Wonder Science

In her wise and elegant new audiobook, Jane Goodall blends her experience in nature with her enthusiasm for botany to give listeners a deeper understanding of the world around us. Long before her work with chimpanzees, Goodall's passion for the natural world sprouted in the backyard of her childhood home in England, where she climbed her beech tree and made elderberry wine with her grandmother. The garden her family began then, she continues to enjoy today. Seeds of Hope takes us from England to Goodall's home-away-from-home in Africa.

When her dad is kidnapped by a woman with a giant hamstoceros, Bitsy and best friend Kosh are swept into a secret world of ancient meteorites and strange beasts called magicores, each conjured using a different emotion. Using a powerful bestiary called Magicalia, the friends must quickly become conjurors themselves, before following a trail of clues that will take them from London to India to Paris, in a race to rescue Bitsy’s dad from a mysterious villain…

When the storied Staff of Moses - responsible for summoning the plagues of ancient Egypt - vanishes from the museum in Perilous Falls, Will Wilder is suspect number one. Desperate to prove his innocence and stop the thief from unleashing terrors upon the town of Perilous Falls, Will must use his supernatural gift to locate the beast - but it's nowhere to be found.

Like every other superhero, Wonder Woman has a secret identity. Unlike every other superhero, she has also has a secret history. Harvard historian and New Yorker staff writer Jill Lepore has uncovered an astonishing trove of documents, including the never-before-seen private papers of William Moulton Marston, Wonder Woman's creator.

With In a Flight of Starlings, celebrated physicist Giorgio Parisi guides us through his unorthodox yet exhilarating work, starting with investigating the principles of physics by observing the flight of flocks of birds. Studying the movements of these communities, he has realized, proves an illuminating way into understanding complex systems of all kinds—collections of everything from atoms and planets to other animals, such as ourselves. Along the way, he reflects on the lessons he has taken from a life in pursuit of scientific truth.

“I’ve always felt that the term fairy tale doesn’t quite capture the essence of these stories,” writes Emily Urquhart. “I prefer the term wonder tale, which is Irish in origin, for its suggestion of awe coupled with narrative. In a way, this is most of our stories.” In this startlingly original essay collection, Urquhart reveals the truths that underlie our imaginings: what we see in our heads when we read, how the sight of a ghost can heal, how the entrance to the underworld can be glimpsed in an oil painting or a winter storm—or the onset of a loved one’s dementia.

Wonder and awe lie at the heart of life's most profound questions. Wonderstruck shows how these emotions respond to our fundamental need to make sense of ourselves and everything around us, and how they enable us to engage with the world as if we are experiencing it for the first time.

In his first memoir, Richard Dawkins shares a rare view into his early life, his intellectual awakening at Oxford, and his path to writing The Selfish Gene. This is an intimate memoir of the childhood and intellectual development of the evolutionary biologist and world-famous atheist and how he came to write what is widely held to be one of the most important books of the 20th century.

In 2010, Cady Coleman boarded a rocket and blasted off into space for her third NASA mission, a six-month expedition to the International Space Station where she was the only woman on her six-person crew. After years spent overcoming obstacles in competitive and elite environments, including grappling with her own doubts and needing to overturn the expectations of others, Coleman became a success story in a role that wasn’t built with her in mind. In Sharing Space, Cady shares counterintuitive insights integral to her success.

Some folk stories endure generation after generation because, although they are not literal, they resound in truths on a human scale. Folktales remind us of wisdom so elemental it is often lost in the rush of everyday life, so that "sometimes common sense makes no sense at all." The six wonder tales on this audiobook are gems of the genre. They have a "long ago and far away" quality.

First published more than 50 years ago, this award-winning classic brings Rachel Carson's unique vision to a new generation of listeners. The Sense of Wonder is Carson's intimate account of adventures with her young nephew, Roger, as they enjoy walks along the rocky coast of Maine and through dense forests and open fields, observing wildlife, strange plants, moonlight, and storm clouds, and listening to the "living music" of insects in the underbrush.

Funny girl Harley Quinn loves fighting crime with her classmates like Wonder Woman, Batgirl, and Supergirl, but she always does it her with own madcap style - and a big mallet! It's no surprise that Harley can't resist getting involved in a dance competition and organizing an outrageous battle of the bands. But when a high-tech carnival comes to town, Harley knows that things aren't what they seem and that only she can get to the bottom of the mystery - and deliver a great punch line while doing it!

As one of the most beautiful and intriguing birds found in nature, hummingbirds fascinate people around the world. The lightest birds in the sky, hummingbirds are capable of incredible feats, such as flying backwards, diving at speeds of 61 MPH, and beating their wings more than 60 times a second. Miraculous creatures, they are also incredibly vulnerable when they first emerge from their eggs. That’s where Brenda Sherburn comes in. With tenderness and patience, she rescues abandoned hummingbirds and nurses them back to health until they can fly away and live in the wild.

"I delivered twenty babies in the summer of 1977. I was hardly more than a baby myself, just turned 24 and starting my third year of medical school." So began Mark Sloan's three-decades-long exploration of the wonders and oddities of human childbirth. Pediatrician, husband, and father, the author has attended nearly 3000 births since that long-ago summer, encountering everything from routine deliveries to tense labor-room dramas.

There is a major revolution sweeping astronomy as amateur astronomers, linked by the Internet, make important discoveries that are the envy of the professionals. In Seeing in the Dark, Timothy Ferris invites us all to become stargazers, capturing the exquisite experience when ancient starlight strikes the eye and incites the mind.

No matter what you answer, kids will just ask why again. Is your child full of questions? Do you find these questions to test your own knowledge? Well, look no further: Now you have the answers, and they are not boring ones! Encourage your child’s imagination through these fairy tales for children. They will answer some of the common questions that we parents are often asked. The Book of Why for Curious Kids will help you give fun and creative answers to your child’s strangest questions, encouraging them to develop their imagination.

Between 1850 and 1950, experts and entrepreneurs in Britain and the United States forged new connections between the nutrition sciences and the commercial realm through their enthusiasm for new edible consumables. The resulting food products promised wondrous solutions for what seemed to be both individual and social ills.

As a vapid, I remained invisible. As a gorgon, the most powerful craved my blood. It happened so quickly. My intense alchemist power awakened and roared through my veins. It unleashed its vengeance, silencing my attackers before I had a moment to second-guess my actions.

This collection of 22 short stories by the author of Daughter of Hounds and Alabaster firmly established Caitlín R. Kiernan as one of the preeminent voices in dark fantasy today. Through a cycle of interconnected narratives, Kiernan unflinchingly explores a surreal world where the fantastic and the mundane are never separated by more than the insubstantial thickness of a shadow.

An autobiography: A life’s search for truth. This is the true tale of a biochemistry student who loves geology and digging up dinosaur fossils and, most of all, truth. It's also the tale of a geology professor, a warm friendship, and controversy. It involves snowstorms and police, death and dreams - and miracles. A terrible chasm appears to loom between faith and science in academia, yet we find God still shows his power and kindness in this world of hard, cold rocks.