This collection of short essays by a modern Italian physicist feels like a poetry collection on science: beautiful and touching, yet intellectually engaging. What a combo, right ?

And if you, like myself, didn’t even know where the poetry section is located in your local bookstore, the chances are, this will change after you give Carlo Rovelli a read. 

Did you know that the most significant contribution of Stephen Hawking to physics is the discovery of black holes emanating heat ? This is surprising because black holes are known to absorb and not exude matter and energy. 

From these stories you can learn about the definition of knowledge, what happens to the matter that falls into a black hole, of Nabokov's contribution to entomology, Kip Throne and his Nobel prize in gravitational waves.. 

My only regret with this book is that it’s not a single, continuous narrative - though even that hardly takes any credit away from it. 

We can disagree on many things, but death is the most certain outcome of every life form.

Despite my original scepticism of the seemingly cliche and overused topic, I still learned so much from the book about the biology of ageing.

Venki as a structural biologists, Nobel Prize winner and an author of one of my favourite pop science books (The Gene Mashine) dives deep into the myriad of processes regulating ageing: life span correlation with the animal size and reverse correlation with metabolism rate, the telomeres (of course!), methylation profile, integrated stress response inhibitors (ISRIB), caloric restriction, mitochondria dysfunction and many more.

As expected from the title, the book is mostly about everything, and nothing is particularly conclusive. For those looking for the evidence based fast remedy for healthy longevity the best advice is still: exercise and don't eat much.

I was too old and too far in microglia research when I first learned about Ben Barres. A person who's work guided me (How to pick a graduate advisor ) way before I discovered his story.

A brave and sincere read about one of the very first openly transgender people in modern academia. Ben Barres was a chair of the Neurobiology Department at Stanford, trained as a medical doctor and eventually finding his passion in studying glia-neuron interaction. Ben transitioned to male in 1997, when there were no role models, no precedents.

I was the most captivated by such a personal story, from medical and biological perspective. One of the most memorable episodes of the book is how he describes his eventual inability to cry after he commences the testosterone hormonal treatment. 

It's a very short read, recommended to anyone interested in making academia a genuinely better place, and moreover to anyone working in Glia research.

This book feels like falling in love.

Witty, adventurous, heartfelt - this book is everything and more. 

An autobiography depicts the life path of an Indian immigrant student in Ohio University, who considers applying for a second PhD program, all the way to becoming a Nobel Prize laureat. 

In 2009 Venki Ramakrishnan shared a Nobel Prize with Thomas Steitz and Ada Yonath (from Berlin MPI) for the discovery of a ribosome structure and function. 

Before establishing himself in the field of structural proteomics, Venki went through a series of job changes, moving his family across the United states in search of a better work place.

Without any fanfare to the scientific discovery, Venki recounts multiple failures and constantly acknowledges the lucky chance which plays a role even despite of devoted work and brilliant team.

This book is my number one recommendation for anyone in the field of biology. Many technical details can become overwhelming for the outsider, but the story is generously diluted with dry humor. 

If you are craving a dry chronological recount of the discovery of molecular cloning, race for synthetic human insulin production and the history of the first Biotech company creation - look no more. 

For the fans of stories without any female characters - you'd be delighted.

At the same, time the story which Sally Hughes is telling us is captivating by its nature. The story that started with a duo of young and ambitious Swanson with Masters in Buisness and a University of California Professor - Herbert Boyer. Curious, bold and often scientifically aggressive team of young scientists are developing somatostatin synthesis in bacterial culture, followed by human insulin and growth hormone. In the times of strict NIH guidelines of the recombinant DNA research and stressful competition with other labs. 

Not only did they develop the new biological methods, they also built a functional and successful company, and alternative to academia, free of hierarchy, research culture.

An extra star is sadly taken off for referring to postdoctoral scientists as "postdoctoral students"