Explore our diverse collection of thought-provoking new releases – these captivating titles promise to expand your horizons and challenge your perspectives.
Must Read Non-Fiction For July 2025
The Salmon Cannon and the Levitating Frog
9781399817004 | Basic Books | TPB
Carly Anne York
A playful examination of how science’s silliest research leads to crucial breakthroughs and enduring insights.
Why would anyone research how elephants pee? Or study worms who tie themselves into a communal knot? Or quantify the squishability of a cockroach?
Carly Anne York shows how unappreciated, overlooked and simply curiosity-driven science has led to breakthroughs big and small. Got wind power? You might have humpback whales to thank. Know anything about particle physics? Turns out there is a ferret close to the heart of it all. And if you want to keep salmon around, be thankful for that cannon! The research itself can seem bizarre, but it drives our economy. York invites us to appreciate the often-unpredictable journey of scientific exploration, highlighting that the heart of science lies in the relentless pursuit of knowledge for its own sake. Emphasizing the hard work of the people behind the discoveries, this is an accessible, story-driven book that shows how important and exciting it is to simply let curiosity run wild.
The Mind Electric
9780349019116 | Virago | TPB
Pria Anand
A young woman channelling the voice of the Holy Spirit. A mother whose children have been replaced by changelings. A family cursed by a mysterious inability to sleep. Pria Anand’s patients come to her with myriad peculiar symptoms, but they all have something in common: their diagnosis always hinges on a story. Her task as a neurologist is akin to a detective’s, piecing together the clues in a patient’s account with the tells of their body in order to settle on a diagnosis.
In her gorgeously lyrical, passionate and humane first book, Pria Anand shares stories of her own patients alongside her own experiences as a doctor, a mother and a patient, in order to explore all the bizarre ways in which our brains go awry. Moving from the Boston hospital where she treats her patients, to her childhood years in India, to Isla Providencia in the Caribbean and to Guinea in West Africa, she demonstrates again and again the compelling paradox at the heart of neurology: that the strangest symptoms experienced by any single individual can show us something universal about being human.
Superagency: What Could Possibly Go Right With Our AI Future
9798893310733 | Authors Equity | TPB
Reid Hoffman
Tech visionary and co-founder of Manas AI Reid Hoffman shares his unique insider’s perspective on an AI-powered future, making the case for its potential to unlock a world of possibilities.
As taught at UPenn’s Wharton and Stanford.
Superagency offers a roadmap for using AI inclusively and adaptively to improve our lives and create positive change. While acknowledging challenges like disinformation and potential job changes, the book focuses on AI’s immense potential to increase individual agency and create better outcomes for society as a whole.
Imagine AI tutors personalizing education for each child, researchers rapidly discovering cures for diseases like Alzheimer’s and cancer, and AI advisors empowering people to navigate complex systems and achieve their goals. Hoffman and co-author, tech and culture writer Greg Beato envision a world where these possibilities, and many more, become a reality.
Superagency challenges conventional fears, inviting us to view the future through a lens of opportunity, rather than fear. It’s a call to action – to embrace AI with excitement and actively shape a world where human ingenuity and the power of AI combine to create something extraordinary.
Entrepreneur Reid Hoffman is a co-founder of LinkedIn, Inflection AI, and Manas AI. He is also host of the podcasts Possible and Masters of Scale.
Pride and Prejudices
9781915590756 | Scribe UK | HB
Keio Yoshida
Internationally acclaimed human rights lawyer Keio Yoshida uncovers the ongoing battle for LGBTQ+ rights, how far we’ve come, and how much further we have to go.
The right to life and the right to live life free from discrimination are rights that are codified and legally protected, but ― unlike those on women’s rights, disability rights, children’s rights, freedom from torture, and racial discrimination ― there is no dedicated and binding treaty or convention in international human rights law with respect to LGBTQ+ rights.
In Pride and Prejudices, Yoshida analyses case law from around the world, including Rosanna Flamer Caldera v Sri Lanka, the first global precedent to call for the decriminalisation of same-sex intimacy between women, in which Yoshida acted as counsel, as well as other timely cases such as the bitter debate over self-ID for trans people in the UK and Florida’s recent ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill.
This pivotal book addresses the legal problems that still persist and contribute to the violence and discrimination that the international LGBTQ+ population experiences on a daily basis, and demonstrates what more needs to be done to protect LGBTQ+ communities.
