Change Your Perspective and Really SEE the World
Discover transformative books that change your perspective and help you really see the world. From Bill Bryson's science classic to Yann Arthus-Bertrand's stunning photography, this curated list offers fresh lenses on life, nature, and human experience.
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The Passion
by Jeanette Winterson
Winner of the 1987 John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, this novel explores the many faces of passion. Set in Napoleon's Europe, it is an evocative exploration of love, war and chance.
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Teaching a Stone to Talk
by Annie Dillard
Here, in this compelling assembly of writings, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Annie Dillard explores the world of natural facts and human meanings.
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A Natural History of the Senses
by Diane Ackerman
Diane Ackerman's lusciously written grand tour of the realm of the senses includes conversations with an iceberg in Antarctica and a professional nose in New York, along with dissertations on kisses and tattoos, sadistic cuisine and the music played by the planet Earth. “Delightful . . . gives the reader the richest possible feeling of the worlds the senses take in.” —The New York Times
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Earth from Above
by Yann Arthus-Bertrand
This picture-a-day book shows Earth in a revealing, eye-popping photographic view rarely ever seen. 365 photos.
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A Short History of Nearly Everything
by Bill Bryson
One of the world’s most beloved writers and New York Times bestselling author of A Walk in the Woods and The Body takes his ultimate journey—into the most intriguing and intractable questions that science seeks to answer. In A Walk in the Woods, Bill Bryson trekked the Appalachian Trail—well, most of it. In A Sunburned Country, he confronted some of the most lethal wildlife Australia has to offer. Now, in his biggest book, he confronts his greatest challenge: to understand—and, if possible, answer—the oldest, biggest questions we have posed about the universe and ourselves. Taking as territory everything from the Big Bang to the rise of civilization, Bryson seeks to understand how we got from there being nothing at all to there being us. To that end, he has attached himself to a host of the world’s most advanced (and often obsessed) archaeologists, anthropologists, and mathematicians, travelling to their offices, laboratories, and field camps. He has read (or tried to read) their books, pestered them with questions, apprenticed himself to their powerful minds. A Short History of Nearly Everything is the record of this quest, and it is a sometimes profound, sometimes funny, and always supremely clear and entertaining adventure in the realms of human knowledge, as only Bill Bryson can render it. Science has never been more involving or entertaining.