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Science
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Sleeping beauties
Why do some of nature's marvels have to wait millions of years for their time in the sun?
£11.99
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Pathogenesis
Humans did not make history - we played host. This humbling and revelatory book shows how infectious disease has shaped humanity at every stage, from the first success of Homo sapiens over the equally intelligent Neanderthals to the fall of Rome and the rise of Islam.
£10.99
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Our accidental universe
The BBC presenter of 'Sky at Night', and Gresham Professor of Astronomy, Chris Lintott, takes us on an astonishing tour of bizarre accidents, big characters, and human error to tell the story of some of the most important astronomical events of the past hundred years.
£22.00
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We are electric
You may be familiar with the idea of our body's biome - the bacterial fauna that populates our gut and can so profoundly affect our health. In 'We Are Electric' we cross the next frontier of scientific understanding: discover your body's electrome.
£10.99
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The psychopath test
Jon Ronson's screamingly funny and deeply disturbing classic exploration of psychopathy.
£10.99
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Size
Size is the most fundamental structural variable of the universe. Neither bacteria nor empires are immune to its laws. Measuring it is challenging, especially where complex systems like economies are concerned, yet mastering it offers rich rewards: the rise of the West, for example, was a direct result of ever more accurate and standardized measurements. Grounded in history and drawing on the latest science, with much recourse to art and classic literature, 'Size' explains the regularities - and peculiarities - of the key processes shaping life (from microbes to whales), the Earth (from asteroids to volcanic eruptions), technical advances (from architecture to transportation), and societies and economies (from cities to wages).
£10.99
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Before the Big Bang
One of the world's most celebrated cosmologists presents her breakthrough explanation of our origins in the multiverse.What came before the Big Bang, and what exists outside of the universe it created? Until recently, scientists could only guess at what lay past the edge of spacetime. But as pioneering theoretical physicist Laura Mersini-Houghton explains, today new scientific tools are giving us the ability to peer beyond the limits of our universe and test our theories about what is there.
£12.99
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Bad data
Our politicians make vital decisions and declarations every day that rely on official data. But should all statistics be trusted? In 'Bad Data', House of Commons Library statistician Georgina Sturge draws back the curtain on how governments of the past and present have been led astray by figures littered with inconsistency, guesswork and uncertainty.
£12.99
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A year in numbers
Did you know: Only around 100 people have ever lived beyond a million hours (that's about 114 years) - Around 7% of everyone who has ever lived is currently alive - The '12 days of Christmas' song, when sung in full, results in 364 gifts being given - one for every day, except Christmas. Broken down into 12 chapters that correspond roughly to months of the year - from going 'back to school' with arithmetic and times tables through prime numbers and all the way to the 12 Days of Chris-maths, this book features a collection of 365 fascinating numerical 'nuggets', accompanied by clear, bite-size explanations of the mathematics that underpin them.
£12.99
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Escape from model land
Models are at the centre of everything we do. Whether we use them or are simply affected by them, they act as metaphors that help us better understand the increasingly complex problems facing us in the modern world. Without models, we couldn't begin to tackle three of the major challenges facing modern society: regulation of the economy, climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet in recent years, the validity of the models we use has been hotly debated and there has been renewed awareness of the disastrous consequences when the makers and interpreters of models get things wrong. Drawing on contemporary examples from finance, climate and health policy, Erica Thompson explores what models are, why we need them, how they work and what happens when they go wrong.
£12.99
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Starborn
For tens of thousands of years, the stars were our constant companions. One of our species' most enduring and universal relationships has been with the night sky itself, yet in the glow of today's artificial lighting, we have forgotten this intimacy with the cosmos. Stargazing has shaped the course of human civilization. The rhythm of our ancestors' lives revolved around the stars, from cycles of agriculture to patterns of birth. Origin myths made the Sun into a life-giving creator and the Milky Way a gateway for departed souls. Leading cosmologist Roberto Trotta imagines a world without stars, a dramatic alternate history in which we wouldn't understand gravity, couldn't navigate or have much sense of time, and where our sense of the profound was altered beyond recognition.
£22.00
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Black holes
A Brief History of Time for the 21st CenturyAt the heart of our galaxy lies a monster so deadly, not even light can escape its grasp. Its secrets lie waiting to be discovered. It's time to explore our universe's most mysterious inhabitantsBlack Holes
£10.99
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Philip's 2024 stargazing month-by-month guide to the night sky Britain & Ireland
This is a guide for stargazers in Britain and Ireland. The new 2024 edition has been completely revised to make it even more essential for exploring the night skies - making the night sky accessible to beginners and experts alike.
£6.99
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Grey matters
A Brief History of Intelligence bridges the gap between AI and neuroscience by telling the evolutionary story of how the brain came to be.
£22.00
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The long shot
On the 3rd of April 2020, Kate Bingham was told that the likelihood of any COVID-19 vaccine working was 15% at best. But on the 8th of December 2020, the first NHS patient received a vaccine. Now nearly every adult in Britain has had a jab, lockdowns have ended and we can finally live with Covid. What lies behind this staggering success story? This is an insider view into how the Vaccine Taskforce beat the odds and delivered the scientific miracle we all waited for.
£10.99
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A book of noises
Sound shapes our world in invisible but significant ways, and here Caspar Henderson brings his characteristic curiosity, knowledge and sense of wonder to the subject to take us on an exhilarating journey through the heard universe. 'A Little Book of Noises' gathers together sounds from the cosmos, the natural world, the human world, and the invented world, as well as containing quiet pockets of silence. From the vast sound of sand in the desert to the tuneful warble of a songbird, to the meditative resonance of a temple bell and the improvisational melodies of jazz, this is a celebration of all things auricular.
£16.99
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The song of the cell
Rich with Mukherjee's revelatory and exhilarating stories of scientists, doctors, and the patients whose lives may be saved by their work, 'The Song of the Cell' is the third book in this extraordinary writer's exploration of what it means to be human.
£14.99
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Einstein in time and space
His face is one of the most recognisable in history. His name is shorthand for 'genius'. His fame is inextricable from his person. Today, he's a figurehead as much as a man, symbolic of things larger than himself: of scientific progress, of the human mind, even of the age. But who was Einstein really? Samuel Graydon tackles this giant of intellect by breaking Einstein's life down into 99 particles, through which he explores Einstein's agglomeration of selves, contradictory as much as cohesive. Ranging from extracts of Einstein's fascinating letters to his scientific theories to his romantic relationships to his thoughts on the historical moment, Graydon explores the mosaic of Einstein.
£20.00
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Dust
Four-and-a-half billion years ago, Planet Earth was formed from a vast spinning nebula of cosmic dust, the detritus left over from the birth of the sun. Within the next 100 years, human life on swathes of the Earth's surface will end in a haze of heat, drought, and, again, dust. Dust is a legacy of 20th-century progress and a profound threat to life in the 21st century. And yet dust is something we hardly ever consider - it is so small and so mundane as to be beyond the threshold of thought. This book sparks curiosity and corrects that oversight.
£25.00
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How to expect the unexpected
Are you more likely to become a professional footballer if your surname is Ball? Is winning the National Lottery not once, but twice really as unlikely as it sounds? Why did so many Pompeiians stay put while Mount Vesuvius was erupting? How do you prevent a nuclear war? Ever since the dawn of human civilisation, we have been trying to make predictions about what's in store for us. We do this on a personal level, so that we can get on with our lives efficiently (should I hang my laundry out to dry, or will it rain?). But we also have to predict on a much larger scale, often for the good of our broader society (how can we spot economic downturns or prevent terrorist attacks?). For just as long, we have been getting it wrong. This book will teach you how and why predictions go wrong, help you to spot phony forecasts and give you a better chance of getting your own predictions correct.
£25.00
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The night sky
'The Night Sky' is chock full of information explaining what, when and how to observe space and understanding the night sky. This is a practical guide for both budding and seasoned astronomers, an easy introduction to astronomy and a useful resource for more experienced stargazers.
£12.99
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The genetic age
A new gene editing technology, invented just seven years ago, has turned humanity into gods. Enabling us to manipulate the genes in virtually any organism with exquisite precision, CRISPR has given scientists a degree of control that was undreamt of even in science fiction. But CRISPR is just the latest, giant leap in a long journey to master genetics. 'The Genetic Age' shows the astonishing, world-changing potential of the new genetics and the possible threats it poses, sifting between fantasy and the reality when it comes to both benefits and dangers.
£12.99
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The great plant-based con
Almost every day we hear a call for us to reduce our consumption of meat and dairy, with the long-term goal for many being the widespread conversion to a totally vegan lifestyle. 'Plant-based' has become a term so worthy and ubiquitous that many people have forgotten their historic antipathy to an extreme vegan cause. But what if the statistics driving the plant-based movement were misleading or even false? What if we were being manipulated by a happy coalition of vested interests that includes environmentalists, Big Pharma, Big Food, established dietary advice organisations, and even a little known but rich and powerful religious group with a long-standing commitment to a vegan diet? What if removing animal foods from our diet was a serious threat to human health, and a red herring in the fight against climate change?
£14.99
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Beyond measure
We measure rainfall and radiation, the depths of space and the emptiness of atoms, calories and steps, happiness and fear. If we could not measure then we could not observe the world around us; we could not experiment, learn, and co-operate. But why did this urge to measure flourish? And when did measurement become ubiquitous? It is an incredible story that spans hunter-gatherer societies to ancient Egyptians, the French Revolution to the relentless quantification of the 21st century self. It is a tale that tracks humanity's search for dependable truths in a chaotic universe. Full of mavericks and visionaries, adventure and breakthroughs, 'Beyond Measure' shows that measurement has not only made the world we live in, it has made us too.
£12.99
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