A riveting history of the men and women whose discoveries and inventions at the end of the 18th century gave birth to the Romantic Age of Science, "The Age of Wonder" explores the earliest ideas of deep time and space, and the explorers of "dynamic science": an infinite, mysterious Nature waiting to be discovered. Three lives dominate the book: William Herschel, his sister Caroline, and Humphry Davy.

Moving into an inherited mansion in Maine with their mother and stroke-afflicted father, three siblings uncover a mystery involving hidden passageways, family rivalries, and healing waters.

Growing up fascinated with the fossils she collected on the beach, Mary Anning blossomed into a skillful amateur archaeologist. When she discovers an intriguing fossilized skeleton, townspeople and religious authorities react viciously. Barred from the scientific community and in love with an unavailable man, Mary turns to Elizabeth Philpot, a London exile, for friendship. Together, they look to make their way in the evolving nineteenth century through...

As editor of "Seeing Further," Bryson has rounded up an extraordinary roster of scientists who write and writers who know science in order to celebrate 350 years of the Royal Society, Britain's scientific national academy. The contributors include Margaret Atwood, Steve Jones, Richard Dawkins, James Gleick, Richard Holmes, and Neal Stephenson, among many others, on subjects ranging from metaphysics to nuclear physics, from the threatened endtimes...

How long does it take for science to find an answer to a problem? On January 25, 1862, naturalist Charles Darwin received a box of orchids. One flower, the Madagascar star orchid, fascinated him. It had an 11.5 inch nectary, the place where flowers make nectar, the sweet liquid that insects and birds eat. How, he wondered, did insects pollinate the orchid? After experiments, he made a prediction. There must be a giant moth with a 11.5 inch proboscis,...