Brunelleschi's Dome: How a Renaissance Genius Reinvented Architecture


Ross King - 2000
    Not a master mason or carpenter, Filippo Brunelleschi was a goldsmith and clock maker. Over twenty-eight years, he would dedicate himself to solving puzzles of the dome's construction. In the process, he did nothing less than reinvent the field of architecture. He engineered the perfect placement of brick and stone (some among the most renowned machines of the Renaissance) to carry an estimated seventy million pounds hundreds of feet into the air, and designed the workers' platforms and routines so carefully that only one man died during the decades of construction. This drama was played out amid plagues, wars, political feuds, and the intellectual ferments of Renaissance Florence - events Ross King weaves into a story to great effect. An American Library Association Best Book of the Year Boston Globe: "An absorbing tale." Los Angeles Times: "Ross King has a knack for explaining complicated processes in a manner that is not only lucid but downright intriguing... Fascinating."

Running The World: 196 marathons in 196 countries, one record-breaking adventure


Nick Butter - 2020
    This is Nick's story of his world record-breaking adventure and the extraordinary people who joined him along the way. On January 6th 2018, Nick Butter tied his laces and stepped out on to an icy pavement in Toronto, where he began to take the first steps of an epic journey that would see him run 196 marathons in every one of the world's 196 countries. Spending almost two years on the road and relying on the kindness of strangers to keep him moving, Nick's odyssey allowed him to travel slowly, on foot, immersing himself in the diverse cultures and customs of his host nations. Running through capital cities and deserts, around islands and through spectacular landscapes, Nick dodges bullets in Guinea-Bissau, crosses battlefields in Syria, survives a wild dog attack in Tunisia and runs around an erupting volcano in Guatemala. Along the way, he is often joined by local supporters and fellow runners, curious children and bemused passers-by. Telling their stories alongside his own, Nick captures the unique spirit of each place he visits and forges a new relationship with the world around him. Running the World captures Nick's journey as he sets three world records and covers over five thousand miles. As he recounts his adventures, he shares his unique perspective on our glorious planet, celebrates the diversity of human experience, and reflects on the overwhelming power of running.

Chrysler's Turbine Car: The Rise and Fall of Detroit's Coolest Creation


Steve Lehto - 2010
    They built a fleet of turbine cars--automobiles with jet engines--and loaned them out to members of the public. The fleet logged over a million miles; the exercise was a raging success.            These turbine engines would run on any flammable liquid--tequila, heating oil, Chanel #5, diesel, alcohol, kerosene. If the cars had been mass produced, we might have cars today that do not require petroleum-derived fuels. The engine was also much simpler than the piston engine--it contained one-fifth the number of moving parts and required much less maintenance. The cars had no radiators or fan belts and never needed oil changes.             Yet Chrysler crushed and burned most of the cars two years later; the jet car's brief glory was over. Where did it all go wrong? Controversy still follows the program, and questions about how and why it was killed have never been satisfactorily answered.            Steve Lehto has interviewed all the surviving members of the turbine car program--from the metallurgist who created the exotic metals for the interior of the engine to the test driver who drove it at Chrysler’s proving grounds for days on end. Lehto takes these first-hand accounts and weaves them into a great story about the coolest car Detroit ever produced.

My Kindle Fire (My...)


Jim Cheshire - 2011
    With this book you will learn how to tap into every Kindle Fire feature, including many of the hidden ones not discussed in other books. From setting up your Kindle Page, managing your music, watching movies, and downloading content - this book covers everything. The task based full-color format allows you to quickly and easily find the exact task you want to accomplish and walks you through it in a delightfully concise and visual manner. My Kindle Fire makes it easy for you to:• Master all the basics, fast: reading, playing, watching, browsing, and more• Tweak your Kindle Fire for quicker access and longer battery life• Sample best-seller book chapters for free• Mark up any eBook with highlights, notes, and bookmarks• Convert your personal documents for use on Kindle Fire• Discover Calibre, a powerful eBook management tool• Control even the largest music libraries• Get instant answers from Wikipedia, and from Kindle Fire’s built-in dictionary• Listen to personalized Internet radio stations created just for you• Use your Kindle Fire as a digital photo frame• Prevent unwanted subscription charges• Set up any email account to work on your Kindle Fire• Explore any web content with Amazon’s innovative Silk browser• Use Amazon Cloud to get your stuff anywhere—even if you left your Kindle at home• And much much more…Unlike many other guides which might only briefly mention or skip over some very import Kindle Fire features My Kindle Fire covers everything. Here are just a few of the things you'll find in My Kindle Fire that aren't covered in other guides: • Full coverage of Calibre, a free application for Mac or PC that helps manage your eBook library• A large number of walkthroughs for managing music playlists, including how to use cloud playlists. • How to reinstall multiple apps at once in case you reset your Kindle Fire. • Step-by-step walkthroughs on configuring all types of email accounts. • Coverage on handling attachments in your email application. • Importing contacts from your existing email application or cloud service and how you can export your contacts in order to back them up. • How to use Copy and Paste on the Kindle Fire. • How to use social networking integration with Facebook and others. • Walkthroughs on using the Gallery app, Pandora, Audible, and other popular apps. • Shows you how to access files on other computers in your house right from your Kindle Fire.

The Carroll Shelby Story


Carroll Shelby - 2019
    He was born to race —some of the fastest cars ever to tear up a speedway.  Carroll Shelby wasn’t born to run. He was born to race—some of the fastest cars ever to tear up a speedway. The exciting new feature film Ford v Ferrari--starring Matt Damon as Shelby and Christian Bale as fellow racer Ken Miles--immortalizes the small-town Texas boy who won the notorious Le Mans 24-hour endurance challenge, and changed the face of auto racing with the legendary Shelby Cobra. But there’s much more to his high-velocity, history-making story.A wizard behind the wheel, he was also a visionary designer of speed machines that ruled the racetrack and the road. While his GT40s racked up victories in the world’s most prestigious professional racing showdowns, his masterpiece, the Ford Cobra, gave Europe’s formidable Ferrari an American--style run for its money. If you’ve got a need for speed, strap in next to the man who put his foot down on the pedal, kept his eyes on the prize, and never looked back.

The Big Roads: The Untold Story of the Engineers, Visionaries, and Trailblazers Who Created the American Superhighways


Earl Swift - 2011
    interstate system changed the face of our country. The Big Roads charts the creation of these essential American highways. From the turn-of-the-century car racing entrepreneur who spurred the citizen-led “Good Roads” movement, to the handful of driven engineers who conceived of the interstates and how they would work—years before President Eisenhower knew the plans existed—to the protests that erupted across the nation when highways reached the cities and found people unwilling to be uprooted in the name of progress, Swift follows a winding, fascinating route through twentieth-century American life.  How did we get from dirt tracks to expressways, from main streets to off-ramps, from mud to concrete and steel, in less than a century? Through decades of politics, activism, and marvels of engineering, we recognize in our highways the wanderlust, grand scale, and conflicting notions of citizenship and progress that define America.

Gilles Villeneuve: The Life of the Legendary Racing Driver


Gerald Donaldson - 1989
    Gilles Villeneuve became a legend in his own time, a driver whose skill and daring personified the ideals of Grand Prix racing, the pinnacle of motor sport.With his flamboyantly aggressive, press-on-regardless style in his scarlet Ferrari, he captured the imagination of a vast international audience as no other driver has in recent times.

Analytical Chemistry


Gary D. Christian - 2003
    Examples of analytical techniques are drawn from such areas as life sciences, clinical chemistry, air and water pollution, and industrial analyses. New to this edition: Excel spreadsheets on CD-ROM * New chapters on good laboratory practice, as well as genomics and proteomics * A more modern flavor.

The Nikola Tesla Treasury


Nikola Tesla - 2007
    He wrote many letters to the editors of the magazines and newspapers of his day. These letters give a fascinating glimpse into the mind of an eccentric genius. Collected here for the first time are more than forty of Nikola Tesla's letters. The subject matter ranges widely, as Tesla was interested in almost everything. In these letters he responds to Marconi and ... Full description

Mars Direct: Space Exploration, the Red Planet, and the Human Future: A Special from Tarcher/Penguin


Robert Zubrin - 2013
    In the coming years, we will make decisions regarding our human spaceflight program that will lead to one of two familiar futures: the open universe of "Star Trek, "where we allow ourselves the opportunity to spread our wings and attempt to flourish as an interplanetary species--or the closed, dystopian, and ultimately self-destructive world of "Soylent Green." If we ever hope to live in the future that is the former scenario, our first stepping stone must be a manned mission to Mars. In this four-part e-special, Dr. Robert Zubrin details the challenges of a manned Earth-to-Mars mission. Challenges which, according to Zubrin, we are technologically more prepared to overcome than the obstacles of the missions to the moon of the sixties and seventies. Dr. Zubrin's relatively simple plan, called Mars Direct, could feasibly have humans on the surface of Mars within a decade. Zubrin also discusses the current predicament of NASA, the promise of privatized space flight from companies like SpaceX, and the larger implication behind the absolute necessity to open the final frontier to humanity--the human race's future as a species that takes the necessary baby steps away from the cradle that is planet Earth or, ultimately, perishes here.

Shocking Wrestling Plans You Won't Believe Almost Happened


James Dixon - 2016
    What if The Undertaker had hatched out of a giant egg? What if Daniel Bryan hadn't got his WrestleMania XXX push? What if 'Stone Cold' Steve Austin had been named Chilly McFreeze? All of this nearly happened. Over the course of wrestling history there have been many bad gimmicks, baffling angles, and confusing storylines that have left fans scratching their heads, wondering how they made it through the company's quality filter. We know all about those, we have been unfortunate enough to suffer through them. But what about those plans that never got off the drawing board? What of those ideas that remained unpopped kernels in the minds of the creative team? How different could the landscape of modern professional wrestling be had some of these shocking plans actually made it onto our screens? WhatCulture.com takes a journey behind the scenes to explore a whole host of what ifs, what might have beens, and what almost was. We look at proposed matches that never were, characters that could have been very different to what they became, booking plans that were changed at the last minute, promotional jumps that nearly happened, and backstage shenanigans that would have changed the business. The book also has a feature delving deep into the psyche of Vince McMahon penned by Attitude Era writer Vince Russo, and insight from former WWE Creative Team members George J. Rutherford and Dan Madigan. Join us as we take you on a journey into a world of Shocking Wrestling Plans You Won't Believe Almost Happened!

Not Broken: An Approachable Guide to Miscarriage and Recurrent Pregnancy Loss


Lora Shahine - 2017
    Whether you are a patient struggling with miscarriages or a medical provider caring for patients with recurrent pregnancy loss, you will learn something from this resource. Dr. Shahine explains not only a typical Western medicine approach to evaluation and treatment for miscarriage but also includes Eastern approaches to care, lifestyle factors that will decrease your risk of miscarriage, and the emotional impact of recurrent pregnancy loss. You will finish this book feeling more empowered to be an advocate for your care and more hopeful than ever to continue towards your family goals. “I have one word to describe this fabulous book: FINALLY. Women with recurrent pregnancy loss have been needing this book for years.” – Dr. Alice Domar, associate professor of obstetrics, gynecology, and reproductive biology at Harvard Medical School and author of Conquering Infertility and Finding Calm for the Expectant Mom

Scalper: Inside the World of a Professional Ticket Broker


Clancy Martin - 2011
    

Enzo Ferrari: A Life


Richard Williams - 2002
    Today's Formula One would be unthinkable without the presence of the Ferrari cars on the grid. Win or lose, Ferrari attract more fans than all the other teams combined. And the cars unique appeal - their mystique, their myth - has its origins in the story of one man with a dictator's will and the cunning of a Machiavelli. Going back to the origins of "The Old Man", tracing his remarkable rise to prominence, and using sources which have hitherto remained silent, Richard Williams tells the story of a man who was one of the key figures of sport in the twentieth century, and whose influence over his sport is undiminished today, more than a decade after his death.

The Art of Putting: The Revolutionary Feel-Based System for Improving Your Score


Stan Utley - 2006
    Now, in The Art of Putting he outlines his unique approach to putting for golfers of all skill levels. In a welcome change from mechanistic and overly-complex putting "systems," Utley breaks down the putting stroke to a simple, natural motion, revealing a straightforward method for learning this sure, repeatable stroke. As he guides you through the fundamentals of the proper grip, posture, alignment, and swing, Utley will overhaul and improve your stroke by putting feel back into your game. This definitive book also provides: - A complete primer on club design, with tips for finding the putter most in tune with the nuances of your swing- A guide to the sensory aspects of a good putt, from grip pressure to impact response to the way a putt should sound- Simple steps for reading greens accurately, every time- Drills to commit your putting stroke to muscle memory and overcome the tics that can knock your putts off line- Cures for the mental hurdles you'll face on the short grass