Whether stargazing with the naked eye or observing deep space with the largest telescopes in the world, humans have a seemingly never-ending fascination with the stars. It’s only in the last century or so that the natures of these distant lights have been revealed and it’s more incredible than any legend. Astronomer Dr Greg Brown of Royal Observatory Greenwich takes a short diversion from obsessing over black holes to illuminate us about the lives of stars ending in black holes, naturally....

A sparkling collection of poetry from the late Iowa poet Mary Jo Homstad (1947-1978). A sensitive and witty craftsperson shares her sense of magic in the people and unique landscape of northeast Iowa, her struggles with the chaos of love and her confrontations with the mystery of death. In his moving Foreword, folk artist Greg Brown writes that Mary's poems "are born in the holy and the daily flies out of them: tomatoes, old bodies, dust, family members." And yet: "Her poems slide easy as ...

Given that it includes literally everything in existence, it's not surprising that the Universe is the source of some of the greatest mysteries in physics. How big is it? How did it begin? And, perhaps more worryingly, how will it end? Through cosmology, the study of the evolution and structure of the Universe, experts have been attempting to untangle these tricky topics for centuries. Explore the secrets of the cosmos with astronomer Dr Greg Brown as he entertains our fascination with imp...

HAVE YOU LOST FAITH IN RELATIONSHIPS AND MARRIAGE?Have you ever said:"I'll never trust anyone again.""I'll never forgive myself.""I'm going to be single forever.""I'll never fall in love again.""I don't need a man.""Why was I so stupid?""What is wrong with me?""I'm going to be by myself for the rest of my life.""Why can't I find someone who wants to be with me?""...

Donna and Greg Browns A Book of Moons is a collection of poems about the twelve full moons, according to names given to them by the Algonquin tribes. These moons watch the cycle of the seasons as they progress from lonely winter through the thaw of spring, into summers warmth, then to autumns harvest and back to cold, frosty winter. Exposing children to poetry helps strengthen vocabulary, language and rhythm in children. Each poem in A Book of Moons is accompanied with a beautiful illustra...

The instant New York Times bestselling book of entertaining, irreverent, and totally accessible illustrated answers to the scientific “questions you had no idea were bugging you all your life” (Fast Company), from the creators of the wildly popular YouTube channel AsapSCIENCE.Why do we get hung over? What would happen if you stopped sleeping? Is binge-watching TV actually bad for you? Why should I take a power nap? In their first-ever book, Mitche...

Dr. Joe Schwarcz takes on the quacks and doles out the facts in this eye-opening look at the science around usEat this and live to 100. Don’t, and die. Today, hyperboles dominate the media, which makes parsing science from fiction an arduous task when deciding what to eat, what chemicals to avoid, and what’s best for the environment. In Is That a Fact?, bestselling author Dr. Joe Schwarcz carefully navigates the storm of misinformation to help us separate ...

The Freakonomics of math—a math-world superstar unveils the hidden beauty and logic of the world and puts its power in our handsThe math we learn in school can seem like a dull set of rules, laid down by the ancients and not to be questioned. In How Not to Be Wrong, Jordan Ellenberg shows us how terribly limiting this view is: Math isn’t confined to abstract incidents that never occur in real life, but rather touches everything we...

A special tenth anniversary edition of the million-copy bestseller What If? from the creator of the wildly popular webcomic xkcd—revised and annotated with answers to important questions you never thought to ask.Fans of xkcd ask Munroe a lot of strange questions: What if you tried to hit a baseball pitched at ninety percent the speed of light? How fast can you hit a speed bump while driving and live? If there was a robot apocalypse, how l...

From the #1 New York Times bestseller author of Sh*t My Dad Says, Justin Halpern, comes a laugh-out-loud funny and deeply touching collection of personal stories about relationships with the opposite sex, from a first kiss to getting engaged and all the awkward moments in between. With Sh*t My Dad Says, Halpern brought his brand of talented comedic writing to the world. Now, with this equally poignant, hilarious, and provocative memoir, he establishes himself as ...

A healthy dose of scientific skepticism in the information age, from bestselling author Dr. Joe SchwarzThe internet is a powerful beast; no matter what question you may have, the answer is just a few keystrokes away. But with so many sources available, and so many conflicting answers, how do you know what information is reliable? In Monkeys, Myths, and Molecules, Dr. Joe Schwarcz takes a critical look at how scientific facts are misconstrued in the media, ...

For the millions of Americans who want spirituality without religion, Sam Harris’s latest New York Times bestseller is a guide to meditation as a rational practice informed by neuroscience and psychology.From Sam Harris, neuroscientist and author of numerous New York Times bestselling books, Waking Up is for the twenty percent of Americans who follow no religion but who suspect that important truths can be found in the experiences of such...