The Ten Best Science Books of 2021

From captivating memoirs by researchers to illuminating narratives by veteran science journalists, these works affected us the most this year. This year the news cycle was dominated again by stories about Covid-19, and rightly so, but other big discoveries were made throughout the sciences. NASA landed another rover on Mars, researchers discovered a new possible species of human, and scientists found ways climate change is influencing the evolution of animals—all topics that may lend themselves to future books.