Harvard Book Store has anchored Harvard Square for generations, and its author series is one of the most decorated in the country — novelists, historians, journalists, and heavyweight academics cycling through readings, conversations, and signings beneath the shop’s famously creaky wooden floors. On any given week the calendar can swing from literary fiction to foreign policy to memoir.

The Harvard Science Book Talks are the series’ nerdiest branch, run jointly with Harvard’s Division of Science and Harvard Library: authors of new science books written for non-specialists give a talk, take questions, and stick around for a reception and signing in Cabot Science Library across the hall. Between the two tracks, this is the Square’s most dependable night out for people who read. Arrive early when a big name is on the bill — the faithful show up in force.