Periodic Tales: A Cultural History of the Elements, from Arsenic to Zinc
In the spirit of A Short History of Nearly Everything comes Periodic Tales. Award-winning science writer Hugh Andersey-Williams offers readers a captivating look at the elements—and the amazing, little-known stories behind their discoveries. Periodic Tales is an energetic and wide-ranging book of innovations and innovators, of superstition and science and the myriad ways the chemical elements are woven …
The Best of the Best of American Science Writing (The Best American Science Writing)
Honoring the 10th anniversary of Ecco’s acclaimed Best American Science Writing series, here is Best of the Best of American Science Writing. The ten previous guest editors—including Oliver Sacks, Natalie Angier, Alan Lightman, Sylvia Nasar, and Matt Ridley—have selected their favorite essays for this one-of-a-kind anthology; eye-opening and provocative gems that, collectively, are truly the Best of the …
In the tradition of The Lost City of Z and Skeleton in the Zahara, Astoria is the thrilling, true-adventure tale of the 1810 Astor Expedition, an epic, now forgotten, three-year journey to forge an American empire on the Pacific Coast. Peter Stark offers a harrowing saga in which a band of explorers battled nature, starvation, and madness to …
The Islamic State, known as ISIS, exploded into the public eye in 2014 with startling speed and shocking brutality. It has captured the imagination of the global jihadist movement, attracting recruits in unprecedented numbers and wreaking bloody destruction with a sadistic glee that has alienated even the hardcore terrorists of its parent organization, al Qaeda.Jessica Stern and J.M. …
Mind of the Raven: Investigations and Adventures with Wolf-Birds
In Mind of the Raven, Bernd Heinrich, award – winning naturalist, finds himself dreaming of ravens and decides he must get to the truth about this animal reputed to be so intelligent.Much like a sleuth, Heinrich involves us in his quest, letting one clue lead to the next. But as animals can only be spied on by getting …
What Do Women Want?: Adventures in the Science of Female Desire
In What Do Women Want? Adventures in the Science of Female Desire, critically acclaimed journalist Daniel Bergne disseminates the latest scientific research and paints an unprecedented portrait of female lust: the triggers, the fantasies, the mind-body connection (and disconnection), the reasons behind the loss of libido, and, most revelatory, that this loss is not inevitable.Bergner asks: Are women …
Set in seventeenth century Amsterdam—a city ruled by glittering wealth and oppressive religion—a masterful debut steeped in atmosphere and shimmering with mystery, in the tradition of Emma Donoghue, Sarah Waters, and Sarah Dunant.”There is nothing hidden that will not be revealed . . .“On a brisk autumn day in 1686, eighteen-year-old Nella Oortman arrives in Amsterdam to begin …
With her virtuoso translation, classicist and bestselling author Caroline Alexander brings to life Homer’s timeless epic of the Trojan WarComposed around 730 B.C., Homer’s Iliad recounts the events of a few momentous weeks in the protracted ten-year war between the invading Achaeans, or Greeks, and the Trojans in their besieged city of Ilion. From the explosive confrontation between …
“A gorgeous, wise, riveting work of, among other things, cowboy noir…Honestly, I can’t recall ever being this fond of a pair of psychopaths.” —David Wroblewski, New York Times bestselling author of The Story of Edgar Sawtelle “A masterful, hilarious picaresque that keeps company with the best of Charles Portis and Mark Twain…a relentlessly absorbing feat of novelistic art.”—Wells …
LONGLISTED FOR THE 2015 NATIONAL BOOK AWARDA sharply observed, mordantly funny, and startlingly original novel from an exciting, unconventional new voice—the author of the acclaimed The Wallcreeper—about the making and unmaking of the American family that lays bare all of our assumptions about race and racism, sexuality and desire.Stillwater College in Virginia, 1966. Freshman Peggy, an ingénue with …