Focusing on the inventors as well as the inventions The lives, loves and deaths of splendidly unreasonable inventors by Jeremy Coller and Christine Chamberlin examine the process from the original idea to subsequent wealth and fame – for some! These inventors, largely from the 19th and 20th centuries are responsible for changing how we live our day-to-day lives. Learn how the sewing machine, the safety razor, the telephone and many more inventions became reality.

Readers of Physics World voted for their most popular equation. A brief guide to the great equations : the hunt for cosmic beauty in numbers by Robert Crease lists the top ten. What made number 1? Surprisingly (to those non-mathematicians perhaps) the most commonly known equation “E=mc2″ was out-voted by Euler’s equation “eip+1=0″. A poetic mathematician states that it “captures with beautiful simplicity what can only be described clumsily in words”. Who could disagree?

Simon Levay’s book When science goes wrong : 12 tales from the dark side of discovery focuses on scientific misadventures. While not appointing blames it highlights the potential life threatening risks that can and do occur when science fails. The impact on the victims can be devastating.

Read more about these books and others about the history of science, the quest to catalogue life and Darwin’s lost world in this month’s Recent Science Picks.