In 1958, a successful businessman named Robert Mornroe began to have experiences that drastically altered his life.  Unpredictably, and without his willing it, Monroe found himself leaving his physical body to travel via a "second body" to locales far removed from the physical and spiritual realities of his life. He was...

Answering the question "What is death?" by focusing on the individual is blinkered. It restricts attention to a narrow zone around the individual body of a creature. Instead, how expansive is the answer we receive when we look at the context of death within the...

Matthew's Enigma unfolds the complex relationship between a father, who is a Romanian emigré and distinguished university professor, and his son, who was diagnosed with autism when he was 7 years old. Matei Calinescu's desire to understand Matthew -- his namesake -- is the theme of this moving memoir. Calinescu's determined...

This...

In the days of tall ships, one dreaded foe was responsible for more deaths at sea than piracy, shipwreck and all other illnesses combined: Scurvy. Countless mariners suffered an agonizing death, which began with bleeding gums, wobbly teeth, and the opening of old wounds. Surgeon James Lind, Captain James Cook and physician Sir Gilbert Blane...

An affectionate if impressionistic portrayal of one of the century's greatest and strangest mathematicians. Though little known among nonmathematicians, Erdos, who died in 1996 at age 83, was a legend among his colleagues. According to Hoffman (Archimedes' Revenge, 1988), the Hungarian was so devoted to mathematics that he went without...