Other books that might interest you

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  The Burgess Bird Book for Children

  Thornton W. Burgess

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  The Burgess Bird Book for Children is a zoology book written in the form of a story featuring Peter Rabbit.  Peter learns from his friend Jenny Wren all about the birds of North America, and we meet many of them in the Old Orchard, the Green Meadow, and the Green Forest. (summary by Laurie Anne Walden)

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  Isaac Newton

  James Gleick

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  James Gleick has long been fascinated by the making of science -- how ideas order visible appearances, how equations can give meaning to molecular and stellar phenomena, how theories can transform what we see. In Chaos, he chronicled the emergence of a new way of looking at dynamic systems; in Genius, he portrayed the wondrous dimensions of Richard Feymnan's mind. Now, in Isaac Newton, he gives us the story of the scientist who, above all others, embodied humanity's quest to unveil the hidden forces that constitute the physical world. 
  In this original, sweeping, and intimate biography, Gleick moves between a comprehensive historical portrait and a dramatic focus on Newton's significant letters and unpublished notebooks to illuminate the real importance of his work in physics, in optics, and in calculus. He makes us see the old intuitive, alchemical universe out of which Newton's mathematics first arose and shows us how Newton's ideas have altered all forms of understanding from history to philosophy. And he gives us a moving account of the conflicting impulses that pulled at this man's heart: his quiet longings, his rage, his secrecy, the extraordinary subtleties of a personality that were mirrored in the invisible forces he first identified as the building blocks of science. More than biography, more than history, more than science, Isaac Newton tells us how, through the mind of one man, we have come to know our place in the cosmos. 
  Read by Allan Couruner.

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  Redemption Ground - Essays and...

  Lorna Goodison

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  In her first-ever collection of essays, poet and novelist Lorna Goodison interweaves the personal and political to explore themes that have occupied her working life: her love of poetry and the arts, colonialism and its legacy, racism and social justice, authenticity, and the enduring power of friendship.
  Taking her title from one of Kingston's oldest markets, a historic meeting place that was almost destroyed by fire, she introduces us to a vivid cast of characters and remembers moments of epiphany—in a cinema in Jamaica, at New York's Bottom Line club, and as she searched for a black hairdresser in Paris and drank tea in London's Marylebone High Street.
  Enlightening and entertaining, these essays explore not only daily challenges but also the compassion that enables us to rise above them. Goodison's poet's eye, profound vision and glorious combination of metaphysical and post-colonial sensibilities confirm her as a major figure in world literature.

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  Diana's Boys - William and Harry...

  Christopher Andersen

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  Devoid of salacious gossip and groundless speculation, Diana's Boys is the first candid chronicle of the world's two most celebrated royals——and far more.Charmed or cursed? Doomed by their royal birthright and their parents' marital misery? Or destined to live out the best of their late mother's legacy by selflessly involving themselves in real-world problems? Only time can tell how Prince William and his brother, Harry, will play the extraordinary hands that fate has dealt them. Meanwhile, "the heir and the spare" remain the focus of merciless media attention and the source of endless speculation by royal watchers worldwide.Since Christopher Anderson meticulously investigated the horrific accident that killed Princess Diana and divulged his findings in The Day Diana Died, he has concentrated on her two engaging young sons. Based on interviews with numerous informed sources close to the boys, their father, Prince Charles, and their paternal grandparents, Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip, Andersen's latest abounds in startling revelations. He describes, for example, how Wills and Harry were caught in the crossfire of their volatile parents' ill-starred marriage and how Charles, devastated by his former wife's death, has attempted to cope as the single father of two strong-willed teenagers. His account of the initial—and understandably awkward—meeting between the young men and Camilla Parker Bowles, Charles's longtime mistress, is especially striking.

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  D-Day Plus One - Shot Down and...

  Frank Holland, Adam Wilkins

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  A World War II RAF veteran tells the dramatic story of D-Day, his survival after being shot down by the Germans, and his journey back to Allied lines. The day after D-Day, the most momentous day of the Second World War, Frank Holland was an RAF pilot whose Typhoon aircraft had just been hit by German antiaircraft fire during a low flying attack on a marshaling yard in Normandy.  He managed to take the aircraft up to 1200 feet but then the engine went dead and his Typhoon soon began heading towards the earth at an accelerating and frightening speed. Struggling frantically, he just barely got free of the cockpit and baled out four or five seconds before the crash. His parachute didn’t open but he fell into a wood, crashing through the branches of an oak to dangle precariously fifteen feet up. Breathing hard, he experienced a few seconds of relief at survival. But then he realized German troops would be swarming around within minutes. He had to get away, and fast . . . So begins Frank’s tremendous adventure as he evaded capture for months, sometimes by barely a whisker, to make it back home to the city of his birth, Cambridge. A riveting true story told in a masterly fashion.

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  A Dog in a Hat - An American...

  Joe Parkin

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  In 1987, Joe Parkin was an amateur bike racer in California when he ran into Bob Roll, a pro on the powerhouse Team 7-Eleven. "Lobotomy Bob" told Parkin that, to become a pro, he must go to Belgium. Riding along a canal in Belgium years later, Roll encountered Parkin, who he saw as "a wraith, an avenging angel of misery, a twelve-toothed assassin". Roll barely recognized him. Belgium had forged Parkin into a pro bike racer, and changed him forever. A Dog in a Hat is Joe's remarkable story. Leaving California with a bag of clothes, two spare wheels, some cash, and a phone number, Parkin left the comforts of home for the windy, rainswept heartland of European cycling. As one of the first American pros in Europe, Parkin was what the Belgians call "a dog with a hat on" -- something familiar, yet decidedly out of place. Parkin lays out the hard reality of the life--the drugs, the payoffs, the betrayals by teammates, the battles with team owners for contracts and money, the endless promises that keep you going, the agony of racing day after day, and the glory of a good day in the saddle. A Dog in a Hat is the unforgettable story of the un-ordinary education of Joe Parkin and his love affair with racing, set in the hardest place in the world to be a bike racer. It is a story untold until now, and one that you will never forget.

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