Birth Science

Antoine Lavoisier reinvented chemistry, overthrowing the long-established principles of alchemy and inventing an entirely new terminology, one still in use by chemists. Madison Smartt Bell’s enthralling narrative comes across like a race to the finish line, as the very circumstances that enabled Lavoisier to secure his reputation as the father of modern chemistry—a considerable fortune and social connections with the likes of Benjamin Franklin—also caused his glory to be cut short by the French Revolution.

From author Paul Gilding comes an unflinching look at the challenges we face as a global climate crisis approaches - and the unique opportunities this crisis presents for moving toward an ethic of sustainability.

Rebels in the Making is a narrative-driven history of how and why secession occurred. In this work, senior Civil War historian William L. Barney narrates the explosion of the sectional conflict into secession and civil war. Carefully examining the events in all 15 slave states and distinguishing the political circumstances in each, he argues that this was not a mass democratic movement but one led from above.

Should you really read to your baby? Can teaching a baby sign language boost IQ? Should you pipe classical music into the nursery? Dr. Jill Stamm translates the latest neuroscience findings into clear explanations and practical suggestions, demonstrating the importance of the simple ways you interact with your child every day. It isn't the right edutainment that nurtures an infant's brain. It is as simple as attention, bonding, and communication, and it's within every parent's ability to provide.

All winter long, people in the Green Hollows have prepared for a final battle with Gnag the Nameless and the Fangs of Dang. Janner, Kalmar and Leeli are ready and willing to fight alongside the Hollowsfolk. But when the Fangs make the first move and invade Ban Rona, the children are separated.

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Dale Maharidge has spent his career documenting the downward spiral of the American working class, and his new book explores the limits of the American dream in the 2020s. Poverty is both reality and destiny for increasing numbers of people in the 2020s and, as Maharidge discovers spray-painted inside an abandoned gas station in the California desert, it is a fate often handed down from birth.

How did we get from an age of dignified nightly news broadcasts on three national networks to the age of 24-hour channels and constantly breaking news? The answer - thanks to Ted Turner and an oddball cast of cable TV visionaries, big league rejects, and nonunion newbies - can be found in the basement of an abandoned country club in Atlanta. Because it was there, in 1980, that this motley crew somehow, against all odds, launched CNN. Up All Night is an inside look at the founding of the upstart network that set out to change the way news was delivered and consumed.

From early childhood, Dr. Hannah Mumby has loved wildlife, especially elephants. Her first wild elephant sighting at 24 changed the course of her life. Since then, she has devoted herself to studying these incredible animals and educating humanity about them. Hannah's field work has taken her around the world, where she has studied many elephant groups, including both orphaned elephants and the solitary elephant males. These remarkable animals have so much to teach us, Mumby argues, and Elephants takes listeners into their world as never before.

The effort to reconnect the world has been successful, and a new home for the Defense Force chosen. All that remains is to tackle the Madness. Sarah Jennifer is still hurting from Ezekiel’s departure. Meanwhile, Ezekiel has his own losses to contend with. A chance encounter in the woods gives him the push he needs to make things right.

Salem has emerged as the center of civilization on the East Coast. The barriers between the factions dropped when the UnknownWorld stepped up to protect the unenhanced from the Madness. The Defense Force is ready to tackle Europe, the Madness, and the malfunctioning climate control system Bethany Anne left behind. Sarah Jennifer leads the way as the pack forges new connections around the world. Not everyone takes the news of the impending break-up well.

It was an explosion that reverberated across the country—and into the very heart of early-twentieth-century America. On the morning of October 1, 1910, the walls of the Los Angeles Times Building buckled as a thunderous detonation sent men, machinery, and mortar rocketing into the night air. When at last the wreckage had been sifted and the hospital triage units consulted, twenty-one people were declared dead and dozens more injured. But as it turned out, this was just a prelude to the devastation that was to come.

In the opening months of 1949, US President Harry S. Truman found himself faced with a looming diplomatic catastrophe - "perhaps the greatest that this country has ever suffered", as the journalist Walter Lippmann put it. Throughout the spring and summer, Mao Zedong's Communist armies fanned out across mainland China, annihilating the rival troops of America's onetime ally Chiang Kai-shek and taking control of Beijing, Shanghai, and other major cities.

There is only one thing better than a birthday party—a birthday party in Unicornia! Here the cakes are enchanted, the candies change flavor, and the theme parks are covered in glitter. But Pippa’s birthday has started off on the wrong foot, and her friends must think quickly to turn disaster into great fun. Luckily for them, they live in the most magical place ever!

The 1828 presidential election, which pitted Major General Andrew Jackson against incumbent John Quincy Adams, has long been hailed as a watershed moment in American political history. It was the contest in which an unlettered, hot-tempered southwestern frontiersman, trumpeted by his supporters as a genuine man of the people, soundly defeated a New England "aristocrat" whose education and political resume were as impressive as any ever seen in American public life.

In this audacious recasting of the American Revolution, distinguished historian Gary Nash offers a profound new way of thinking about the struggle to create this country, introducing listeners to a coalition of patriots from all classes and races of American society. From millennialist preachers to enslaved Africans and disgruntled women to aggrieved Indians, the people so vividly portrayed in this book laid down ideas that have become part of our inheritance and ideals toward which we still strive today.

In a story that is both of its time and timeless, Evan I. Schwartz tells a tale of genius versus greed, innocence versus deceit, and independent brilliance versus corporate arrogance. Many men have laid claim to the title "father of television," but Philo T. Farnsworth is the true genius behind what may be the most influential invention of our time. Driven by his obsession to demonstrate his idea, by the age of 20 Farnsworth was operating his own laboratory above a garage in San Francisco and filing for patents. The resulting publicity caught the attention of RCA tycoon David Sarnoff, who became determined to control television in the same way he monopolized radio.

Join Katie, Eva and Alex on their adventures, as they're whisked away to a magical woods alive with animals, where they're no longer girls but animals. This collection contains the first six books of the series: A Magical Beginning, To the Rescue, Lost and Found, The Birthday Party, Save the Day and An Enchanted Wedding.

Count Witon has grown weary of the constant war between the races, so he plans to create a new society: A utopia for anyone who longs for peaceful coexistence. Recruiting pilgrims from every city and species, they set off to a small, yet promising island together.

This is the origin story of the airwaves - the foundational technology of the communications age - as told through the 40-year friendship of an entrepreneurial industrialist and a brilliant inventor. David Sarnoff, the head of RCA and equal parts Steve Jobs, Jack Welch, and William Randolph Hearst, was the greatest supporter of his friend, Edwin Armstrong, developer of the first amplifier, the modern radio transmitter, and FM radio.

After living for years under the occupation by the evil Fangs of Dang, the Igiby children find a map rumoured to lead to the lost Jewels of Anniera - the one thing the Fangs will do anything to find. The family is thrown headlong into a perilous adventure, uncovering truths about who they are that will change their world forever. This is the opportunity to discover the Wingfeathers.