The Book of Books by Melvyn Bragg. After 400 years in print, the King James Version of the Bible is perhaps the most pivotal book ever written.

Is the universe accidental—now pictured as a single bubble within a cosmic foam? Or is this just a choice of belief, not an empirical conclusion?

In The Big Thirst: The Secret Life and Turbulent Future of Water, journalist Charles Fishman reintroduces the reader to life’s most precious resource—water.

The worry that we will overstep our ability to control the use of our material knowledge has been a recurring literary theme.

Is preserving the species, or even the planet, the ultimate in human meaning? Vision looks at three recent books that outline potential end-time disasters.

In the wake of the 2007–09 financial crisis, a number of economists and commentators have written books to try to establish why the crisis happened.

Vision discusses three books that examine why and how people hold beliefs about the meaning of life and the existence of God.

What does it take to achieve a long and prosperous life? In The Blue Zones, National Geographic writer and explorer Dan Buettner relates his attempt to find out.

Save the World and Still Be Home for Dinner by Will Marré proposes a lifestyle that considers sustainability of resources as well as of relationships.

What makes poor people poor? What can they do about their poverty? Paul Polak started International Development Enterprises to answer these questions.