Science Geography

The Britannias tells the story of Britain's islands and how they are woven into its collective cultural psyche. From Neolithic Orkney to modern-day Thanet, Alice Albinia explores the furthest reaches of Britain's island topography, once known (wrote Pliny) by the collective term, Britanniae. Sailing over borders, between languages and genres, trespassing through the past to understand the present, this book knocks the centre out to foreground neglected epics and subversive voices.

Aladdin is a young lad dwelling in ancient China; his parents are in despair, as he is a never-do-well and won't ever do anything. A sorcerer from the Maghreb persuades him to retrieve a wonderful oil lamp from a magic cave. But then, the socerer attempts to double-cross Aladdin, who resists only to find himself trapped in the cave. Luckily, he has kept the magical object and a world of adventures opens before him.

In the 60,000 years since people began colonising the continents, a recurring feature of human civilisation has been mobility - the constant search for resources and stability. Seismic global events - wars and genocides, revolutions and pandemics - have only accelerated the process. The map of humanity isn't settled, not now, not ever. As climate change tips toward full-blown crisis, economies collapse, governments destabilise and technology disrupts, we're entering a new age of mass migrations - one that will scatter not just the dispossessed but all of us.

Wie wir mit dem Wissen über die Alpen unser Wetter und den Klimawandel besser verstehen. Meteorologe Sven Plöger und Wissenschaftsjournalist Rolf Schlenker erklären, wie die Alpen als Taktgeber für unterschiedlichste Wetterphänomene auch im Flachland wirken. Wie Hitzerekorde, Trockenperioden, Saharastaub und Starkregen, Föhnstürme und Orkanböen entstehen. Mit welchen Strategien Alpentiere überleben; wie das evolutive Gedächtnis von Alpenpflanzen funktioniert. Und welche Ideen es vor Ort gibt, mit denen wir dem Klimawandel entgegentreten können.

Can Donald Trump really build that wall? What does Brexit mean for Ireland's border? And what would happen if Elon Musk declared himself president of the Moon? In Border Wars, Professor Klaus Dodds takes us on a journey into the geopolitical conflict of tomorrow in an eye-opening tour of the world's best-known, most dangerous and most unexpected border conflicts from the Gaza Strip to the space race. Along the way, we'll discover just what borders truly mean in the modern world.

Maps not only show the world, they help it turn. They are the unsung heroes of life: Map Addict sings their song. There are some fine, dry tomes out there about the history and development of cartography: this is not one of them. Map Addict mixes wry observation with hard fact and considerable research, unearthing the offbeat, the unusual and the downright pedantic in a celebration of all things maps

Writing in the grand American tradition of Annie Dillard and Barry Lopez, Donovan Hohn is an "adventurous, inquisitive, and brightly illuminating writer" (New York Times). Since the publication of Moby-Duck a decade ago, Hohn has been widely hailed for his prize-winning essays on the borderlands between the natural and the human. The Inner Coast collects 10 of his best, many of them originally published in such magazines as the New York Times Magazine and Harper's.

"We don't govern water. Water governs us," writes James Workman. In Heart of Dryness, he chronicles the memorable, cautionary tale of the famed Bushmen of the Kalahari - remnants of one of the world's most successful civilizations, today at the exact epicenter of Africa's drought - and their remarkable, widely publicized battle over water with the government of Botswana, to explore the larger story of what many feel is becoming the primary resource battleground of the 21st century: water.

Born to a wealthy family in northern Sri Lanka, Logathasan Tharmathurai and his family lost everything during the long and brutal Sri Lankan Civil War. In January 1985, at the age of 18, he left his home in a desperate bid to build a new life for himself and his family abroad after a deeply traumatic encounter with a group of Sinhalese soldiers.

To understand how humans react and adapt to economic change we need to study people who live in harsh environments. This audiobook tells the personal stories of humans living in extreme situations, and of the financial infrastructure they create. Here, economies are not concerned with the familiar stock market crashes, housing crises, or banking scandals of the financial pages.

For nearly two hundred years, the Society has been awarding gold medals to those individuals who have contributed most to our geographical knowledge. Winners of the Founder's and Patron's medals now number around three hundred individuals, and the roll-call of names is a veritable Who's Who of exploration. Telling their stories, of the many and varied ways in which they have helped 'fill in the maps', is nothing less than a history of exploration itself.

A series of glasses of transparent liquids is in front of you: but which will quench your thirst and which will kill you? And why? Why does one liquid make us drunk and another power a jumbo jet? Sometimes dangerous, often delightful and always fascinating, discover the secret lives of liquids, from one of our best known scientists. From the best-selling author of Stuff Matters comes a fascinating tour of the world of these surprising or sinister substances - the droplets, heartbeats and ocean waves we encounter day to day.

Most works about the environment build on dire threats warning of the possible extinction of humanity. Alan Weisman avoids frightening off readers by disarmingly wiping out our species in the first few minutes. He then continues with an astounding depiction of how Earth will fare once we're no longer around. The World Without Us is a one-of-a-kind work that sweeps through time from the moment of humanity's future extinction to millions of years into the future.

Mim Cohen roams the world in a travelling bookshop, with her dad and brother and a horse called Flossy. Flossy leads them where she will, to the place where they're needed most...the place where the perfect book will find its way home. Now Mim has arrived in elegant Paris where she meets Pierre, a talented but anxious artist who cannot bear to give up his paintings, even to sell them. He's miserable and poor. His customers are cross. Mim knows they're here to help Pierre. To calm him down. To turn him into a successful artist. To make him truly happy.

Red doesn’t remember who she is or where she came from. In fact, her only memory is a terrifying, repeating dream of a threatening shadow and a foggy field. But after many years, she wonders if that’s just something she made up. Red does know that she now belongs with Yakaka, the witch who rescued Red when she was a little girl. Full of power and magic, Yakaka travels the world, healing the planet when it calls for her help.

Peak Everything addresses many of the cultural, psychological and practical changes we will have to make as nature rapidly dictates our new limits. This latest book from Richard Heinberg, author of three of the most important books on Peak Oil, touches on the most important aspects of the human condition at this unique moment in time.

A combination of wry commentary and sober forecasting on subjects as diverse as farming and industrial design, this book tells how we might make the transition from The Age of Excess to the Era of Modesty with grace and satisfaction....

Mim Cohen roams the world in a travelling bookshop, with her dad and brother and a horse called Flossy. Flossy leads them where she will, to the place where they're needed most...the place where the perfect book will find its way home. Now Mim has arrived in Puddling Muddlebury in the Cotswolds, England, just in time for the annual dog show. The judge, Lord Melville-Timms, is in a pickle. He has judged cakes and flowers and vegetables, but never a dog show. Furthermore, his beloved bulldog, Bubbles, is the most disobedient dog in the county.

Imagine over three million square miles of sand dunes that are as tall as a ten-story building. That place is real—it's the Sahara Desert! Vast, yes! And home to fascinating creatures such as ostriches and fennec foxes as well as amazing plant life. The shallow roots of the mesquite tree can grow almost 200 feet across to absorb water.

Young Neil deGrasse Tyson was starstruck when he first visited the sky theater at the Hayden Planetarium in New York City. He couldn't believe the crowded, glittering night sky at the planetarium was real - until a visit to the country years later revealed the impossible. That discovery was like rocket fuel for Neil's passion about space. This story of how one boy's quest for knowledge about space led him to become a star scientist is perfect for young children who are fascinated by the universe, aspiring scientists, and the dreamer in all of us.

Since the publication of her prize-winning memoir, Craft for a Dry Lake, writer and artist Kim Mahood has been returning to the Tanami desert country in far north-western Australia where, as a child, she lived with her family on a remote cattle station. The land is timeless, but much has changed: the station has been handed back to its traditional owners, the mining companies have arrived and Aboriginal art has flourished.