On the heels of his previous book Cold, biologist Bill Streever takes the next logical step and sets out to understand what happens, scientifically speaking, when things get hot. The result is part scientific narrative, part travelog. Streever visits nuclear blast sites and laboratories where supercollider experiments reach trillions of degrees Fahrenheit. He interviews physicists, geologists, firefighters and instructors who teach firewalking at corporate team-building seminars. He recounts the history of volcanoes that belch scorching pyroclastic flows, describes blistering fevers and expla... (p. 30)

This comprehensive biography of the mathematician details his life and contributions to math, physics and philosophy. Princeton Univ., 2012, 593 p., $35 (p. 30)

A biologist pens a tribute to crabs, exploring everything from their life cycles and behavior to the many ways humans eat them. Cornell Univ., 2012, 224 p., $29.95 (p. 30)

The physics of two-wheeled locomotion gets deep coverage in this illustrated overview for the bike-obsessed. Univ. of Chicago, 2012, 192 p., $30 (p. 30)

The eccentric life of the insatiably curious, but often wrong, 17th century scholar Athanasius Kircher is explored in this tale of his influence on science. Riverhead Books, 2012, 335 p., $26.95 (p. 30)