SCIENCE AND NATURE

Astrophysics for People in a Hurry,

by Neil deGrasse Tyson (Norton; 224 pages; $18.95). Grappling with the scope of the universe — and what we’ve come to know about it — is no simple endeavor, but in this tidy overview, deGrasse succeeds with seeming effortlessness, pulling in the reader with his exceptional narrative skill and signature humor.

Endangered,

photographs by Tim Flach (Abrams; 336 pages; $65). Flach has long been documenting animals around the world; here, in characteristically exquisite portraits, the London photographer focuses on endangered creatures, including the (impossibly cute) red panda, the pied tamarin and the Bengal tiger.

Into Africa,

by Frans Lanting (Earth Aware Editions; 224 pages; $50). Lanting, the celebrated National Geographic photographer based in Santa Cruz, showcases the fragility of Africa’s wildlife and landscapes in more than 100 stupendous images. “Africa is changing fast,” he writes, “but it still retains a glorious primordial abundance of wildlife that is unmatched anywhere else in the world.” Published by Earth Aware Editions, based in San Rafael.

The Photo Ark: One Man’s Quest to Document the World’s Animals,

by Joel Sartore (National Geographic; 399 pages; $35). For more than a decade, Sartore has been photographing animals for his ambitious National Geographic Photo Ark project; he is up to 6,000 species. Here, 400 of them pop from the pages in lively shots.