the planet.

[I]t’s huge, it’s exciting, it’s wondrous … This really deserves to be read.

The Overstory is a book you learn from.

Dazzlingly written… Among the best novels I’ve read this decade… Despite its deep-time perspective, it could hardly be more of-the-moment

A beautiful novel about humans reconnecting with nature in a fascinatingly, inventive world with colourful, rich characters, it will rekindle your love for nature

An intriguing, powerful book

Absolutely blown away by this epic, heartbreaking novel about us and trees

This extraordinary novel transformed my view of nature. Never again will I pass great tree without offering a quiet but heartfelt incantation of thanks, gratitude and wonder

A sweeping novel that skilfully intertwines many different stories of trees and people to create a paean to the hidden power and vital importance of the natural world

Absorbing, thought-provoking and more than enough incentive to embrace your inner tree-hugger

The Overstory is filled with character and incident enough to engage anybody, but it's also filled with philosophy, science, poetry, and colour. It's a celebration of the world and humanity, but also tells of our coming doom. Perhaps above all it's a eulogy to trees. Eulogy is the right word because the novel celebrates the life, the beauty and wisdom of trees-but also their death. The novel also casts a cold-but loving-eye on humanity

The Overstory has the mix of science and fiction that I so love; it widens my understanding and respect for the creatures who share this planet

Stunning... It's been one of those rare books that has had a profound effect on me, and which has changed my perspective on life

Mind-boggling and visionary. The multi-stranded novel is a masterpiece in which science and poetry are deeply intertwined

A compelling read is that is near impossible to put down

The Overstory is a prescient novel that urges us to take responsibility for our actions

A masterpiece of storytelling at its very best. Powers weaves together science, poetry, nature and humanity so beautifully that it makes my heart ache and my mind fly

A wild and expansive novel, knitting together a glorious and diverse cast of characters, some of them human, some of them trees. I defy you not to be moved, and then angered about what we are doing to our planet and these glorious sentinels rooted upon it

My novel of the year was Richard Powers' masterpiece, The Overstory... it's a magnificent read

The Overstory by Richard Powers is likely the most beautiful book ever written about people and trees