Please choose a category from the menu. To order books enter the quantity into the field of the book of your choice, then click on the 'Add to basket' button on the right side.
For centuries, electricity was viewed as little more than the curious property of certain substances that sparked when rubbed. In the 1790's Alessandro Volta began the scientific discoveries that ignited real interest in electricity, transforming our world. In this lively, informative book, Bodanis weaves tales of romance, inspiration and fraud through lucid accounts of scientific breakthrough and the brilliant idiosyncratic minds, such as, visionary Michael Faraday and Alexander Graham Bell, who made them possible. Bodanis also examines Turing's legacy and the role of the Bletchley Park code breakers during the Second World War in heralding in the computer age. Bodanis wears his immense knowledge lightly and is able to present complex material in an accessible, intriguing and entertaining way.
Price: EUR 12.90
Profile Books In this stimulating book, Michael Brooks describes thirteen modern day anomalies that may be tomorrow’s scientific breakthroughs. In the past, similar anomalies have revolutionized our world. For example, in the sixteenth century, a set of celestial irregularities led Copernicus to realise that the earth revolves around the sun not vice versa. Brooks asks the following questions: could ninety-six percent of the universe in fact be missing? Was the 1977 signal from outer space a transmission from an alien civilization? Spanning such diverse fields as chemistry and cosmology, Brooks brilliantly captures the excitement and controversy of the scientific ‘unknowns’.
Price: EUR 16.90
Phoenix In this extraordinary work, Dawkin takes us on a pilgrimage to the dawn of life, for billion years ago. We travel back in time to seek out our ancestors at the same time as every other living creature is setting off on its own journey with the same mission. Each pilgrim tells its tale on the way, uncovering the fascinating processes involved in the unfolding of life. This book is one of the richest and detailed accounts of evolution ever written, combining scholarship with an accessibility that appeals to a wider audience. The result is not just a wealth of absorbing ideas about how living things evolved, but also gives the reader a compelling sense of the urgency and commitment with which science is performed. Brilliant stuff.
Price: EUR 17.90
Bantam This book comes at a critical time when systematic opposition to the fact of evolution is now flourishing as never before, especially in America and Britain. Teachers witness insidious attempts to refute the evidence of science in their classrooms. Dawkins, in this defence of evolution, challenges creationist theories head-on, building up a cast-iron case based on living examples of natural selection in birds and insects, the ‘time clock’ of trees, radioactive dating, fossil records, molecular biology and genetics. Written with elegance and wit, Dawkins has written lucid and convincing arguments using illustrations to support the fact of evolution. A must read!
Price: EUR 17.50
Jonathan Cape ‘The Running Sky’ records a lifetime of looking at birds in a way that brilliantly restores the primacy of actually looking at them in flight. Tim Dee evocatively describes storms of petrols flying from a midnight sea in June to their nesting holes in a two thousand year old stone tower, a million starlings gathering to roost across a freezing winter sky, thereby conjuring up the thrill and mystery of birds in flight. Dee also writes about new global birds such as sparrows, starlings and ravens plus the more exotic species of parrots, bee-eaters and broadbills, organizing, at the same time, their migratory habits according to the seasons. So, with or without binoculars, we as readers can participate in the lives of these marvelous birds as they fly over our heads, sometimes in storms of flight, sometimes in gentle swarms. Wonderful!
Price: EUR 19.00
Katrina S. Firlik - Brain Matters: Adventures of a Brain Surgeon, Weidenfeld & Nicolson Katrina Firlik is a neurosurgeon, one of only 200 or so women among this male-dominated, medical métier. She is also a gifted writer: witty, insightful, humane and refreshingly wry. In ‘Brain Matters’, Dr. Firlik draws on this rare combination to create a unique insider’s memoir of a fascinating profession. A brain surgeon does not only have to be a well-trained scientist but also a down-to-earth mechanic. It is the balance between medical technology and manual dexterity, between instinct and expertise that Firlik finds so appealing. Using individual stories as the starting point for each chapter, such as the carpenter with a nail in his head, or the man with maggots on his brain, she looks at the technical versus the intellectual side of brain surgery. She also conveys her fascination for the beauty and simplicity of a neurosurgeon’s tools while casting a critical look at the ethics and dilemmas of surgery including ‘designer’ brains. ‘Brain Matters’ is a fascinating behind-the-scenes glimpse into a world where surgeons attempt to master the mind.
Price: EUR 13.90
The imaginative new best seller from Brian Greene, author of 'Elegant Universe', takes us on an irresitible journey through the biggest of the questions: What is reality? Could we exist without space and time? What are the limits of the universe? Greene reveals a world more bizarre and beautiful than we can possibly imagine, where space warps and wiggles through eleven dimensions, minute particles dance across vast distances and, like ants on a lily pond, we may be floating on a sliver of space time. This grand tour of the universe makes you look at the world in an entirely different way as it reveals, at the same time, new layers of reality just beneath the surface of our everyday lives.
Price: EUR 11.90
Fourth Estate In ‘Leviathan’, acclaimed writer, Philip Hoare, explores his own passion for whales and charts the troubled history of their relationship with man. On a journey from the North of England to Cape Cod and finally into the Atlantic Ocean, he attempts to discover exactly why these strange, beautiful and mysterious mammals still exercise such a hold on the collective imagination. Hoare uses literature about whales to flesh out his thesis, such as literature from the Leviathan of legend to Free Willy and Melville’s Moby Dick. As a literary metaphor, what do whales tell us about creation and its hidden purpose and why does it fascinate us so much? This erudite and illuminating book both informs and inspires the reader to look a bit deeper.
Price: EUR 28.00
Through a fascinating, elegant mix of scientific research, philosophy, history, myth, mathematics and language theory, Simon Ings brilliantly deciphers the mystery behind why we see in the way we do. With the help of illustrated visual conundrums and enigmas, he succeeds in dissecting some of the eye’s age-old mysteries in a way that both stimulates and provokes the reader into wanting to see more. For example, if you want to see whether someone fancies you or why grass really does look greener over the fence, this is the book for you. Packed with eye-opening information, Ings puts across genuinely arresting and original information about an organ that rarely takes centre stage outside medical textbooks.
Price: EUR 14.90
The voice is a remarkable instrument, but also a remarkably unacknowledged one. While language and body language have been analysed and extolled, the voice has languished, at least beyond the academic world, largely unhymned. Beginning with a description of how the voice actually works, Anne Karpf goes on to investigate its vital role in the bonding of mothers and children, and eventually in all social interaction. She shows that inscribed in our voices are both our deepest feelings about ourselves and shifting ideas about what it is to be male or female. Whether revealing the evocative power of famous voices or studying how technology has transformed the voice, this fascinating study makes it clear that today, the voice is still the most important sound in our lives.
Plume In an astonishing blend of art and science, Daniel Levitin, known for his bestselling ‘This is Your Brain on Music,’ unveils his revolutionary theory of ‘Six Songs,’ describing how music has played such a pivotal role in the creation of human culture and society. He cunningly mixes cutting edge neuroscience, his own sometimes hilarious experiences in the music business and illuminating interviews with experts such as Sting and David Byrne, as well as conductors, anthropologists and evolutionary biologists. Levitin also reveals the prehistoric, elegant systems at play when we sing and dance at weddings, cheer at a concert or tune out privately with an iPod. These six songs will enlighten and enliven the musical brain behind your life!
Britain's foremost nature writer, Richard Mabey, suffered from a major depression in 1999 when nothing seemed meaningful anymore. But cared for by his friends, he has started to write again and rediscover his love of nature through exploring the open flatlands of Norfolk. Here he participates in a whole new landscape where he reflects on the inherent value of all creatures and the role of imagination, not as a barrier between humans and nature, but as the best way to re-engage in life. Structured as intricately as a novel, 'Nature Cure' is a heartfelt reverie on the hope and fulfilment one can find in nature, when one looks for it.
This fascinating book tells of the extraordinary life and times of John Hunter, father of modern surgery. From humble Scottish origins, John Hunter rose to become the famous anatomist and surgeon of the eighteenth century. In an age when operations were crudely performed and excruciatingly painful, Hunter worked ceaselessly to improve medical care, both to the poorest and to the best-known personalities of the day. Although he was a central figure of the Enlightenment, his need for human corpses immersed him in the sinister world of body snatching that somewhat tarnished his image. Ms. Moore's meticulously researched biography succeeds in portraying a remarkable pioneer who hauled surgery out of meaningless superstitious ritual into the dawn of modern medicine.
Atlantic Books The Atlantic salmon is an extraordinary and mysterious fish. It is able to survive in both fresh and salt water and navigates thousands of miles to feeding grounds in the northern oceans before returning to its birth place to spawn. Richard Shelton explores the salmon’s fascinating life cycle and places the fish in its evolutionary context closer to mankind than we would expect. He shows how vital this fish has become as an indicator of the health of our rivers and oceans, while imbuing us with a sense of his own life-long passion for the sea through this exploration of the perennial enigmas of the salmon’s secret life.
Penguin Why do we look the way we do? What does the human hand have in common with the wing of a fly? To better understand the inner workings of our bodies and to trace the origins of many of today’s most common diseases, we have to turn to unexpected sources: worms, flies and even fish. Neil Shubin, a leading palaeontologist and professor of anatomy, tells the story of evolution by examining fossils and the DNA of a variety of creatures. He shows us that our hands actually resemble fish fins, our heads are organized like that of a long-extinct jawless fish and major parts of our genome look and function like those of worms and bacteria. The reason why these sorts of comparisons work is that the bodies of these creatures are often simpler versions of ours. Shubin makes us see ourselves and our world in a completely new light. ‘Your Inner Fish’ is science writing at its finest enlightening, accessible and told with irresistible enthusiasm.
Little Brown A secret until now, the fossil Ida, older than Lucy by an astonishing forty-four million years, is the most complete early primate fossil ever found. Forty-seven million years old, Ida rewrites the knowledge we had previously assumed about our earliest primate origins. With exclusive access to the first scientists to study her from the Messel Pit in Germany, award winning science writer, Colin Tudge, tells the story of Ida, her place in the world and our earliest origins. This evocative and well researched study opens up the hitherto, hidden windows into our past, transforming all we ultimately know about the evolution of primates and of ourselves.
Price: EUR 15.75
Colin Tudge - Consider the Birds: Who They Are and What They Do A. Lane In this intriguing, lively, informative book, Colin Tudge explores the life of birds all around the globe. From the secrets of migration to their complicated family live, their differing habits and survival techniques to the secrets of flight, Mr. Tudge tells us all about them in fascinating detail and much more besides. He explains about certain birds who navigate using star maps, intelligent tool-making crows and the co-operative nature of penguin family bird-life, arguing that birds, like us, have minds, feelings, awareness and work things out. By considering the birds, their similarities and differences to us, we gain more insight into our own nature while appreciating their unique, separate existence at the same time.
Price: EUR 29.00
