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Balakrishnan, Dr. Chris & Matt Wasowski (text) & Kristen Orr (illus.). How To Win Friends and Influence Fungi: Collected Quirks of Science, Tech, Engineering, and Math from Nerd Nite. St. Martin’s. Feb. 2024. 320p. ISBN 9781250288349. $30. Downloadable. LIFE SCIENCES

Flannery, Tim & Emma Flannery. Big Meg: The Story of the Largest and Most Mysterious Predator That Ever Lived. Atlantic Monthly. Feb. 2024. 208p. ISBN 9780802162588. $27. NATURE

Gupta, Shalene. The Cycle: Confronting the Pain of Periods and PMDD. Flatiron: Macmillan. Feb. 2024. 240p. ISBN 9781250882899. $26.99. WOMEN’S HEALTH

Hamilton, Allan J. Cerebral Entanglements: How the Brain Shapes Our Emotional Life, from Love, Laughter, Empathy, and Greed, to Violence, Memory, and How We Experience Time. Pantheon. Feb. 2024. 448p. ISBN 9780593315842. $35. NEUROSCIENCE

Oakes, John. The Fast: The History, Science, Philosophy, and Promise of Doing Without. Avid Reader: S. & S. Feb. 2024. 224p. ISBN 9781668017418. $27.99. HEALTH

O’Kane, Trish. Birding to Change the World: A Memoir. Ecco. Feb. 2024. 336p. ISBN 9780063223141. $29.99. NATURE

Cofounders of the global science organization Nerd Nite, going strong for 20 years,Balakrishnan and Wasowski compile the quirky science facts typically shared by its participants in How To Win Friends and Influence Fungi (125,000-copy first printing). World-renowned scientist Tim Flannery (The Weather Makers) and daughter Emma Flannery, also a scientist and writer, chart the rise and fall of Big Meg—the great shark Otodus megalodon—which terrorized the seas for 15 million years. In The Cycle, journalist Gupta reports on premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD), a severe form of PMS plaguing millions of women (including the author) that causes severe anger and depression (75,000-copy first printing). In Cerebral Entanglements, neurosurgeon Hamilton pulls up the latest in neuroimaging studies of the brain to help us understand our emotions. Editor-at-large for OR Books, which he cofounded in 2009, Oakes examines the history, biology, and renewed interest in an old practice, The Fast, a way of radically managing with less and a reminder of a slower, more thoughtful way of life. A journalist and environmental educator at the University of Vermont who created the course Birding To Change the World , O’Kane explains what birds can teach us about life and the need to protect the environment (75,000-copy first printing).

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