This book group explores various fields outside of our normal day-to-day concerns and activities. For the Spring 2023 we will continue with five additional books on aspects of life sciences and cosmology. Siddhartha Mukherjee’s latest book leads off with another of his extraordinary explorations, namely about all living cells and the prospects that new knowledge gives us to improve the human condition. Katie Mack’s book transports us to the cosmic scale by considering how the universe evolved and different theories about how it might end. We then return to earth with Melvin Sheldrake’s fascinating book on the weird world of fungi, and how essential they are to life as we know it. Appropriately in June, we return to the sea with Anthony Palumbi, for a tour of some of the most unusual life forms that inhabit it. Finally, twin authors Perry Zurn and Dani Bassett focus on the neurological and behavioral roots of why we are curious about anything at all, and how our curiosity evolved.

Led by Maurice Lanman and Laurie Calvet.

•  Power sex and suicide: Mitochondria and the meaning of life by Nick Lane  
• An immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us by Ed Yong
• Reality Isn’t what it Seems: The Journey to Quantum Gravity by Carlo Rovelli
• The Experience Machine: How Our Minds Predict and Shape Reality by Andy Clark

• 10 October 
• 14 November 
• 12 December 
• 16 January