**SHORTLISTED FOR THE CHARLES TYRWHITT SPORTS BOOK AWARDS'** Top Bins! A personal best, a lap record and a hole in one for when rain has stopped play.' ALAN DAVIES'The trivia book of the season . . . magnificent.' SPECTATORDid you know that Henry VIII owned the first pair of football boots? Or that David Attenborough is responsible for yellow tennis balls?A Load of Old Balls is the curious s...

Once there was no text messaging. No email and no social network sites like Facebook, Bebo and MySpace. The way we live has apparently been transformed by new ways of communicating. But where did these trends start? And if they can change our behaviour, can they also change the way we think?In Cyburbia James Harkin describes how the architecture of our digital lives was built over seventy years. In a brilliant narrative that encompasses the work of crackpots, inventors and visionar...

A witty and indispensable guide to modern-day buzzwords.Big Ideas explains where concepts like 'the long tail', 'urban tribes' and 'soft power' came from, what they mean, and what their critics say about them.It includes explanations of key terms such as:Maturialism: the name given to the new trend among middle-aged people of spending their money on expensive 'youth' gadgets and services, and the new habit ...

A dazzling third installment of astounding new facts from the New York Times best-selling authors of 1,227 Quite Interesting Facts to Blow Your Socks Off and 1,339 Quite Interesting Facts to Make Your Jaw Drop.1,411 Quite Interesting Facts to Knock You Sideways is a gold mine of wide-ranging, eye-opening, brain-bursting nuggets of trivia that's impossible to put down, another "treasure trove of factoids" (National Public Radio,

The New York Times best-selling authors of the QI series return with a fourth collection of mind-bending trivia.The New York Times best-selling authors of the Quite Interesting series have made you see sideways, knocked your socks off, and left your jaw on the floor. Now John Lloyd, John Mitchinson, and James Harkin are back to offer even more—1,234, to be exact—shocking, enlightening, downright-fun facts that will leave you speechless…an...

* The perfect gift for the incurably curious *'The best trivia book of the season.' THE SPECTATOR'Mind-blowing.' DAILY MAIL'Genuinely interesting.' POPULAR SCIENCEWhich lottery numbers should I pick?Is it true that we are made entirely of stardust?Can dogs tell the time?Why do songs get stuck in my head?If Rome wasn't buil...

EVERYTHING TO PLAY FOR - A NEW BOOK BY QI ELVES JAMES HARKIN AND ANNA PTASZYNSKI - IS AVAILABLE FOR PREORDER NOWThe perfect gift for all those big and little kids in your life who ask 'why...?'.WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY ZOE BALLPre-order the next book in this series, 222 QI Answers to Your Quite Ingenious Questions, published in paperback on 3rd November.'QI have outdone th...

Random House Audiobooks present The Audiobook of the Year, written and read by the team behind hit podcast No Such Thing As A Fish: James Harkin, Andrew Hunter Murray, Anna Ptaszynski and Dan Schreiber.In a year when much of the news was believable but fake, comes an audiobook packed with stories that are unbelievable but true.The Audiobook of the Year is a feature-length edition of the award-winning hit comedy podcast No Such Thing As A F...

Considered by many Ireland's most important revolutionary, James Connolly devoted his life to struggles against exploitation, oppression, and imperialism. Active in workers' movements in the United States, Scotland , and Ireland, Connolly was a peerless organizer, sharp polemicist, and highly original thinker. His positions on the relationship between national liberation and socialism, revolution in colonized in colonized and under developed economies, and women's liberation in particular ...

Based on the historical record of Bessie’s ‘confession’ to witchcraft in sixteenth-century Scotland, the episodic structure of the play shows the many characters and events that supposedly made up the catalogue of her crimes, but which in fact testify to her innocence and goodness. Bessie Dunlop, the Witch o Dalry introduces students to different levels and varieties of Scots and English and contains teaching notes, suggestions for classroom activities, and questions for discussion or writ...

This book looks at both the past and the future of the debate over whether there are moral limits to scientific progress and what life will look like in the genetic age.

Previously published as EVERYTHING TO PLAY FOR: THE QI BOOK OF SPORTSSHORTLISTED FOR THE CHARLES TYRWHITT SPORTS BOOK AWARDS' Top Bins! A personal best, a lap record and a hole in one for when rain has stopped play.' ALAN DAVIES'The trivia book of the season . . . magnificent.' SPECTATORHop, skip and jump into this wonderfully curious grand tour of the world of sports,...