More and more Kiwis are keen to take up cycling, but don't know how to start. Popular media personality Jon Bridges wants to take biking to the masses – and have a good dose of fun along the way. Easy Rider outlines the many joys of riding a bike in New Zealand, and provides a complete beginners' guide – from riding for fun, to commuting, riding for fitness, mountain biking and even racing. We learn about the reasons for, the reasons against (there aren't any), the basics of buyin...

If necessity is the mother of invention then Kiwi ingenuity is its father. No. 8 Re-wired is a comprehensive, colourful treasury of New Zealand inventions – jam-packed with the stories behind 202 home-grown creations and the crafty people who dreamt them up. From well-known innovations (human flight, the discovery of DNA, the pavlova) to lesser-known feats (instant coffee, the referee's whistle, the electronic petrol pump) to the newest in high-tech world-firsts (...

'If people do not believe that mathematics is simple, it is only because they do not realize how complicated life is.' John von NeumannMathematics can tell you things about the world that can't be learned in any other way. This hugely informative and wonderfully entertaining Brain Shot answers a few essential questions about existence. It unravels the knotty, clarifies the conundrums and sheds light into dark corners. From winning the lottery, financial investment ...

For at least two decades now modern man has been on the brink of a crisis.Persuaded by both the post-feminist political landscape and his representation in the popular media to remodel himself as an endearingly hopeless halfwit, he now exists only as an object of pity.James and his happy band of brothers (plus a few women, but we try to edit them out) are engaged on a quest to lead maledom to a broad sunlit upland strewn with slim books of English verse and...

Praised as “an entertaining and torrential flow of a book**” by Nature magazine, The Big Thirst** is a startling examination of the passing of the golden age of water and the shocking facts about how water scarcity will soon be a major factor in our lives.The water coming out of your kitchen tap is four billion years old and might well have been sipped by a Tyrannosaurus rex. Rather than only three states...

In the spirit of Schott's Miscellany, The Magic of Reality, and The Dangerous Book for Boys comes Can a Bee Sting a Bee?—a smart, illuminating, essential, and utterly delightful handbook for perplexed parents and their curious children. Author Gemma Elwin Harris has lovingly compiled weighty questions from precocious grade school children—queries that have long dumbfounded even intelligent adults—and she's gathered together a notable crew of scientists, ...

An effective memory is crucial to anyone who wants to advance their career.Written by Jonathan Hancock and Cheryl Buggy, leading international memory experts, this book quickly teaches you the insider secrets you need to know to in order to recall whatever you need to in the workplace.The highly motivational 'in a week' structure of the book provides seven straightforward chapters explaining the key points, and at the end there are optional questions to ensure you have take...

For each of the 101 topics, a question from that topic is provided along with a model answer to that question. The questions are typical of those asked in part 2 of the IELTS speaking module and the model answers are suitable responses, though candidates are advised to modify the model answers and add to them as appropriate.

By the bestselling author of Just My Type: a "thoroughly enjoyable and illuminating" journey into the concept of time "stuffed with fascinating material" ( Observer, UK).Timekeepers is a book about our obsession with time and our desire to measure it, control it, sell it, film it, perform it, immortalize it and make it meaningful. In this fascinating, anecdotal exploration, award-winning author Simon Garfield has two simp...

Based on the series produced for the BBC World ServiceWho thought up paper money? How did the contraceptive pill change the face of the legal profession? Why was the horse collar as important for human progress as the steam engine? How did the humble spreadsheet turn the world of finance upside-down?The world economy defies comprehension. A continuously-changing system of immense complexity, it offers over ten billion distinct products and services, doubles...

Finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize ** A Wall Street Journal Best Book of the YearRust has been called “the great destroyer,” the “pervasive menace,” and “the evil.” “This look at corrosion—its causes, its consequences, and especially the people devoted to combating it—is wide-ranging and consistently engrossing” (The New York Times).It is the hidden enemy, the one that challenges the very basis of civil...

'I love these books ... the best books ever. Brilliant' Chris EvansThis is an astonishing trove of the strangest, funniest, and most improbable tidbits of knowledge from the clever lot at the hugely popular BBC quiz show QI.The sock-blasting, jaw-dropping, side-swiping phenomenon that is QI serves up a sparkling new selection of 1,342 facts to leave you flabbergasted.Did you know that:Trees sleep a...