A. J. Liebling, born in Manhattan in 1904, joined the staff of the New Yorker in 1935 and contributed innumerable articles to the magazine throughout his lifetime, on subjects ranging from food to boxing and France to horse racing. As a war correspondent during the Second World War, he reported from France, England and Algeria, and participated in the Normandy landings. In later life he married the writer Jean Stafford, his third wife. He died in 1963.

A. J. Liebling

A. J. Rosen is an author of YA fantasy and is known as @agatharoza on Wattpad.

A. J. Rosen

A. K. Davidson

A. O. Scott has been a film critic at the New York Times since 2000. His writing has appeared in many other publications, including the New York Review of Books, Slate, the New Yorker and the Nation. A finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in criticism in 2010, Scott is currently Distinguished Professor of Film Criticism at Wesleyan University. He lives with his family in Brooklyn, New York. 
 
@aoscott

A. O. Scott

A.S. Byatt (1936-2023) was a novelist, short-story writer and critic of international renown. Her novels include Possession (winner of the Booker Prize 1990), the Frederica Quartet and The Children’s Book, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction. She was appointed CBE in 1990 and DBE in 1999, and was awarded the Erasmus Prize 2016 for her ‘inspiring contribution to life writing’ and the Pak Kyongni Prize 2017. In 2018 she received the Hans Christian Andersen Literature Award.

A. S. Byatt

A. T. Williams won the George Orwell Prize for Political Writing in 2013 for his book A Very British Killing: The Death of Baha Mousa. He lives in Warwickshire.

A. T. Williams

A. W. Chase

Dubbed ‘The new queen of spy fiction’ by the Guardian newspaper, and ‘the real thing’ by the Washington Post, A.C. 'Ava' Glass is the CWA Dagger-shortlisted author of Alias Emma (The Chase), The Traitor and The Trap. The Traitor was a 2023 Richard and Judy Bookclub pick. Alias Emma was a Barnes and Noble book of the month. A former crime reporter and communications consultant, for five years Ava worked closely with spies. Her time in that world fascinated her, and the people she met back then inspire every book she writes.

A.C. Glass

A.E. Housman

Arthur Edward Waite was the designer and co-creator of the now famous Rider Waite Tarot deck. 
 
An American-born British poet and scholarly mystic, his strong interest in all esoteric matters - divination, magic, Kabbalism, alchemy and Freemasony - led to him penning a number of books. These include the Key to the Tarot, The Book of Ceremonial Magic and A New Encyclopedia of Freemasony.

A.E. Waite

A.E. Warren is the author of the Tomorrow's Ancestors series, which consists of Subject Twenty-One, The Hidden Base, The Fourth Species and The Final Rising. 
 
After spending eight years working as a lawyer, she began to write in the evenings and early mornings as a form of escapism from life in a very small cubicle with lots of files. She self-published her first novels in her spare time, which were picked up by Del Rey UK which is the science fiction/fantasy imprint of Penguin Random House. 
 
 She is an avid reader, occasional gamer and fair-weather runner. She lives in the UK with her husband, daughter and hopefully, one day, a wise border terrier named Austen.

A.E. Warren

A.G.D. Maran

A.J. Ayer

A.J. Cronin

A K Benedict writes crime and speculative fiction in a room filled with clowns, mannequins and Doctor Who figures. Her first novel, The Beauty of Murder, was nominated for an eDunnit award and is in development for a major 8-part TV series by Company Pictures. Her second, Jonathan Dark or The Evidence of Ghosts, came out in February 2016. She's written Torchwood audio dramas for Big Finish and her short stories have featured in anthologies including Great British Horror and Best British Short Stories. She lives in St Leonards-on-Sea with her dog, Dame Margaret Rutherford.

A.K.Benedict

A. L. Kennedy has twice been selected as one of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists and has won a host of other awards – including the Costa Book of the Year for her novel Day. She lives in Essex.

A.L. Kennedy

A.M. Ellis is a speculative fiction author and lover of everything steeped in myth and mystery. Her stories often lean into diverse voices, not only in her identity as a Black woman, but in exploring neurodivergence and mental health. A proud introvert and nostalgic gamer, she lives in Maryland, USA, with her husband and three children. Angelica is also the author of Hunt A Killer, a PERFECT SCORE novel, under the pen name A.M. Ellis, which she wrote as an IP for Scholastic in the US.

A.M. Ellis

A.N. Wilson was born in 1950 and educated at Rugby and New College, Oxford. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, he holds a prominent position in the world of literature and journalism. He is an award-winning biographer and a celebrated novelist, winning prizes for much of his work. He lives in North London.

A.N. Wilson

A.T. Emerald

A.W. Priest

A.B.C. Merriman-Labor was a barrister, writer and munitions worker born in Freetown, Sierra Leone in 1877. His published works include A Series of Lectures on the Negro Race and The Story of the African Slave in a Nutshell. He also edited two editions of the Handbook of Sierra Leone. He arrived in the UK in 1904 to study law. In 1907, he organised a centenary commemoration of the abolition of the slave trade in Westminster Abbey. He later embarked on an 'entertainment-lecture' tour called Life and Scenes in Britain, travelling across thousands of miles of West, South West and Central Africa, which he expanded on to create Britons Through Negro Spectacles.

ABC Merriman-Labor

AJ Cronin

AJ Molloy

Aabria Iyengar is an American actress and author.

Aabria Iyengar

Aaliya Jaleel is a freelance illustrator, designer, and visual development artist, currently majoring in Animation at the University of Texas at Dallas. She is also the illustrator of Under My Hijab and Muslim Girls Rise. You can visit her online at www.aaliyamj.com.

Aaliya Jaleel

Aaron Allston

After more than fifteen years of experience as a clinical psychotherapist, Dr Aaron Balick has taken the amazing insights from psychology and psychotherapy out of the consultation room and made them accessible to the wider world. 
 
He has been an ‘agony uncle’ for many years for both CBBC and BBC Radio 1, as well as on television, including BBC Worldwide, BBC 3 and BBC Learning.

Aaron Balick

Aaron Carroll

Aaron Dignan is the founder of The Ready--a global organizational transformation and coaching practice--that helps companies large and small adopt new forms of self-organization and dynamic teaming. Clients include Johnson &amp; Johnson, Microsoft, Lloyds Bank, Citibank, Boeing, Mailchimp, Airbnb, Dropbox, and charity: water. 
 
He is also the founder of Murmur--a SaaS startup that helps teams scale culture through the magic of working agreements. The Murmur platform will allow every team on the planet to define and share their ways of working. 
 
Dignan is the author of Brave New Work (2019) and Game Frame (2011), co-host of the Brave New Work podcast, and a friend to misfit toys.

Aaron Dignan

Aaron Edwards is a senior lecturer in defence and international affairs at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, specialising in terrorism and counter-insurgency. He is the author and editor of several books, including Defending the Realm: The Politics of Britain’s Small Wars Since 1945, and has lectured all over the world on aspects of national and international security. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.

Aaron Edwards

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John Gribbin

The revolution is here. In breakthrough after breakthrough, pioneering physicists are unlocking a new quantum universe which provides a better representation of reality than our everyday experiences and common sense ever could. The birth of quantum computers - which, like Schrödinger's famous dead-and-alive cat, rely on entities like electrons existing in a mixture of states - is starting to turn the computing world on its head. 
 
In his fascinating study of this cutting-edge technology, John Gribbin updates his previous views on the nature of quantum reality, arguing for a universe of many parallel worlds where 'everything is real'. Looking back to Alan Turing's work on the Enigma machine and the first electronic computer, Gribbin explains how quantum theory developed to make quantum computers work in practice as well as in principle. He takes us beyond the arena of theoretical physics to explore their practical applications - from machines which learn through 'intuition' and trial and error to unhackable laptops and smartphones. And he investigates the potential for this extraordinary science to allow communication faster than light and even teleportation, as we step into a world of infinite possibility.

Quantum Computing from Colossus to Qubits

The History, Theory, and Application of a Revolutionary Science

Vaclav Smil

We have never had so much information at our fingertips and yet most of us don't know how the world really works. This book explains seven of the most fundamental realities governing our survival and prosperity. From energy and food production, through our material world and its globalization, to risks, our environment and its future, How the World Really Works offers a much-needed reality check - because before we can tackle problems effectively, we must understand the facts. 
 
 In this ambitious and thought-provoking book we see, for example, that globalization isn't inevitable and that our societies have been steadily increasing their dependence on fossil fuels, making their complete and rapid elimination unlikely. Drawing on the latest science and tackling sources of misinformation head on - from Yuval Noah Harari to Noam Chomsky - ultimately Smil answers the most profound question of our age: are we irrevocably doomed or is a brighter utopia ahead?

How the World Really Works

A Scientist’s Guide to Our Past, Present and Future

Carlo Rovelli

In June 1925, twenty-three-year-old Werner Heisenberg, suffering from hay fever, had retreated to the treeless, wind-battered island of Helgoland in the North Sea in order to think. Walking all night, by dawn he had wrestled with an idea that would transform the whole of science and our very conception of the world. 
 
In Helgoland Carlo Rovelli tells the story of the birth of quantum physics and its bright young founders who were to become some of the most famous Nobel winners in science. It is a celebration of youthful rebellion and intellectual revolution. An invitation to a magical place. 
 
Here Rovelli illuminates competing interpretations of this science and offers his own original view, describing the world we touch as a fabric woven by relations. Where we, as every other thing around us, exist in our interactions with one another, in a never-ending game of mirrors. 
 
A dazzling work from one of our most celebrated scientists and master storyteller, Helgoland transports us to dizzying heights, reminding us of the many pleasures of the life of the mind.

Helgoland

The Strange and Beautiful Story of Quantum Physics

The Sunday Times bestseller

Paul Davies

In the constellation of Eridanus there lurks a cosmic mystery. It's as if something has taken a huge bite out of the universe, leaving a super-void. What could be the culprit? A super massive black hole? Another, bigger universe? Or an expanding vacuum bubble, destined to envelop and annihilate everything in existence? 
 
Scientists now understand the history of our universe better than the history of our own planet, but they continue to uncover startling new riddles-the hole in the universe being just one. In this electrifying book, award-winning physicist Paul Davies walks us through the puzzles and paradoxes that have preoccupied cosmologists from ancient Greece to the present day. Laying bare the audacious research that has led us to mind-bending solutions, Davies reveals how we might begin to approach the greatest outstanding enigmas of all.

What's Eating the Universe?

And Other Cosmic Questions

Ananyo Bhattacharya

The smartphones in our pockets and computers like brains. The vagaries of game theory and evolutionary biology. Nanotechnology and nuclear weapons. All bear the fingerprints of one remarkable man: John von Neumann. 
 
Born in Budapest at the turn of the century, von Neumann is one of the most influential scientists to have ever lived. His colleagues believed he had the fastest brain on the planet - bar none. He was instrumental in the Manhattan Project and helped formulate the bedrock of Cold War geopolitics and modern economic theory. He created the first ever programmable digital computer. He prophesied the potential of nanotechnology and, from his deathbed, expounded on the limits of brains and computers - and how they might be overcome. 
 
Taking us on an astonishing journey, Ananyo Bhattacharya explores how a combination of genius and unique historical circumstance allowed a single man to sweep through so many different fields of science, sparking revolutions wherever he went. Insightful and illuminating, The Man from the Future is a thrilling intellectual biography of the visionary thinker who shaped our century.

The Man from the Future

The Visionary Life of John von Neumann

Richard P Feynman

WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION BY BILL GATES 
 
In this warm, insightful portrait of the Winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1965, we see the wisdom, humour and curiosity of Richard Feynman through a series of conversations with his friend Ralph Leighton. 
 
Winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1965, Richard Feynman was one of the world's greatest theoretical physicists, but he was also a man who fell, often jumped, into adventure. An artist, safecracker, practical joker and storyteller, Feynman's life was a series of combustible combinations made possible by his unique mixture of high intelligence, unquenchable curiosity and eternal scepticism. 
 
Over a period of years, Feynman's conversations with his friend Ralph Leighton were first taped and then set down as they appear here, little changed from their spoken form, giving a wise, funny, passionate and totally honest self-portrait of one of the greatest men of our age.

Surely You're Joking Mr Feynman

Adventures of a Curious Character

Peter Scott-Morgan

Peter, a brilliant scientist, is told that he will lose everything he loves. 
 
His husband. His family. His friends. His ability to travel the world. All will be gone. 
 
But Peter will not give up. He vows that this will not be the end and instead seeks a completely new beginning . . . 
 
Peter has Motor Neurone Disease, a condition universally considered by doctors to be terminal. It will destroy his nerve cells and he is told that within an average of two years, it will take his life too. 
 
But, face-to-face with death, he decides there is another way. Using his background in science and technology, he navigates a new path, one that will enable him not just to survive, but to thrive. 
 
This is the astonishing true story behind the primetime Channel 4 documentary, about Dr. Peter Scott-Morgan who will become the first person to combine his very humanity with artificial intelligence and robotics to become a full Cyborg. His discovery means that his terminal diagnosis is negotiable, something that will rewrite the future. And change the world. 
 
By embracing love, life and hope rather than fear, tragedy and despair he will become Peter 2.0.

Peter 2.0

The Human Cyborg

Michio Kaku

This is the story of a quest: to find a Theory of Everything. Einstein dedicated his life to seeking this elusive Holy Grail, a single, revolutionary 'god equation' which would tie all the forces in the universe together, yet never found it. Some of the greatest minds in physics took up the search, from Stephen Hawking to Brian Greene. None have yet succeeded. 
 
In The God Equation, renowned theoretical physicist Michio Kaku takes the reader on a mind-bending tour through this epic journey: a mystery that has fascinated him for most of his life. He guides us through the key debates in modern physics, from Newton's law of gravity to the latest developments in string theory. It is a tale of dazzling breakthroughs and crushing dead ends, illuminated by Kaku's clarity, storytelling flair and infectious enthusiasm. 
 
The object of the quest is now within sight: we are closer than ever to achieving the most ambitious undertaking in the history of science. If successful, the Theory of Everything could both unlock the deepest mysteries of space and time, and fulfil that most ancient and basic of human desires - to understand the meaning of our lives.

The God Equation

The Quest for a Theory of Everything

Janna Levin

What would happen if you fell into a Black Hole? 
 
Black holes are found throughout the universe. They can be microscopic. They can be billions of times larger than our Sun. They are dark on the outside but not on the inside. Anything that enters them can never escape, and yet they contain nothing at all. 
 
In Black Hole Survival Guide physicist and novelist Janna Levin takes you on a journey into a black hole, explaining what would happen to you and why. In the process you'll come to see how their mysteries contain answers to some of the most profound questions ever asked about the nature of our universe. 
 
'Astrophysics at its sexiest...hugely enjoyable' Sunday Times

Black Hole Survival Guide

Leonard Mlodinow

An icon of the last fifty years, Stephen Hawking seems to encapsulate genius: not since Albert Einstein has a scientific figure held such a position in popular consciousness. In this enthralling memoir, writer and physicist Leonard Mlodinow tells the story of his friend and their friendship, offering an intimate account of this giant of science. 
 
The two met in 2003, when Stephen asked Leonard if he would consider writing a book with him, the follow up to the bestselling A Brief History of Time. As they spent years working on a second book, The Grand Design, they forged a deep connection and Leonard gained a much better understanding of Stephen's daily life and struggles - as well as his compassion and good humour. Together they obsessed over the perfect sentence, debated the physics, and occasionally punted on Cambridge's waterways with champagne and strawberries. In time, Leonard was able to finished Stephen's jokes, chide his sporadic mischief, and learn how the hardships of his illness helped forge that unique perspective on the universe.

Stephen Hawking

Friendship and Physics

A Memoir of Friendship and Physics

Frank Wilczek

In Fundamentals, Nobel laureate Frank Wilczek offers the reader a simple yet profound exploration of reality based on the deep revelations of modern science. With clarity and an infectious sense of joy, he guides us through the essential concepts that form our understanding of what the world is and how it works. Through these pages, we come to see our reality in a new way--bigger, fuller, and stranger than it looked before. 
 
 Synthesizing basic questions, facts, and dazzling speculations, Wilczek investigates the ideas that form our understanding of the universe: time, space, matter, energy, complexity, and complementarity. He excavates the history of fundamental science, exploring what we know and how we know it, while journeying to the horizons of the scientific world to give us a glimpse of what we may soon discover. Brilliant, lucid, and accessible, this celebration of human ingenuity and imagination will expand your world and your mind.

Fundamentals

Ten Keys to Reality

Katie Mack

You're going to die. The Earth will, one day, be toast. So too, our Sun will eventually shine its last. But what's next? 
 
The End of Everything is a unique exploration of the destruction of the cosmos. Drawing on cutting edge technology and theory, as well as hot-off-the-presses results from the most powerful telescopes and particle colliders, astrophysicist Katie Mack describes how small tweaks to our incomplete understanding of reality can result in starkly different futures. Our universe could collapse in upon itself, or rip itself apart, or even - in the next five minutes - succumb to an inescapable expanding bubble of doom. 
 
This fascinating, witty story of cosmic escapism examines a beautiful but unfamiliar physics landscape while sharing the excitement a leading astrophysicist feels when thinking about the universe and our place in it. Amid stellar explosions and bouncing universes, Mack shows that even though we puny humans have no chance of changing how it all ends, we can at least begin to understand it.

The End of Everything

(Astrophysically Speaking)

Arik Kershenbaum

We are unprepared for the greatest discovery of modern science. Scientists are confident that there is alien life across the universe yet we have not moved beyond our perception of 'aliens' as Hollywood stereotypes. The time has come to abandon our fixation on alien monsters and place our expectations on solid scientific footing. 
 
Using his own expert understanding of life on Earth and Darwin's theory of evolution - which applies throughout the universe - Cambridge zoologist Dr Arik Kershenbaum explains what alien life must be like: how these creatures will move, socialise and communicate. The Zoologist's Guide to the Galaxy is the story of how life really works, on Earth and in space.

The Zoologist's Guide to the Galaxy

What Animals on Earth Reveal about Aliens – and Ourselves

Is flying dangerous? How much do the world's cows weigh? And what makes people happy? 
 
From earth's nations and inhabitants, through the fuels and foods that energize them, to the transportation and inventions of our modern world - and how all of this affects the planet itself - in Numbers Don't Lie, Professor Vaclav Smil takes us on a fact-finding adventure, using surprising statistics and illuminating graphs to challenge lazy thinking. 
 
Packed with 'Well-I-never-knew-that' information and with fascinating and unusual examples throughout, we find out how many people it took to build the Great Pyramid, that vaccination yields the best return on investment, and why electric cars aren't as great as we think (yet). There's a wonderful mix of science, history and wit, all in bite-sized chapters on a broad range of topics. 
 
Urgent and essential, Numbers Don't Lie inspires readers to interrogate what they take to be true in these significant times. Smil is on a mission to make facts matter, because after all, numbers may not lie, but which truth do they convey?

Numbers Don't Lie

71 Things You Need to Know About the World

David Nelles

Christian Serrer

When students David Nelles and Christian Serrer struggled to find a book that explained the nuts and bolts of climate change in a way that was comprehensive, concise and enjoyable to read, they decided to write it themselves. 
 
With meticulous research corroborated by over 100 scientists, Small Gases, Big Effect summarizes all the latest findings on the causes and effects of climate change. Combining clear, thoughtful writing with illuminating graphics, it is a little book that presents complex scientific evidence in a way that everyone will find easy to understand.

Small Gases, Big Effect

This Is Climate Change

Brian Greene

Until the End of Time is Brian Greene's breathtaking new exploration of the cosmos and our quest to understand it. Greene takes us on a journey across time, from our most refined understanding of the universe's beginning, to the closest science can take us to the very end. He explores how life and mind emerged from the initial chaos, and how our minds, in coming to understand their own impermanence, seek in different ways to give meaning to experience: in story, myth, religion, creative expression, science, the quest for truth, and our longing for the timeless, or eternal. Greene provides us with a clearer sense of how we came to be, a finer picture of where we are now, and a firmer understanding of where we are headed. 
 
Yet all this understanding, which arose with the emergence of life, will dissolve with its conclusion. Which leaves us with one realization: during our brief moment in the sun, we are tasked with the charge of finding our own meaning. 
 
Let us embark.

Until the End of Time

Mind, Matter, and Our Search for Meaning in an Evolving Universe

Matthew Stanley

In 1916, Arthur Eddington, a war-weary British astronomer, opened a letter written by an obscure German professor named Einstein. The neatly printed equations on the scrap of paper outlined his world-changing theory of general relativity. Until then Einstein's masterpiece of time and space had been trapped behind the physical and ideological lines of battle, unknown. 
 
Einstein's name is now synonymous with 'genius', but it was not an easy road. He spent a decade creating relativity and his ascent to global celebrity owed much to against-the-odds international collaboration, including Eddington's globe-spanning expedition of 1919 - two years before they finally met. We usually think of scientific discovery as a flash of individual inspiration, but here we see it is the result of hard work, gambles and wrong turns. 
 
Einstein's War is a celebration of what science can offer when bigotry and nationalism are defeated. Using previously unknown sources and written like a thriller, it shows relativity being built brick-by-brick in front of us, as it happened 100 years ago.

Einstein's War

How Relativity Conquered Nationalism and Shook the World

Neil deGrasse Tyson

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER! 
 
Join the galactic conversation on the biggest issues in the universe, from the 'most popular scientist in the world' 
 
‘Don't fear change. Don't fear failure. The only thing to fear is loss of ambition. But if you've got plenty of that, then you have nothing to fear at all’ – Neil deGrasse Tyson 
 
Neil deGrasse Tyson is arguably the most influential, acclaimed scientist on the planet. As director of the Hayden Planetarium, and host of Cosmos and StarTalk, he has dedicated his life to exploring and explaining the mysteries of the universe. 
 
Every year, he receives thousands of letters – from students to prisoners, scientists to priests. Some seek advice, others yearn for inspiration; some are full of despair, others burst with wonder. But they are all searching for understanding, meaning and truth. 
 
His replies are by turns wise, funny, and mind-blowing. In this, his most personal book by far, he covers everything from God to the history of science, from aliens to death. He bares his soul – his passions, his doubts, his hopes. The big theme is everywhere in these pages: what is our place in the universe? 
 
The result is an awe-inspiring read and an intimate portal into an incredible mind, which reveals the power of the universe to start conversations and inspire curiosity in all of us.

Letters from an Astrophysicist

Thibault Damour

Mathieu Burniat

Famous explorer Bob and his dog Rick have been around the world and even to the Moon, but their travels through the quantum universe show them the greatest wonders they've ever seen. As they follow their tour guide, the giddy letter h (also known as the Planck constant), Bob and Rick discover that the universe is bouncy, have crepes with Max Planck, talk to Einstein about atoms, visit Louis de Broglie in his castle, and hang out with Heisenberg on Heligoland. On the way, we find out that a dog - much like a cat - can be both dead and alive, the gaze of a mouse can change the universe, and a comic book can actually make quantum physics fun, easy to understand and downright enchanting.

Mysteries of the Quantum Universe

Frank Close

'Trinity' was the codename for the test explosion of the atomic bomb in New Mexico on 16 July 1945. This exceptional book - Trinity - tells the story of the bomb's metaphorical father, Rudolf Peierls; his intellectual son, the atomic spy, Klaus Fuchs, and the ghosts of the security services in Britain, the USA and USSR. 
 
Against the background of pre-war Nazi Germany, the Second World War and the following Cold War, the book traces how Peierls brought Fuchs into his family and his laboratory, only to be betrayed. It describes how Fuchs became a spy, his motivations and the information he passed to his Soviet contacts, both in the UK and after he went with Peierls to join the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos in 1944. Frank Close is himself a distinguished nuclear physicist: uniquely, the book explains the science as well as the spying. Fuchs returned to Britain in August 1946 and became central to the UK's independent effort to develop nuclear weapons. Close describes the febrile atmosphere at Harwell, the nuclear physics laboratory near Oxford, and the charged relationships which developed there, and shows how - despite mistakes made by both MI5 and the FBI - the net gradually closed around Fuchs, building an intolerable pressure which finally cracked him. 
 
The Soviet Union exploded its first nuclear device in August 1949, far earlier than the US or UK expected. In 1951, the US Congressional Committee on Atomic Espionage concluded, 'Fuchs alone has influenced the safety of more people and accomplished greater damage than any other spy not only in the history of the United States, but in the history of nations'. This book is the most comprehensive account yet published of these events, and of the tragic figure at their centre.

Trinity

The Treachery and Pursuit of the Most Dangerous Spy in History

Anthony Aguirre

Could there be a civilization on a mote of dust? How much of your fate have you made? Who cleans the universe? 
 
Through more than fifty Koans - pleasingly paradoxical vignettes following the ancient Zen tradition - leading physicist Anthony Aguirre takes the reader across the world from Japan to Italy, and through ideas spanning the age, breadth and depth of the Universe. Using these beguiling Koans and a flair for explaining complex science, Aguirre covers cosmic questions that scientific giants from Aristotle to Galileo and Heisenberg have grappled with, from the meaning of quantum theory and the nature of time to the origin of multiple universes. 
 
Playful and enlightening, Cosmological Koans explores the strange hinterland between the deep structure of the physical world and our personal experience of it, giving us what Einstein himself called 'the most beautiful and deepest experience' anyone can have: a sense of the mysterious.

Cosmological Koans

A Journey to the Heart of Physics

Lee Smolin

Human beings, says Lee Smolin, have always had a problem with the boundary between reality and fantasy, confusing our representations of the world with the world itself. Nowhere is this more evident than in quantum physics, which forms the basis for our understanding of everything from elementary particles to the behaviour of materials. 
 
While quantum mechanics is currently our best theory of nature at an atomic scale, it has many puzzling qualities - qualities that preclude realism and therefore give an incomplete description of nature. Rather than question this version of quantum mechanics, however, whole groups of physicists have embraced it as correct and rejected realism. Subscribing to a kind of magical thinking, they believe that what is real is far beyond the world we perceive: indeed, that the 'true' world is hidden from our perception. 
 
Back in the 1920s Einstein, both a realist and a physicist, believed that it was necessary to go beyond quantum mechanics to discover what was missing from a true theory of the atoms. This was Einstein's unfinished mission, and it is Lee Smolin's too. 
 
Not only will this new model of quantum physics form the basis of solutions to many of the outstanding problems of physics, but, crucially, it is a theory that is realist in nature. At a time when science is under attack, and with it the belief in a real world in which facts are either true or false, never has the importance of building science on the correct foundations been more urgent.

Einstein's Unfinished Revolution

The Search for What Lies Beyond the Quantum

When Darwin set out to explain the origin of species, he made no attempt to answer the deeper question: what is life? 
 
For generations, scientists have struggled to make sense of this fundamental question. Life really does look like magic: even a humble bacterium accomplishes things so dazzling that no human engineer can match it. And yet, huge advances in molecular biology over the past few decades have served only to deepen the mystery. So can life be explained by known physics and chemistry, or do we need something fundamentally new? 
 
In this penetrating and wide-ranging new analysis, world-renowned physicist and science communicator Paul Davies searches for answers in a field so new and fast-moving that it lacks a name, a domain where computing, chemistry, quantum physics and nanotechnology intersect. At the heart of these diverse fields, Davies explains, is the concept of information: a quantity with the power to unify biology with physics, transform technology and medicine, and even to illuminate the age-old question of whether we are alone in the universe. 
 
From life's murky origins to the microscopic engines that run the cells of our bodies, The Demon in the Machine is a breath-taking journey across the landscape of physics, biology, logic and computing. Weaving together cancer and consciousness, two-headed worms and bird navigation, Davies reveals how biological organisms garner and process information to conjure order out of chaos, opening a window on the secret of life itself.

The Demon in the Machine

How Hidden Webs of Information Are Finally Solving the Mystery of Life

Tim Peake

The European Space Agency

_________________________ 
 
*The OUT-OF-THIS-WORLD puzzle book, as featured in the Times, Daily Telegraph, BBC Radio 4, and BBC Breakfast, and a Guardian Book of the Year pick. 
 
 Have YOU got what it takes to be an astronaut? 
 
This book will help readers of all ages find out. Featuring 100 real astronaut tests and exercises from the European Space Agency's rigorous selection process, ranging from easy to fiendishly hard, The Astronaut Selection Test Book goes where no puzzle book has gone before. 
 
 Including puzzles and tests on: 
 
· visual perception and logic 
· mental arithmetic and concentration 
· psychological readiness 
· teamwork and leadership 
· survival, physical and medical skills 
· foreign languages (every astronaut has to know Russian!) 
 
and much more, this richly illustrated book draws on Tim Peake's first-hand experience of applying to be an astronaut in 2008, when he and five others were chosen - out of over 8,000 applications! 
 
We've all dreamed of being an astronaut, though of the estimated 100 billion people who have ever lived, only 557 people have travelled to space. But with this unprecedented look into real astronaut selection, you might just find out your dreams can become reality... 
_________________________ 
HOUSTON, WE HAVE A PROBLEM SOLVER... 
 
Tim Peake and the ESA will receive no royalties from this book; instead, they will be donated to the Prince's Trust charity. 
_________________________ 
'Engrossing... a brain buster of a book... You'll learn plenty about space and what it takes to be an astronaut, but you'll also sharpen up your broader knowledge. For anyone interested in the space race and the imminent journey to Mars, here's the perfect stocking filler.' - STARBURST 
 
'It's a brain work-out on steroids, stuffed with authentic selection tests... Entertaining and engaging... innovative, earnest, soulful and exhilarating' - BBC SKY AT NIGHT MAGAZINE (5 STARS, Book of the Month) 
 
'It's such a good idea... this is a very good thing for Christmas Day' - GRAHAM NORTON, BBC RADIO 2 
 
'Everybody, get this book... it's a fascinating read' - CHRIS MOYLES, RADIO X 
 
'A fantastic gift... more than just a quiz' - WI LIFE 
 
'The perfect [book] for big thinkers' - BBC ARTS, 2018's Biggest Books

The Astronaut Selection Test Book

Do You Have What it Takes for Space?

THE #1 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER 
 
One of TIME's Ten Best Nonfiction Books of the Decade 
 
'Captivating, fascinating, profoundly beautiful. . . Rovelli is a wonderfully humane, gentle and witty guide for he is as much philosopher and poet as he is a scientist' John Banville 
 
'We are time. We are this space, this clearing opened by the traces of memory inside the connections between our neurons. We are memory. We are nostalgia. We are longing for a future that will not come' 
 
Time is a mystery that does not cease to puzzle us. Philosophers, artists and poets have long explored its meaning while scientists have found that its structure is different from the simple intuition we have of it. From Boltzmann to quantum theory, from Einstein to loop quantum gravity, our understanding of time has been undergoing radical transformations. Time flows at a different speed in different places, the past and the future differ far less than we might think, and the very notion of the present evaporates in the vast universe. 
 
With his extraordinary charm and sense of wonder, bringing together science, philosophy and art, Carlo Rovelli unravels this mystery. Enlightening and consoling, The Order of Time shows that to understand ourselves we need to reflect on time -- and to understand time we need to reflect on ourselves. 
 
Translated by Simon Carnell and Erica Segre

The Order of Time

Festival of the Spoken Nerd

Get ready to enjoy both series 1 and 2 of the heady combination of maths, science and comedy that is Domestic Science. 
Featuring Matt Parker, Steve Mould and Helen Arney as Festival of the Spoken Nerd, these 8 episodes use stand-up, songs and experiments to investigate the world around us with a level of scientific accuracy not normally found in your average comedy series. 
 
If you've ever pondered where the mint in your toothpaste really comes from, or wondered what The Hot Chocolate Effect is, then come explore and play along at home. The team also investigate everything from radioactive bananas and musical bicycle tyres to assisting you with mathematically efficient sock storage and how to host your very own static electricity party. 
 
UK science comedy phenomenon Festival of the Spoken Nerd created this truly experimental radio show for BBC Radio 4, alongside appearances on BBC2’s QI and sharing stages at the Hammersmith Apollo and Royal Albert Hall with comedian Robin Ince, Professor Brian Cox and Commander Chris Hadfield. They toured their most recent stand-up science show to over 50,000 curious nerds (and non-nerds) and have accumulated millions of views on YouTube for their stand-up maths, songs and science explanations. 
 
Produced by Julia McKenzie

Domestic Science: Series 1 and 2

The BBC Radio 4 comedy

Kitty Ferguson

In 1963 Stephen Hawking was given two years to live. Defying all the odds, he died in March 2018 at age seventy-six as the most celebrated scientist in the world. This carefully researched and updated biography and tribute gives a rich picture of Hawking's remarkable life - his childhood, the heart-rending beginning of his struggle with motor neurone disease, his ever-increasing international fame, and his long personal battle for survival in pursuit of a scientific understanding of the universe. 
 From more recent years, Kitty Ferguson describes his inspiring leadership at the London Paralympic Games, the release of the film The Theory of Everything, his continuing work on black holes and the origin of the universe, the discovery of 'supertranslations', and the astounding 'Starshot' program. Here also are his intense concern for the future of the Earth and his use of his celebrity to fight for environmental and humanitarian causes, and, finally, a ground-breaking paper he was working on at the time of his death, in which he took issue with some of his own earlier theories. Throughout, Ferguson summarizes and explains the cutting-edge science in which Hawking was engaged and offers vivid first-hand descriptions of his funeral in Cambridge and the interment of his ashes in Westminster Abbey. 
This is an amazing and revealing tribute, assessing Hawking's legacy in and out of science.

A Life Well Lived

Jim Al-Khalili

Part of the new Ladybird Expert series, Gravity is an accessible and authoritative introduction to a force as familiar to us as breathing. 
 
Written by celebrated physicist and broadcaster Jim Al-Khalili, Gravity proves to be so much more than the adage: 'what goes up must come down'. Stuck to the surface of our planet we experience gravity merely as a force pulling us down to the ground, but we will discover that it is far richer than that. 
 
Inside, you'll learn that gravity is not really a 'force' at all, but something altogether more profound. In fact, gravity controls the very shape of space and the passage of time themselves and, as such, the history and destiny of the entire Universe. 
 
Written by the leading lights and most outstanding communicators in their fields, the Ladybird Expert books provide clear, accessible and authoritative introductions to subjects drawn from science, history and culture. 
 
For an adult readership, the Ladybird Expert series is produced in the same iconic small hardback format pioneered by the original Ladybirds. Each beautifully illustrated book features the first new illustrations produced in the original Ladybird style for nearly forty years.

Gravity

A Ladybird Expert Book

Philip Ball

PHYSICS WORLD 2018 BOOK OF THE YEAR 
 
‘A clear and deeply researched account of what’s known about the quantum laws of nature, and how to think about what they might really mean’ Nature 
 
 ‘I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics.’ Richard Feynman wrote this in 1965 – the year he was awarded the Nobel prize in physics for his work on quantum mechanics. Over the past decade, the enigma of quantum mechanics has come into sharper focus. We now realise that quantum mechanics is less about particles and waves, uncertainty and fuzziness, than a theory about information: about what can be known and how. 
 
 The quantum world isn’t a different world: it is our world, and if anything deserves to be called ‘weird’, it’s us. This exhilarating book is about what quantum maths really means – and what it doesn’t mean. 
 
 ‘Gorgeously lucid…takes us to the edge of contemporary theorizing about the foundations of quantum mechanics… Easily the best book I’ve read on the subject’ Washington Post

Beyond Weird

Jo Dunkley

In recent years, extraordinary advances in our understanding of the wider Universe have led us to uncover even greater mysteries: what, for example, are the mysterious 'dark' parts of the Universe? And, what happens in those parts of space where conditions are so intense that our laws of physics break down? 
 
In this new Pelican book, practising cosmologist and Professor of Astrophysics Jo Dunkley takes us to the heart of these many unsolved questions, guiding us through the history and structure of the universe, and illuminating many unsung heroes of discovery along the way.

Our Universe

An Astronomer's Guide

A Private Thriller

A series of children's modern classic novels by renowned 20th century children's writers. All the titles in this series have the A Puffin Book logo, contemporary-style covers, and child-friendly endnotes.

A Puffin Book

A Ripley Novel

A Slice of the Moon

A Victorian Mystery

A Walk in...

A Women’s Murder Club Thriller

A chef Paul Delamare Mystery

Aberrations

Across the Universe

Actiphons

Adelia Aguilar

Adrian Mole

Adventures in Time

Aftermath

Against War

Age of X

Agent 21

Agent Z

Detective Aidan Waits is a troubled junior detective haunted by his past. Facing an uncertain future, and disconnected from his history, DC Waits and his partner, Detective Inspector Peter 'Sutty' Sutcliffe work on Manchester's streets to uncover the city's worst criminals among the grime of the underworld.

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