Einstein's Shadow follows a team of elite scientists on their historic mission to take the first picture of a black hole, putting Einstein's theory of relativity to its ultimate test and helping to answer our deepest questions about space, time, the origins of the universe, and the nature of realityPhotographing a black hole sounds impossible, a contradiction in terms. But Shep Doeleman and a global coalition of scientists are on the cusp of doing just th...

Einstein’s Shadow follows a team of elite scientists on their historic mission to take the first picture of a black hole, putting Einstein’s theory of relativity to its ultimate test and helping to answer our deepest questions about space, time, the origins of the universe, and the nature of reality.Photographing a black hole sounds impossible, a contradiction in terms. But Shep Doeleman and a global coalition of scientists are on the cusp of doing just th...

Honey bees get all the press, but the fascinating story of North America's native bees—an endangered species essential to our ecosystems and food supplies—is just as crucial. Our Native Bees is the result of Paige Embry's yearlong quest to learn more about these forgotten, yet fundamental, creatures.Through interviews with farmers, gardeners, scientists, and bee experts, Embry explores the importance of native bees and focuses on why they play a key role in gardening and a...

The story of literature in sixteen acts—from Homer to Harry Potter, including The Tale of Genji, Don Quixote, The Communist Manifesto, and how they shaped world historyIn this groundbreaking book, Martin Puchner leads us on a remarkable journey through time and around the globe to reveal the how stories and literature have created the world we have today. Through sixteen foundational texts selected from more than four thousand years of world literature, he...

The captivating, untold story of Hermann Rorschach and his famous inkblot testIn 1917, working alone in a remote Swiss asylum, psychiatrist Hermann Rorschach devised an experiment to probe the human mind: a set of ten carefully designed inkblots. For years he had grappled with the theories of Freud and Jung while also absorbing the aesthetic movements of the day, from Futurism to Dadaism. A visual artist himself, Rorschach had come to believe that who we are is les...

The authoritative story of the headline-making discovery of gravitational waves—by an eminent theoretical astrophysicist and award-winning writer.From the author of How the Universe Got Its Spots and A Madman Dreams of Turing Machines, the epic story of the scientific campaign to record the soundtrack of our universe.Black holes are dark. That is their essence. When black holes collide, they will do so unilluminated. Yet the black hole col...

Rich in detail, filled with fascinating characters, and panoramic in its sweep, this magnificent, comprehensive work tells for the first time the complete story of the American woman from the Pilgrims to the 21st-centuryIn this sweeping cultural history, Gail Collins explores the transformations, victories, and tragedies of women in America over the past 300 years. As she traces the role of females from their arrival on the Mayflower through the 19th century to the...

In 1938, a young German rocket enthusiast named Wernher von Braun had dreams of building a rocket that could fly him to the moon. In Ray, North Dakota, a young farm girl named Mary Sherman was attending high school. In an age when girls rarely dreamed of a career in science, Mary wanted to be a chemist. A decade later the dreams of these two disparate individuals would coalesce in ways neither could have imagined.World War II and the Cold War space race with the Russians changed th...

“A perfectly executed, exquisitely reported parable of the Internet age and the wild, mad adventure that is start-up culture.”—Charles DuhiggFortune, mania, genius, philanthropy—the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Mountains Beyond Mountains presents an “expertly reported [and] deftly written” (San Francisco Chronicle) account of Paul English, the founder of Kayak and Lola.In A Truck Full of Money, Tracy Kidder, t...

*An instant New York Times Bestseller**Publishers Weekly #1 Most Anticipated Science Book of Spring 2016*"You will be enthralled." — Wall Street Journal"A tour de force." — Salon.comAlready internationally acclaimed for his elegant, lucid writing on the most challenging notions in modern physics, Sean Carroll is emerging as one of the greatest humanist thinkers of his generation as he brings ...

In The Universe, today's most influential science writers explain the science behind our evolving understanding of the universe and everything in it, including the cutting-edge research and discoveries that are shaping our knowledge.Lee Smolin reveals how math and cosmology are helping us create a theory of the whole universe.Neil Turok analyzes the fundamental laws of nature, what came before the big bang, and the possibili...

When 1919 began, the city of Chicago seemed on the verge of transformation. Modernizers had an audacious, expensive plan to turn the city from a brawling, unglamorous place into “the Metropolis of the World.” But just as the dream seemed within reach, pandemonium broke loose and the city’s highest ambitions were suddenly under attack by the same unbridled energies that had given birth to them in the first place.It began on a balmy Monday afternoon when a blimp in flames crashed thr...