Good behaviour goes on ice, in this darkly comic cruise to the end of the earth, with a diverse set of charactersForty-somethings Fred and Nel embark on an Arctic cruise with a pair of long-time university friends. What they haven’t counted on is the presence of a further journalist friend Heather, and her nemesis, a climate change-denying American oilman called Marvin Ridley.With a potential superpower conflict over oil also now brewing in the background, Fred and Nel disco...

Brainjacking takes us on a journey through advertising and marketing's attempts to understand and influence our thoughts and desires, from the earliest billboards to the technologies of the future. To discover how science intersects with our desires and decisions, the book pulls together three strands that have a huge impact on our lives: advertising, how much privacy we can and should have in the new electronic world, and how to draw the line been information and influence.With Br...

A modern country house farce with a diverse cast of characters––––––––––––Fred Twistleton is about to turn forty. Gathering with his friends to celebrate at a rented stately home, he finally hopes to get together with his college crush, the woman of his dreams, Heather. But Fred is also keen to publish his memoirs, and Heather realises the revelations they contain could threaten her career as a high-flying foreign correspondent.When the treasured manuscript goes miss...

Anger is all around us, from divisive social media arguments and heightened political divides to road rage and personal spats; from Black Lives Matter and climate justice movements to Trump, incels and white supremacists. When it materialises, it seems to cry out for recognition and response. It affects our bodies and can transition into violence. It can be inherited through the generations; it can manifest in criminal acts. What should we do with it, and can it ever be put to good use?

A wide-ranging and compelling account of the historical and current causes of wealth inequality, offering prescriptions for lasting solutions to an intractable problem, and for a more equitable distribution of wealth and resources.Is equality possible in the 21st century? In The Inequality of Wealth, Liam Byrne, a former Treasury minister in Gordon Brown's government, argues that the economics of the next ten years will be critical in determining the answer to this question - and th...

As a fundamental particle, the electron is central to an understanding of the nature of matter.All of chemistry is dependent on the interaction of electrons on the outside of atoms. But the electron has also become increasingly central to our lives, first through the deployment of electricity and then as the essential driving force of electronics, with all its quantum subtlety. We spend our entire lives now bathed in the electron's output, whether we are simply turning on a light, ...

Ships have been overwhelmed by huge waves, consumed by fires, broken apart, sunk by storms and driven onto uncharted rocks. They have collided with icebergs or other ships, been sunk by enemy torpedoes or gunfire, or run aground on unlit coastlines at night. Boilers have exploded. Magazines have ignited. Cargoes have shifted with catastrophic consequences and submarines have submerged never to come up again.Shipwrecks selects the sinkings with the greatest loss of life, th...

The story of the voyage that changed human understanding forever.In 1831, Charles Darwin set out on an expedition to South America, brought along as a gentleman companion for Captain Robert FitzRoy. Initially conceived as a Christian mission, the voyage would change drastically as the Beagle sailed through the Pacific, with Darwin’s observations becoming the building blocks of his revolutionary theory of evolution.This theory put the rational, scientific Darwin at odds with...

It's the most wonderful time of the year: there's frozen white dust on the ground, the Human Lady has decorated her nest with shiny things, and the scent of scrumptious goodness is wafting from the kitchen . . .But then Tinkles the Canary comes with unprecedented news. That delicious smell is not just deliciousness with a sprinkling of yumminess . . . it's the smell of TURKEY. Being cooked!Horrors!Can Dave and Skipper save a bird that's delivered in a plastic wrappe...

Sometimes, the hardest truth is the one we hide from ourselves.Detective Sergeant Tony Heaton has been living a lie for thirty years.Plagued by his failure to solve a brutal slaying in a peaceful seaside town, Tony is weeks from retirement when a new piece of evidence comes to light.He knows the case better than anyone on the planet, and is perfectly positioned to dive straight back in.But DS Heaton doesn’t need to solve the case. He already knows who the ki...

Everyone has an interest in the weather, whether it's to check the prospects for a day out or to know when best to harvest a crop. The Earth's weather systems also provide some of the most dramatic forces of nature, from the vast release of energy in a lightning flash to the devastating impact of tornadoes and hurricanes.For centuries, our only real guide to future weather was folklore, but with the introduction of the first weather forecasts and maps in Victorian times, attempts w...

Brian Clegg's acclaimed popular science book Inflight Science explored the science experienced on a plane flight. Interstellar Tours takes that concept and goes large. It takes the reader on a tour of our galaxy on the starship Endurance.That vessel itself is science fiction. But the phenomena you will visit, from the vast nebulae that are birthplaces of stars to stellar explosions in vast supernovas, creating the elements necessary for life - or from the planets of other solar sys...