We double up on the physics in this episode: First, Katie Mack looks at the universe’s end-game in The End of Everything (Astrophysically Speaking). Then we explore the universe’s most exotic objects in Janna Levin’s new book, Black Hole Survival Guide.

In this special episode of BookLab, we focus on COVID-19 by journalist Debora MacKenzie. Her book examines how this pandemic happened, how it might have been prevented – or at least mitigated – and what can be done to make sure a similar catastrophic public health crisis doesn’t happen again.

Featured book: Until the End of Time, by Brian Greene.

Where exactly do human beings fit in, in this vast cosmos?  Brian Greene tackles the mysteries of life, the universe, and everything in an ambitious new book.

And on the nightstand: Superior, by Angela Saini; and Moral Tribes by Joshua Greene

Featured book: The Feeling of Life Itself, by Christof Koch.

A neuroscientist who’s spent decades studying the puzzle of consciousness explores the problem of how the brain gives rise to the mind.

And on the nightstand: Supernavigators, by David Barrie; and The Math of Life and Death, by Kit Yates.

It’s one of the most provocative ideas in all of science – the notion that our universe might just an infinitesimal part of a much larger reality.  In this episode, we look at two new books that take us deep into the multiverse: The Number of the Heavens, by Tom Siegfried; and Something Deeply Hidden, by Sean Carroll.