Sake began with a grain of rice. Scotch emerged from barley, tequila from agave, rum from sugarcane, bourbon from corn. Thirsty yet?  In The Drunken Botanist , Amy Stewart explores the dizzying array of herbs, flowers, trees, fruits, and fungi that humans have, th...

The irresistible, ever-curious, and always best-selling Mary Roach returns with a new adventure to the invisible realm we carry around inside. "America's funniest science writer" ( Washington Post ) takes us down the hatch on an unforgettable tour. The alimentary ca...

Written in the warm and reassuring Bank Street style, this is an authoritative, ground-breaking guide entriely devoted to the dilemmas of sibling rivalry. Issues such as jealousy, sharing and fighting between siblings are discussed, and there are special sections on ...

Dor agreed to act as King of Xanth so long as Trent was gone for a week. But the weeks passed and Trent did not return. Dor knew he had to rescue his king but with no magic powers, how could it be done...? From the Paperback edition.

A provocative critique of Western progress from a scientific perspective

"It's rare that a medically trained scientist dares to venture into the mystical world of our cells and biology, but Dr. Barrett has both the courage and insights to do just that. By combining her scientifically trained mind with the wisdom of her heart, she takes u...

One of Publishers Weekly 's Top Ten Spring 2013 Science Books Philadelphia, 1959: A scientist scrutinizing a single human cell under a microscope detects a missing piece of DNA. That scientist, David Hungerford, had no way of knowing that he had stumbled upon th...

A successful Wall Street trader turned Cambridge neuroscientist reveals the biology of boom and bust and how risk taking transforms our body chemistry, driving us to extremes of euphoria and risky behavior or stress and depression The laws of financial boom a...

A Booklist Top 10 Science Book of 2012, a 2012 New York Times Book Review Notable Book, and a Daily Beast "Top 11 Book of 2012" A masterpiece of science reporting that tracks the animal origins of emerging human diseases. The emergence of strange new disease...

"A model of scientific writing: erudite, witty, and clear." - New York Review of Books The Pulitzer Prize finalist and national bestseller How the Mind Works is a fascinating, provocative work exploring the mysteries of human thought and behavior. How do we...

No one can escape a sense of awe when reflecting on the workings of the mind: we see, we hear, we feel, we are aware of the world around us. But what is the mind? What do we mean when we say we are “aware” of something? What is this peculiar state in our ...

An adventurous ride through the most blisteringly hot regions of science, history, and culture. Melting glaciers, warming oceans, droughts-it's clear that today's world is getting hotter. But while we know the agony of a sunburn or the comfort of our winter heate...

Phase transitions--changes between different states of organization in a complex system--have long helped to explain physics concepts, such as why water freezes into a solid or boils to become a gas. How might phase transitions shed light on important problems in bi...

This reference describes the role of various intermolecular and interparticle forces in determining the properties of simple systems such as gases, liquids and solids, with a special focus on more complex colloidal, polymeric and biological systems. The book provides...

With the narrative punch of Jonathan Harr’s A Civil Action and the commitment to environmental truth-telling of Erin Brockovich, The Fluoride Deception documents a powerful connection between big corporations, the U.S. military, and the historic reassurances of...

If you think that global warming means slightly hotter weather and a modest rise in sea levels that will persist only so long as fossil fuels hold out (or until we decide to stop burning them), think again. In The Long Thaw , David Archer, one of the world's leadin...

This full-color illustrated textbook offers the first comprehensive introduction to all major aspects of tropical ecology. It explains why the world's tropical rain forests are so universally rich in species, what factors may contribute to high species richness, how...

Case studies from the University of New Hampshire explore all the dimensions of sustainability in campus life, combining frugality and creativity

As governments and institutions work to ameliorate the effects of anthropogenic CO2 emissions on global climate, there is an increasing need to understand how land-use and land-cover change is coupled to the carbon cycle, and how land management can be used to mitiga...

We know that animals cross miles of water, land, and sky with pinpoint precision on a daily basis. But it is only in recent years that scientists have learned how these astounding feats of navigation are actually accomplished. With colorful and thorough detail, Nat...