Showing results by narrator "Jonathan Cowley" in All Categories

An exhilarating tour of the contemporary quantum landscape, Beyond Weird is a book about what quantum physics really means - and what it doesn't. Science writer Philip Ball offers an up-to-date, accessible account of the quest to come to grips with the most fundamental theory of physical reality, and to explain how its counterintuitive principles underpin the world we experience.

Post-modernity is the creative destruction that has shattered our present times into fragments. Post-modernism stood for everything modernism rejected: fun, exuberance, irresponsibility. But beneath its glitzy surface, post-modernism had a dirty secret: It was the fig leaf for a rapacious new kind of capitalism. It was also the forcing ground of the "post-truth", by means of which Western values got turned upside down. In his brilliant history of a dangerous idea, Stuart Jeffries tells a narrative that starts in the early 1970s and continues to today.

First published in three separate volumes from 1855 to 1863, Bulfinch's Mythology quickly became the standard source of classic tales from ancient Greece and Rome, the Norse tradition, and beyond. This edition contains the full text of The Age of Fable, or Stories of Gods and Heroes, the first volume of Bulfinch's seminal work. From stories of the Greek gods of Mt. Olympus to retellings of the Iliad and the Odyssey, from descriptions of mythological monsters to tales of Hindu and Egyptian deities, Bulfinch's versions of these classic stories bring their characters to life.

Little more than 100 years ago, maps of the world still boasted white space: places where no human had ever trod. Within a few short decades the most hostile of the world's environments had all been conquered. Likewise, in the 20th century, medicine transformed human life. Doctors took what was routinely fatal and made it survivable. As modernity brought us ever more into different kinds of extremes, doctors pushed the bounds of medical advances and human endurance. Extreme exploration challenged the body in ways that only the vanguard of science could answer.

Thinking about politics has tended to be historical in nature because of the comparisons and contrasts that can be drawn between past and present. Different periods in politics have used the past differently. At times, political thought can be said to have been drawn directly from the study of history; at others, perhaps including our own time, the relationship is more indirect.

Bare-Faced Messiah tells the extraordinary story of L. Ron Hubbard, a penniless science fiction writer who founded the Church of Scientology, became a millionaire prophet, and convinced his adoring followers that he alone could save the world. Bare-Faced Messiah exposes the myths surrounding the fascinating and mysterious founder of the Church of Scientology - a man of hypnotic charm and limitless imagination - and provides the definitive account of how the notorious organization was created.

Trevor Cox is on a hunt for the sonic wonders of the world. A renowned expert who engineers classrooms and concert halls, Cox has made a career of eradicating bizarre and unwanted sounds. But after an epiphany in the London sewers, Cox now revels in exotic noises - creaking glaciers, whispering galleries, stalactite organs, musical roads, humming dunes, seals that sound like alien angels, and a Mayan pyramid that chirps like a bird.

Complex problem solving is at the very top of the list of essential skills for career progression in the modern world. But how problem solving is taught in our schools, universities, businesses, and organizations comes up short. In Bulletproof Problem Solving: The One Skill That Changes Everything, you'll learn the seven-step systematic approach to creative problem solving developed in top consulting firms that will work in any field or industry, turning you into a highly sought-after, bulletproof problem solver who can tackle challenges at which others balk.

What was the tipping point for Malcolm Gladwell? What unscripted event made Meryl Streep who she is? In this inspiration-packed book, Katie Couric reports from the front lines of the worlds of politics, entertainment, sports, philanthropy, the arts, and business - distilling the ingenious, hard-won insights of leaders and visionaries, who tell us all how to take chances, follow our passions, cope with criticism, and, perhaps most important, commit to something greater than ourselves.

Meritocracy: the idea that people should be advanced according to their talents rather than their birth. While this initially seemed like a novel concept, by the end of the twentieth century it had become the world's ruling ideology. How did this happen, and why is meritocracy now under attack from both right and left?

We live in a moment when the greatest act of love is to stay distant from the object of your affection. When governments renowned for ruthless cuts in public spending can suddenly conjure up trillions. When toilet paper becomes a commodity as precious as diamonds. And when, according to Slavoj Žižek, a new form of communism - the outlines of which can already be seen in the very heartlands of neoliberalism - may be the only way of averting a descent into global barbarism.

Donald Maclean was one of the most treacherous spies of the Cold War era, a member of the infamous "Cambridge Five" spy ring. Yet little is known of this shrewd, secretive man. The full extent of his betrayal has never been documented - until now. Drawing on the recent release of previously classified files, A Spy Named Orphan meticulously documents the extraordinary story of a man leading a chilling double life until his exposure and defection to the USSR.

Featuring an entirely new chapter for US readers, the story of his induction into the UFC Hall of Fame, fresh insights about his fighting career, never-before-told stories about his film and TV career, and a harrowing account of his fighting off attempted kidnappers while filming in South Africa, Quitters Never Win tells the incredible story of how he went from rough and humble beginnings and then on to a legendary mixed martial arts career capped by winning the Middleweight Championship in one of the greatest upsets in UFC history.

From the person behind the popular YouTube channel NameExplain comes the second volume of his best-selling book The Origin of Names, Words and Everything in Between. This new book is a fun, interesting, and educational journey through the world of etymology. It covers a huge array of names from a variety of topic areas and includes a bunch of random facts behind the names. From first names, to bodies of water - there's no name big or small, important or obscure that won't be explained.

The second half of the 20th century witnessed a scientific gold rush as physicists raced to chart the inner workings of the atom. The stakes were high, the questions were big, and there were Nobel Prizes and everlasting glory to be won. Many mysteries of the atom came unraveled, but one remained intractable-what Frank Close calls the "Infinity Puzzle."

At a time when politics in Britain is experiencing unprecedented turmoil, this Very Short Introduction audiobook examines the past, present, and possible future of British politics. Tony Wright puts current events into a longer and larger perspective, ranging from political ideas to political institutions and offering an overview of the British political tradition.

The Vampire Archives is the biggest, hungriest, undeadliest collection of vampire stories, as well as the most comprehensive bibliography of vampire fiction ever assembled. Dark, stormy, and delicious, once it sinks its teeth into you there’s no escape.

Snipers are exceptional. The trained sniper is a complex fusion of hard skills such as weapons knowledge, situational awareness, knowledge of ballistics and physics, and soft skills such as emotional stability, empathy, and a stoic acceptance of the hardships associated with a particular set of circumstances. There are countless instances where a single sniper, embarking on a secret mission, would have to improvise, operate beyond any hope of support, and yet still manage to carry out the mission and get back home unharmed.

To those who travel there today, the West Indies are unspoiled paradise islands. Yet that image conceals a turbulent, dramatic, and shocking history. For some 200 years after 1650, the West Indies became the strategic center of the Western world, witnessing one of the greatest power struggles of the age as Europeans made and lost immense fortunes growing and trading in sugar - a commodity so lucrative it became known as "white gold".

Author Ben Goldacre exposes the epidemic of pseudoscience and gives listeners the tools they need to distinguish good science from nonsense.