How It Began: A Time-Traveler's Guide to the Universe

  • Chris Impey
Norton 448 pp. $27.95 (2012)

Astronomer Chris Impey takes us on a celestial road trip into deep space and time. His guided tour of the Universe starts with Earth's near neighbours — from the Moon to the star Proxima Centauri, the Orion nebula and the Milky Way — and journeys to the farthest edges of the cosmos and the first star. He pulls up at the ultimate grey area: the infant Universe, and the cosmological speculation about it. Each leg of the trip packs in science, history and anecdote, and is topped and tailed with imagined descriptions of each starry port of call.

Middle Age: A Natural History

  • David Bainbridge
Portobello Books 304 pp. £14.99 (2012)

Turning 40 can be a time for celebration — or anguish. David Bainbridge, a veterinary surgeon with a penchant for evolutionary zoology, passed that watershed seething with curiosity about middle age. Sifting findings from anthropology, neuroscience, biology and psychology, he intelligently tackles tough issues such as whether there is a 'clock of death' — a genetically programmed march to oblivion. He concludes that middle age is a peak, not a slide: a distinctly human, built-in condition characterized by energy efficiency, mental stability, productivity and massive potential.

Destination Mars: New Explorations of the Red Planet

  • Rod Pyle
Prometheus 280 pp. $19 (2012)

The seductive fascination of the red planet never palls, and science writer and documentary maker Rod Pyle stokes our hunger. For the Mars obsessed, the real thrills will be in his detailed descriptions of upcoming missions, the pseudo-Martian research conducted in Earth's most hostile environments, and interviews with explorers such as Steven Squyres, principal investigator of NASA's Mars Exploration Rover. Pyle's look at the planet and our perceptions and probings of it also covers Mars's geography, geology and hydrology, and its cultural history on Earth.

The Self Illusion: Why There is No 'You' Inside Your Head

  • Bruce Hood
Constable 272 pp. £12.99 (2012)

Day to day, we experience a sense of self but, says Bruce Hood, it is a fabrication generated by our brains. Furthermore, that sense is symphonically distributed — created by a range of brain processes rather than centred in one site. Director of the Bristol Cognitive Development Centre, UK, Hood has amassed a mountain of support for his argument — covering brain development through social interaction such as attachment, the importance of social mimicry, the illogicality of free will, online and offline 'selves' and much, much more.

The Omnivorous Mind: Our Evolving Relationship with Food

  • John S. Allen
Harvard University Press 328 pp. £29.95 (2012)

Whether we're obsessing over intricate recipes or daydreaming about chocolate, our minds are often focused on food. Neuroanthropologist John Allen uses this mental gustation as a lens on our biological and cultural past, through anthropology, food history and the experience of chefs. The result is a banquet. Ranging over food cravings and aversions, cultural preferences and diets, he serves up plenty of amuse-bouches, not least an unusual take on the global love for the crispy and crunchy.