Best books of 2023 – Science

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Rula Khalaf, editor of the Financial Times, picks her favorite stories in this weekly newsletter.

The Balanced Brain: The Science of Mental Health By Camilla Nord (Allen Lane/Princeton University Press)

Nord, a neuroscientist at the University of Cambridge, describes the balancing act the brain must perform to maintain mental health. She skillfully weaves stories from her personal and professional lives into a scientific analysis of the wide range of treatments available.

White holes: inside the horizon Written by Carlo Rovelli, translated by Simon Carnell (Riverhead Books/Allen Lane)

This slim and speculative volume will appeal to many fans of the astral world of cosmology. In his poetic and imaginative works, he seeks as much as he seeks to convince us that black holes (from which nothing can escape) will eventually turn into white holes (which nothing can enter). It remains to be seen whether his hypothesis is correct.

The Blue Machine: How the Ocean Shapes Our World By Helen Chersky (Turva/WW Norton)

Chersky applies her skills as a physicist to explain what happens in the water that dominates our planet’s surface. She expertly explains what she calls the “ocean engine,” which converts solar energy into a vast system of currents that support a large number of marine organisms.

Under Strange Skies: A Visitor’s Guide to the Universe By Philip Plait (W.W. Norton)

Plate takes us on a cosmic journey – a living guide for space tourists in the distant future. We start on the Moon and move through the Solar System and then continue examining interesting objects in interstellar space. We are approaching a voracious black hole as close as we can safely go and see stars being born within the Orion Nebula.

The Virtual You: How building your digital twin will revolutionize medicine and change your life By Peter Coveney and Roger Highfield (Princeton University Press)

Computer simulations have come to play a leading role in many areas of science. Science writer Highfield and computer scientist Coveney show with vivid examples how medical researchers create digital twins of individual patients and then use these virtual humans to direct treatments for a wide range of diseases.

The year 2023 was written

All this week, Financial Times writers and pundits share their favourites. Some highlights are:

Monday: Works by Andrew Hill
Tuesday: Environment by Belita Clark
Wednesday: Economics by Martin Wolf
Thursday: A fantasy novel by Laura Battle and Andrew Dixon
Friday: Politics by Gideon Rachman
Saturday: Critics’ Choice

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