The best popular-science books of October 2026
· New Scientist
Big issues abound in this month’s books, as we batten down the hatches against El Niño and the known unknowns out there. Luckily, here in our snug bunker, we have plenty of other things to think about. There’s the source of the next big conflict (it’s probably not what you think), how to eat healthily (as close to definitive as you’re going to get), and fighting talk from inside the rush to develop AI. There’s also the real story of pregnancy loss, giving animals their rightful place, the nature of family, saving childhood, and why humans ask questions. Oh, and there are some silly sums and extraordinary fantasy botanicals for those who fancy a spot of fun. Lovely.
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The AGI Chronicles by Kevin Roose
Just in case you’ve been living in an off-the-grid shack next to a beautiful lake for the past few years, The AGI Chronicles looks like an essential re-entry book before returning to, er, civilisation. The clue’s all over the subtitle, “The inside story of the race to create an artificial superintelligence”, and author Kevin Roose is tech columnist for The New York Times, so he ought to know – a lot. New Scientist will be reviewing it soon in depth, but meanwhile, this zeroes in on the past decade’s efforts by a few companies fighting to build the “most powerful technology in history… artificial general intelligence (AGI) – a computer system capable of outdoing humans at almost anything”. Expect a fat volume (an alarming 448 pages, says the book’s website), based on “more than 150 interviews with insiders at OpenAI, Anthropic and Google DeepMind, as well as unpublished company documents and research memos”. It will be fascinating to see what our reviewer makes of the book. Just don’t drop it on your foot, OK?
Sign up to Book Club Sign up to newsletterHow Many Pikachus Would It Take to Power a Lightbulb? by Tom Crawford
There’s a small band of mathematicians (think Matt Parker, Alex Bellos, Hannah Fry and Eugenia Cheng) who somehow manage to make a tough subject engaging, exciting or, whisper it, even funny. Tom Crawford’s title is certainly enough to raise a guffaw in the hardest of hearts, let alone Pokémon fans. Now try asking, as the publisher does, how many daily calories you would need to feed a Charizard. Could the Death Star’s laser actually blow up a planet? What is the half-life of the Incredible Hulk? And is the meaning of life really “42”? OK, we know the answer to the last question, but it does sound like Crawford is pulling out all the stops to use his Oxford fellow smarts on the fantasy maths of fictional, often wild, universes. Parting shot: just how would you work out Frodo Baggins’s life insurance premium for the journey to Mordor?
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if( window?.adverts?.addToArray ) { window.adverts.addToArray( { "pos": "mid-article-slot" } ); } The late primatologist Frans de WaalKuni Takahashi//Sipa US/AlamyMinds I’ve Met by Frans de Waal
Primatologist Frans de Waal, who died in 2024, left a huge legacy for other scholars and campaigners fighting ideas of human exceptionalism and arguing that animals have complex inner lives. Minds I’ve Met is one of two books by de Waal posthumously published this year; the other is My Family Album, a selection of photographs taken during his work over 30 years, showing, say the publishers, “the rich social life” of the primates he studied. Both books sport the provocative and sometimes moving titles de Waal used to challenge the status quo (think Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?, Mama’s Last Hug, or The Bonobo and the Atheist). In Minds, the kicker is also in the subtitle: “From denying to embracing the inner lives of animals”. The publishers say his “pioneering work… contributed to a new image of animals as intentional agents with minds of their own, capable of remarkable cognitive feats, demonstrating empathy and self-awareness, showing emotions and conscious”. He often wrote for and talked to New Scientist. If he’s new to you, you could do worse than starting here.
Hyperscale by Paris Marx
Forget, for a moment, grappling with AI conceptually and think about it as an environmental issue. All over the world, the data centres already built and those planned are crucial to the current AI successes and to the ambitions of the companies involved. What’s more, say the publishers of a polemical book called Hyperscale, the centres use up resources such as water and power at “dangerously unsustainable levels”. This book’s author is Paris Marx, a tech critic, journalist and host of the Tech Won’t Save You podcast. It sounds like a wild ride, with the publishers saying the “tech overlords are waging a resource war as they trade our future for their profit”. It is nothing less than a “civilisational time bomb in the making”, where tough reporting shows that “the greatest threat is not the spectre of AI, but a global disaster that has already begun”. The book is already longlisted for this year’s Financial Times Business Book of the Year award.
Food Sense by Christopher Gardner
The sheer amount of advice on what to eat to be healthy is unnerving, especially since a lot of it is quite probably junk. But before you reach for a doughnut out of sheer despair, there are books out there that offer sane ways through the morass, with excellent science and tasty-sounding recipes. Food Sense is by Christopher Gardner, who’s been researching nutrition and health for decades, and is now the director of nutrition studies and a professor of medicine at Stanford University in California. His publishers promise that he “shows you where there is genuine scientific consensus so you can discern fact from fads and ignore the health food marketing hype. From weight loss to protein, ultra-processed foods, seed oils, GMO’s and fermented foods, this definitive and myth-busting guide answers all your nutrition questions”. Now there’s a big claim or two. Luckily, former New Scientist staffer (and all-round nutrition, health and longevity specialist writer) Graham Lawton is on hand to review the book later this month so we’ll find out how well they all stack up – that, and how good the recipes are.
Why We Ask Why by Tania Lombrozo
Why are the clouds white? What made that artwork so special? Where does the cat vanish to at night? Who am I? From the existential to the trivial, questioning – curiosity and the seemingly endless desire for answers – feels hardwired in us. So, is it? And does it connect evolutionarily to the human way of learning? Could it even be that elusive thing that makes humans, human? Certainly, the subtitle of Tania Lombrozo’s new book – “The science of explanation and the human drive to understand” – tells us where she thinks we are. She is a professor of psychology at Princeton University, and her research, say her publishers, is all about turning our explanation seeking back on itself by asking, ”What does explanation do for us? And, most important, how can we do it better?” The idea that some explanations are more satisfying than others also sounds intriguing.
Childhood Ltd by Cherry Casey
Have childcare and education in the UK been turned into a business – and if so, who is profiting? Certainly not the children, argues Cherry Casey, a journalist specialising in children’s rights. Her book comes billed as an “exposé of how chasing profits and league tables has come at the cost of developing well rounded, happy people”. As ever, the book’s subtitle positions her quest: “How we turned children into data and why we need to stop”. It’s an interesting argument, given the rise of mental illness even in young children and the overall datafication of our world, and the use (or overuse) of testing and “zero-tolerance” behaviour policies many schools advertise as a desirable end. So, who is profiting, and how do we turn the ship round?
Pregnancy Interrupted by Kate Clancy
This looks to be a moving but probably also essential book, dealing with the realities of one of life’s most important but common events: the loss of a pregnancy. The author is Kate Clancy, a professor of anthropology at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, where she’s based in the Department of Gender and Women’s Studies and the Program in Ecology, Evolution, and Conservation Biology. This is likely to give her book the kind of heft it needs to challenge the myths surrounding pregnancy loss. According to its publisher, Clancy “makes an impassioned, fact-based case for truthfulness and care at a time when inaccurate images of fetuses abound, electronic impulses continue to pass for a heartbeat, and reproductive autonomy is criminalized”.
Elisabeth Braw’s new book explores how underwater cables are under threatSybille Reuter/AlamyThe Undersea War by Elisabeth Braw
Where the next war will come from is a question that keeps many of us awake at night – not to mention political analysts and defence chiefs fully occupied. One place you would be unlikely to guess is the bottom of the sea. But that is where an extraordinary-sounding book is set. A quick peek confirms that the book looks to deliver on its publisher’s description as a “gripping account of the hidden battles beneath the world’s oceans, where cables and pipelines – the lifelines of the modern world – are under constant threat from states, corporations, and hackers”. And remember, the stakes could hardly be higher at a time when so much global traffic – internet, energy, telecoms – runs through cables that are out of sight. Braw is a force to reckon with: she’s a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, where she leads the Threats to the Global Maritime Order initiative. She was previously a senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute and is also a member of the UK National Preparedness Commission.
Botanica Fantastica by Alison Flood, illustrated by Emma Tudor-Bloch
Here’s some fun – a chance to join New Scientist’s own Alison Flood (sidenote: this is included here without any pressure or suggestion from her…) on a strange voyage into the fictional botanical worlds created by authors drawn from the ranks of science fiction and fantasy. Published in association with the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, it comes with over 100 beautiful (if occasionally scary) illustrations by artist Emma Tudor-Bloch, vividly bringing to life all manner of unreal plants and fungi. And for those seeking a bit of heft, there’s expert text and historical images from Kew’s experts, exploring the real-life plants and fungi that inspired the fantasy. So, watch out for a host worlds including nightlock (The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins), weirwood trees (A Song of Ice and Fire, George R.R. Martin), Ents (The Lord of the Rings, J. R. R. Tolkien), redweed (The War of the Worlds, H.G. Wells), wheel trees (The Amber Spyglass, Philip Pullman) and the Cordyceps fungus (The Last of Us).
Read moreThe best new science-fiction books of October 2026
Family by Meredith Small
Mother. Father. Son. Daughter. Grandmother… Most of us grow up in a family of some sort, no matter how dysfunctional. But Family: How the human need for belonging shapes our lives by Meredith Small is no self-help book. Small is a well-known anthropologist at Cornell University in New York state, and the author of Our Babies, Ourselves. Here, say her publishers, she sets out to examine the roots of the family and why this type of connection is the bedrock of human interaction in all cultures – and how getting to grips with its nature might help us “navigate our rapidly changing world”. Given the sometimes overemphasis on the family and “family values” globally, some might argue we should join Small as she asks why we form families and place such importance on family relationships, and whether family life does deliver – throughout our different stages and ages. As you would expect from an anthropologist, Small’s time frame spans millions of years and her scope is global – all human life and setup is here, promises the publisher. From a peek, it looks like family is as varied as the human experience. Lots of room for manoeuvre, thankfully.
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