David Baker chronicles the extraordinary life and achievements of John Varley Roberts (1841-1920), a working-class Yorkshireman who became a popular composer and one of Victorian England's most celebrated choral trainers as well as Organist of Magdalen College, Oxford.Roberts’ influence was considerable and enduring at a time when church music was undergoing a significant transformation in Britain. Roberts influenced generations of choristers, musicians, and choir directors, sittin...

A fascinating journey through life, the universe and everythingHow did time begin? What conditions led to humans evolving on Earth? Will we survive the Anthropocene? And is it really true that we’re all made from stars?The Shortest History of the World follows the continuum of historical change in the cosmos – from the Big Bang, through the evolution of life, to human history. Combining knowledge from chemistry, biology and physics with insights from the social s...

The big history of sex from early life to sexbotsHow did sex begin? How did it evolve to be so varied and complex in humans? What influence does our genetic ancestry have on our love life today? And what might sex look like in the future?Sex traces where all the facets of human sexuality came from, starting at the creation of sex approximately 2 billion years ago and chasing it down our evolutionary family tree – from dinosaurs to primates and the ...

The war is a war of machines; it will be won on the assembly line.- Lord Beaverbrook, Minister of Aircraft ProductionJust as vital as the battle on land or the struggle at sea, the air war ultimately tipped the balance of power in World War II. Many campaigns rode on the capabilities of their airforce, as British Spitfires were pitted against Messerschmitt Bf 109s and Japanese Zeros.Aerospace expert David Baker explores this battle ...

Heresy and the Ideal is a powerful collection of essays and essay-reviews which David Baker wrote and published throughout the 1990s. He thoroughly discusses the work of more than fifty contemporary poets, including T. R. Hummer, Miller Williams, Albert Goldbarth, Jane Kenyon, Galway Kinnell, Charles Simic, Ted Kooser, David Wojahn, Alice Fulton, Louise Glück, and Charles Wright. He takes as his models some of the great critical books of the past three decades, especially Richard Howard's ...

A peaceful throne and a perfect family. What else could Haldor want as the king of Placidius? Nothing more, nothing less… until a vicious witch plots to strike. Will the amiable king be able to transform himself into a gallant one to avenge his brutal loss?King Morwag of Arkèzia is abducted and his valiant sister, Princess Phade, is left to defend her people. She must rescue the king while protecting what she is left with. How is she expected to shield her kingdom all alone… if she...

The citizens of Cancatia believed the war to be over.But evil never rests.A broken heart and a solitary throne are all that remain for Haldor. As if his plight could not worsen, he discovers Auden is not who he once seemed. A prophecy of doom shatters Haldor’s visions of peace. Can the inhabitants withstand what lies ahead?Monsters besiege Arkèzia as Phade struggles to redeem her fractured kingdom. Betrayal lurks around every corner, and perilous emotions threaten t...

A beloved nature poet reflects on environmental change, political transformation, and the ineluctable fact of aging.We are all human and nonhuman on the move. The poems in Transit emerge from just such a walk through the world. In keenly observed verse, David Baker carries us across physical and emotional geographies, moving seamlessly from deep woods, city streets, and creek beds to the contours of his psyche and the larger cultural circumstances that mar...

What is more direct and intimate than one-to-one conversation? Here two forces in American poetry, the Kenyon Review and the University of Arkansas Press, bring together discussions between one of America's leading poets and editors, David Baker, and nine of the most exciting poets of our day. The poets, who represent a wide array of vocations and aesthetic positions, open up about their writing processes, their reading and education, their hopes for and discontents with ...

**“The craft of Whale Fall defies. It asserts, for me, a definition of poetry: an unbearable gulf of feeling made indelible by form.”—Diane Seuss, Paris ReviewA masterful and moving new volume from a “peerless poet of the natural world” (New York Times Book Review).**Acclaimed as an essential voice of the American Midwest, David Baker expands both his environment and his form in his eleventh collection. Whale Fall is about time, measured ...

Written by former NASA engineer Dr David Baker, A Degree in a Book: Electrical and Mechanical Engineering is presented in an attractive landscape format in full-color. With timelines, feature spreads and information boxes, readers will quickly get to grips with the fundamentals of electrical and mechanical engineering and their practical applications.The separate ages of engineering are divided into empirical and scientific periods, then the range of possibilities provided...

Renowned poets and experts in metrics respond to Robert Wallace's pivotal essay which clarifies and simplifies methods of studying poetry. Former United States Poet Laureate Robert Hass has called Wallace's essay a paradigm shift in our understanding of English prosody.