What Remains to be Discovered: Mapping the Secrets of the Universe, the Origins of Life and the Future of the Human Race by John Maddox (Papermac, £12 in UK)

Is John Maddox trying to cheer us all up or scare us to death? He does both quite eloquently in this book delivered on the back of a rhetorical question. How could any past editor of 20 years at the august science journal Nature take any other view - of course scientific progress is not at an end and there is as much to learn about science now as there was 500 years ago. He rambles far and wide across the technological savannah, as happy to discuss the expanding universe as what happens if the ice caps melt. Of course he saw it all in the thousands of papers published by Nature during his extensive term of office and he has used this experience to take us where he believes things will go in the future. His appealing style makes this book worth reading.