This audiobook narrated by Christopher Ragland reveals how life itself shapes Earth using the elemental constituents we all shareIt is rare for life to change Earth, yet three organisms have profoundly transformed our planet over the long course of its history. Elemental reveals how microbes, plants, and people used the fundamental building blocks of life to alter the climate, and with it, the trajectory of life on Earth in the past, present, and future.

**'Indispensable and timely' - Melissa Chan, Emmy-nominated international affairs correspondent'Few books qualify as essential reading but Ghost Nation is one of them' - Clive Hamilton, bestselling co-author of The Hidden HandThe gripping story of Taiwan's past and precarious present from one of Taiwan's top foreign correspondents.**With all eyes on Ukraine and the Middle East, Taiwan is emerging as the next geopolitical tinderbox. Despite sitting ...

The bookshelves of American literature are incredible collections that have gathered together centuries of very talented authors. From this continent their fame spread and whilst among their number many are now forgotten or neglected their talents endure. Among them is Cleveland Moffett.

This audiobook narrated by Christopher Ragland delivers a manifesto for the dawning age of active materialsThings in life tend to fall apart. Cars break down. Buildings fall into disrepair. Personal items deteriorate. Yet today's researchers are exploiting newly understood properties of matter to program materials that physically sense, adapt, and fall together instead of apart. These materials open new directions for industrial innovation and challenge us to rethin...

Algernon Blackwood was born on 14th March 1869 in Shooter’s Hill, South East London, to a religious middle-class family. His mother was a widowed Duchess and his father was a Post Office administrator.Blackwood was interested in the paranormal and the supernatural at an early age, and had a thirst for anything on Buddhism, other Oriental philosophies, mysticism and occultism. In his writings the weaving of the supernatural into his various works, from ghost stories and children’s s...

Francis Bret Harte was born on 25th August 1836 in Albany New York.As a young boy Harte developed an early love of books and reading. He first published at the tender age of 11, his satirical poem ‘Autumn Musings’. Expecting praise he received anything but and later wrote "Such a shock was their ridicule to me that I wonder that I ever wrote another line of verse."By age 13 his formal education was at an end and four years later the family moved to California. Here the youn...

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber, read by Christopher Ragland.Be honest: if your job didn't exist, would anybody miss it? Have you ever wondered why not? Up to 40% of us secretly believe our jobs probably aren't necessary. In other words: they are bullshit jobs. This book shows why, and what we can do about it.In the early twentieth century, people prophesied that technology would see us all w...

Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce was born on 24th June 1842 at Horse Cave Creek in Meigs County, Ohio. His parents were poor but they introduced him to literature at an early age, instilling in him a deep appreciation of books, the written word and the elegance of language.Growing up in Koscuisko County, Indiana poverty and religion were defining features of his childhood, and he would later describe his parents as “unwashed savages” and fanatically religious, showing him little affection b...

Sherwood Anderson was born on 13th September 1876 in Camden, Ohio.When his father’s business failed the family was forced to move on a regular basis before finally settling in Clyde, Ohio.Anderson, one of 7 children, left school at 14 to take a number of jobs to help with the family finances. These were difficult years.He moved to Chicago in search of opportunities before joining the Army for the US-Spanish War of 1898. He then entered Wittenberg Academy in Springfi...

This audiobook narrated by Christopher Ragland reveals the strengths and failures of the American college, and explains why liberal education still mattersAs the commercialization of American higher education accelerates, more and more students are coming to college with the narrow aim of obtaining a preprofessional credential. The traditional four-year college experience—an exploratory time for students to discover their passions and test ideas and values with the ...

Willa Sibert Cather had Welsh ancestry but like her parents Charles and Mary, was born in Virginia, on 7th December 1873. Despite strong roots in the community, Willa was 9, when the family moved to Nebraska, to work the rich soil and avoid TB of which there were numerous outbreaks in Virginia.The vastness and drama of the Nebraska prairie and its’ extreme weather conditions as well as the many diverse cultures of the local families proved to be a major influence on her and can be ...

Alfred Damon Runyan was born on 4th October 1880, in Manhattan, Kansas.When Runyon was two his father was forced to sell his newspaper and the family moved eventually settling in Pueblo, Colorado where Runyon spent his youth.By most accounts, he attended school only through the fourth grade and then worked for his father in the newspaper trade.In 1898 Runyon enlisted in the U.S. Army to fight in the Spanish–American War. After his service he returned to Colorado and...