Cixin Liu’s The Three-Body Problem starts with China’s Cultural Revolution and the Sino-American arms race, but quickly leaves such mundane affairs behind to explore what happens to the universe when you weaponize the laws of physics. If you think atom bombs are scary, wait till you read what a two-dimensional bomb does to our solar system.

Frans de Waal’s Mama’s Last Hug: Animal Emotions and What They Tell Us About Ourselves transported me to a looking-glass animal world, which is at once very alien and embarrassingly familiar. There is plenty of comedy, tragedy, politics and ethics – but chimpanzee-style.

Tim Flannery’s Europe: A Natural History took me on a sightseeing tour. The tour’s highlights include a visit to Europe when it was a tropical archipelago inhabited by dinosaurs, and a hike on foot from London to Amsterdam through ancient Doggerland – before it sank under the waves in a geological Brexit.