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The Great Mathematical Problems
Ian Stewart
Ian Stewart reveals the really big questions that take us to the limits of mathematics.
There are some mathematical problems whose significance goes beyond the ordinary - like Fermat's Last Theorem or Goldbach's Conjecture - they are the enigmas which define mathematics.The Great Mathematical Problemsexplains why these problems exist, why they matter, what drives mathematicians to incredible ...
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The Tail
Paul Marshall
At the heart of the debate about state-provided education in the UK lies a shocking fact: one child in five leaves school in England without basic skills in literacy and numeracy. Despite the best efforts of reformers and rapidly improving results in academies and elsewhere, even some of the best schools are struggling to help the'tail'- the lowest-achieving twenty or thirty per cent of pupils. ...
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Puzzled
David Astle
A warm, funny and fascinating memoir told through a cryptic crossword
As a child, David Astle's hero was the Riddler. Figuring out brainteasers like'Where is a man drowned but still not wet?'(quicksand) and'How many sides has a circle?'(two - the inside and the outside) became an obsession and, eventually, his life: his cryptic crosswords now appear inThe AgeandSydney Morning Heraldevery week, to...
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The Diaries of Nella Last
Patricia Malcolmson, Robert Malcolmson
A collected edition of bestselling author Nella Last's diaries, including substantial never-before ...
'I can never understand how the scribbles of such an ordinary person ... can possibly have value.'So wrote Nella Last in her diary on 2 September 1949. More than sixty years on, tens of thousands of people have read and enjoyed three volumes of her vivid ...
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Mathematics Of Life
Ian Stewart
Mathematicians and biologists confront nature's enigmas
A new partnership of biologists and mathematicians is picking apart the hidden complexity of animals and plants to throw fresh light on the behaviour of entire organisms, how they interact and how changes in biological diversity affect the planet's ecological balance. Mathematics offers new and sometimes startling perspectives on ...
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How to Watch the Olympics
David Goldblatt, Johnny Acton
The games are finally here! This is the one book on the Olympics you really do need
The Olympics is the world's biggest sporting event - and it moves centre stage for London 2012. Yet the sports the world is familiar with - football, cricket, rugby, baseball, motor sports - are either missing or have a token presence. In their place are games that most of us have not a clue how to play or to ...
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Weeds
Richard Mabey
A lively and lyrical cultural history of plants in the wrong place by one of Britain's best and most...
Ever since the first human settlements 10,000 years ago, weeds have dogged our footsteps. They are there as the punishment of'thorns and thistles'in Genesis and , two millennia later, as a symbol of Flanders Field. They are civilisations'familiars, invading farmland and ...
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Seventeen Equations that Changed the World
Ian Stewart
A unique history of humanity told through its seventeen defining equations; from Pythagoras to ...
From Newton's Law of Gravity to the Black-Scholes model used by bankers to predict the markets, equations, are everywhere - and they are fundamental to everyday life.InSeventeen Equations that Changed the World, acclaimed mathematician Ian Stewart sets out seventeen groundbreaking equations ...
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The Library Book
Famous writers on libraries real or imagined, past and future; why libraries matter and to whom.In ...
From Alan Bennett's Baffled at a Bookcase, to Lucy Mangan's Library Rules, famous writers tell us all about how libraries are used and why they're important. Tom Holland writes about libraries in the ancient world, while Seth Godin describes what a library will look like ...
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The Tyranny of Choice
Renata Salecl
A brilliant study on the nature of choice, and how limitless freedom can lead to despair
We are encouraged from all sides to view our lives as being full of choices. Like the products on a supermarket shelf, our careers, our relationships, our bodies, our very identities seem to be there for the choosing. But paradoxically this seeming freedom to choose can create extreme anxiety, and feelings of...
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The Perfumier and the Stinkhorn
Richard Mabey
Inspiring meditations through the author's rich store of memories
In these elegant, short essays, revered nature writer Richard Mabey attempts to marry a Romantic's view of the natural world with that of the meticulous observations of the scientist. By Romanticism, he refers to the view that nature isn't a machine to be dissected, but a community of which we, the observers, are inextricably ...
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Saving the World's Wildlife
Alexis Schwarzenbach
The lavishly illustrated story of WWF and its battle to save the world's wildlife
WWF was established in 1961 spurred by the efforts of Max Nicholson, head of Britain's Nature Conservancy, naturalist Peter Scott, and a series of articles written in theObserverby Julian Huxley, former head of UNESCO.Based on previously inaccessible archives and a wide range of interviews with WWF VIPs, this ...
