Solar System: The Book of the App

Solar System has been downloaded about 80,000 times in 10 months. It won The Bookseller 2011 Digital Innovation of the Year as well as Best App of 2011. But, if you were not lucky enough to have an iPad, you were stuck. Not any more.

Exposing Our Genetic Future, One Quirk at a Time

In My Beautiful Genome, Lone Frank provides the first truly intimate account of the new science of consumer-led genomics. Watch the author discuss genes and destiny and her family’s genetic history.

Discover Chasing the Sun by Richard Cohen

The Sun is so powerful, so much bigger than us, that it is a terrifying subject. Yet though we depend on it, we take it for granted. Download an extract from Chasing the Sun – a cultural and scientific history of our relationship with the star that gives us life.

Win a copy of On Rare Birds, by Anita Albus [closed]

Win one of three copies of Anita Albus’s On Rare Birds, a lavishly illustrated tale of ten rare or extinct birds in this exclusive Bookhugger competition!

The Wise Kingfisher, by Anita Albus

The third of three extracts from Anita Albus’s On Rare Birds, a lavishly illustrated tale of ten rare or extinct birds.

Watch for an exclusive competition here on Bookhugger later this month!

Chasing the Sun

The Sun is so powerful, so much bigger than us, that it is a terrifying subject. Yet though we depend on it, we take it for granted. Author Richard Cohen discusses Chasing the Sun – a cultural and scientific history of our relationship with the star that gives us life.

The Beautiful Barn Owl, by Anita Albus

The second of three extracts from Anita Albus’s On Rare Birds, a lavishly illustrated tale of ten rare or extinct birds.

Watch for an exclusive competition here on Bookhugger after all the extracts have been featured.

The entire Solar System in the palm of your hand, or in your pocket…

Best-selling author Marcus Chown leads us on a grand tour through the incredible diversity of planets, moons, asteroids, comets, and spacecraft that surround the Sun in our cosmic backyard.

All on one of those little iPad thingies!

Win a signed copy of Dog Walks Man: A Six-legged Odyssey [closed]

Read an extract from a touching, witty and thought-provoking exploration of the metaphysical aspects of the simple dog walk. Walking Pete (a standard poodle named after a Ghostbuster) opens the author up to different way of looking at the world. Bookhugger has 5 signed copies to give away…

The Frightful Truth

John Vaillant explains why he decided to travel to Siberia, and to write the epic story of revenge and survival,The Tiger

July non-fiction round-up

This month, Bookhugger’s publishers have a wide-ranging selection of non-fiction titles – from classical, pop and jazz music to exploration in hot and cold extremes, from a must-read history of philosophy to observations on the soul-sapping world of work, and countries in economic and environmental crisis.

The Booklist: I do like to be beside the seaside…

Summer is upon us, and we will flock to the coast to enjoy the breeze and avoid the worst of the heat, thronging on the beaches and piers, riding the rollercoasters and swimming in the sea. This month’s Booklist features titles with a seaside theme, though not necessarily donkey rides and sticks of rock.

Paul Collier on The Plundered Planet

Paul Collier’s The Bottom Billion had a profound impact on our thinking about global poverty. Now, with The Plundered Planet, he has set himself an even more ambitious goal: to reconcile the immediate needs of the world’s burgeoning population with a sustainable environmental future.

An extract from Talking to Zeus: My Year in a Greek Garden, by Jane Shaw

Jane Shaw was working as a volunteer in Chelsea’s famous Physic Garden when she earned a placement to work for a year on a very special organic garden in Greece. But this was to be no easy-going break in the Mediterranean…

You are here…

Learn more about your place in the great chain of being with this fantastic animation to celebrate the paperback release of Christopher Potter’s You Are Here. From the nucleii of your cells to the vastness of the universe, this will put you in your place!

Jarvis Cocker reads a story from David Eagleman’s Sum

In this startling book, David Eagleman shows us forty possibilities of life beyond death. With wit and humanity, he asks the key questions about existence, hope, technology and love. These short stories are full of big ideas and bold imagination – hear Jarvis Cocker read Descent of Species.

Lewis Wolpert on how we live and why we die

How do we move, think and remember? Why do we get ill, age and die? Distinguished biologist Lewis Wolpert explains how cells provide the answers to the fundamental questions about our lives, in conversation with George Miller.

Listen now

Sir John Lister Kaye on his definition of nature writing

Naturalist and conservationist Sir John Lister Kaye on what it means to him to be a nature writer.

February non-fiction round-up

The best of the new non-fiction covers such diverse topics as nature writing, how to make the right decisions, the television of the 1970s, the eternal struggle between journalists and politicians, and how dogs think!

The Candle Problem

‘The Candle Problem’ is a classic experiment created by the Austrian psychiatrist Karl Duncker in 1945.

We ask science writers Jonah Lehrer and Daniel Pink to explain what this exercise can teach us about creativity, motivation and decision making.

Charles Darwin and the voyage of the Beagle

James A. Secord talks about the purpose of the famous voyage of the Beagle, on which the young Charles Darwin was exposed to many of the sights and experiences which led him to formulate his ground-breaking theories.

Listen now

Science writer Marcus Chown on extraterrestrial life: “Where is everybody?”

Science writer Marcus Chown responds to the question first posed by Enrico Fermi – the Italian physicist who developed the first nuclear reactor – about the apparent absence of extraterrestrial life: “Where is everybody?”