Book picks similar to
Mimicry in Plants and Animals by Wolfgang Wickler
science
10-plus
i-read-about-birds
a-a
Biker
Mike Baron - 2013
Ginger Munz, a woman dying of cancer hires him to find the son she lost as a baby. The child’s father is a sadistic sociopath named Moon who has vowed to kill her and Josh’s girlfriend Cass, for ratting him out. The trail leads to the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally and west into no-man’s land where Josh learns the monstrous fate of the stolen child.Josh is the BIKER, caught up in a race for survival against a human monster on the road between heaven and hell at the end of which lies either salvation or damnation.
Baron spins a tale of unrelenting suspense and horror that moves across his narrative landscape like the roar of a chopper’s engine.
IGCSE and O Level Economics
Susan Grant - 2007
This book, covering both the Cambridge IGCSE and O Level courses of the Cambridge syllabuses, draws extensively on real world examples to explore economic concepts, theories and issues. A number of activities, based on examples from qround the world, are designed to facilitate students' easy understanding of the contents. Principles and practices have been explained in simple language and lucid style to enhance the accessibility of the content to students whose first language is not English.
I've Got This!
Melisa Torres - 2016
As an accomplished tumbler, Trista believes learning the other three events and becoming a competitive gymnast will be easy. Trista quickly learns that gymnastics requires hard work and believing in herself. Despite that, she decides she wants to make the Level 3 team. On her determined journey Trista meets friends who help her learn about the sport and share her passion for gymnastics. Will hard work and dedication be enough to move up to Level 3? Perfect Balance Gymnastics Books teach girls to be kind to each other, flexible in life, courageous, strong, and most of all, confident. The books set the reader in the world of gymnastics. The characters are relatable and have age appropriate challenges. Each book explores a major life lesson that empowers girls to understand their own inner strengths. I've Got This! is book 1 in the Perfect Balance Gymnastics Series.
The Frankenstein Series 4-Book Bundle: Frankenstein: Prodigal Son, City of Night, Dead and Alive, Lost Souls
Dean Koontz - 2011
BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Dean Koontz's Frankenstein: The Dead Town. PRODIGAL SON:Every city has its secrets. But none as terrible as this. He is Deucalion, a tattooed man of mysterious origin, a sleight-of-reality artist who has traveled the centuries with a secret worse than death. He arrives in New Orleans as a serial killer stalks the streets, a killer who carefully selects his victims for the humanity that is missing in himself. Deucalion’s path will lead him to cool, tough police detective Carson O’Connor and her devoted partner, Michael Maddison, who are tracking the slayer but will soon discover signs of something far more terrifying: an entire race of killers who are much more–and less–than human and, deadliest of all, their deranged, near-immortal maker: Victor Helios–once known as Frankenstein. CITY OF NIGHT: They are stronger, heal better, and think faster than any humans ever created–and they must be destroyed. Not even Victor Helios–once Frankenstein–can stop the engineered killers he’s set loose on a reign of terror through modern-day New Orleans. Only the one-time “monster” Deucalion and his all-too-human partners, Detectives Carson O’Connor and Michael Maddison, stand in their way. But as the three race to uncover the true dimensions of an age-old conspiracy, they will discover that Victor’s new, improved models have infiltrated every level of the city’s society . . . and far beyond. DEAD AND ALIVE:As a devastating hurricane approaches, as the benighted creations of Victor Helios begin to spin out of control, as New Orleans descends into chaos and the future of humanity hangs in the balance, the only hope rests with Victor’s first, failed attempt to build the perfect human. Deucalion’s centuries-old history began as the original manifestation of a soulless vision–and it is fated to end in the ultimate confrontation between a damned creature and his mad creator. But first they must face a monstrosity not even Victor’s malignant mind could have conceived–an indestructible entity that steps out of humankind’s collective nightmare with powers, and a purpose, beyond imagining. LOST SOULS:The war against humanity has begun. In the dead hours of the night, a stranger enters the home of the mayor of Rainbow Falls, Montana. The stranger is in the vanguard of a wave of intruders who will invade other homes . . . offices . . . every local institution, assuming the identities and the lives of those they have been engineered to replace. Before the sun rises, the town will be under full assault, the opening objective in the new Victor Frankenstein’s trajectory of ultimate destruction. Deucalion—Victor’s first, haunted creation—saw his maker die in New Orleans two years earlier. Yet an unshakable intuition tells him that Victor lives—and is at work again. Within hours Deucalion will come together with his old allies, detectives Carson O’Connor and Michael Maddison, Victor’s engineered wife, Erika Five, and her companion Jocko to confront new peril. Others will gather around them. But this time Victor has a mysterious, powerful new backer, and he and his army are more formidable, their means and intentions infinitely more deadly, than ever before.
The Life of Mammals
David Attenborough - 2002
Evolution, and Sir David Attenborough's 23-year sequence of books and BBC television 'Life' films, have culminated in the mammals and the explosion of awareness and intelligence. In the very short period of 100 million years - a mere blink in evolutionary time - the first mammals have arrived at world dominance.This came largely from hair and milk. Insulation and central heating made them adaptable to any surroundings. Care of the young led to learning and bigger brains. Otters, camels, lions, foxes and sheep, moles underground, whales at sea, bats in the air, polar bears, antelope, squirrels, mice, monkeys and man have exploited every habitat and every food source - the basis of this new narrative.David Attenborough has also evolved. In his 50 years of planning, writing and making television programmes of the first quality, he has constantly deepened his and our understanding of life on earth. This new book and its accompanying series of remarkable films in many ways crown his work. Vision, enthusiasm and the ability to share knowledge in an enthralling way - the gifts of an outstanding teacher.
My Brother's Keeper
Charles Sheffield - 1980
His twin brother, Leo Foss, was a researcher in government work that he couldn't talk about. Then the helicopter they were flying crashed.When he woke up, Lionel learned that both he and Leo had sustained fatal injuries, and he was only alive because the surgeon had used organs from Leo to repair Lionel's slightly less damaged body. More than half of Lionel's brain was gone, and had been replaced with Leo's. Lionel, in fact, had become "His Brother's Keeper!"
Black Feathers: Dark Avian Tales
Ellen DatlowMike O'Driscoll - 2017
They symbolize freedom, eternal life, the soul.There’s definitely a dark side to the avian. Birds of prey sometimes kill other birds (the shrike), destroy other birds’ eggs (blue jays), and even have been known to kill small animals (the kea sometimes eats live lambs). And who isn’t disgusted by birds that eat the dead—vultures awaiting their next meal as the life blood flows from the dying. One of our greatest fears is of being eaten by vultures before we’re quite dead.Is it any wonder that with so many interpretations of the avian, that the contributors herein are eager to be transformed or influenced by them? Included in Black Feathers are those obsessed by birds of one type or another. Do they want to become birds or just take on some of the “power” of birds? The presence or absence of birds portends the future. A grieving widow takes comfort in her majestic winged neighbors, who enable her to cope with a predatory relative. An isolated society of women relies on a bird to tell their fortunes. A silent young girl and her pet bird might be the only hope a detective has of tracking down a serial killer in a tourist town. A chatty parrot makes illegal deals with the dying. A troubled man lives in isolation with only one friend for company—a jackdaw.In each of these fictions, you will encounter the dark resonance between the human and avian. You see in yourself the savagery of a predator, the shrewd stalking of a hunter, and you are lured by birds that speak human language, that make beautiful music, that cypher numbers, and seem to have a moral center. You wade into this feathered nightmare, and brave the horror of death, trading your safety and sanity for that which we all seek—the promise of flight.
Enterprise: The First Adventure
Vonda N. McIntyre - 1986
Kirk is the youngest man to be promoted to the rank of captain in Federation history. His crew consists of a first officer who finds him impetuous; a chief engineer who finds him arrogent; a chief medical officer who finds him trifling; and a helmsman who wants a transfer. But the young crew, which would later become the legendary space explorers, quickly puts aside their differences when a monstrous starship appears on their nascent flight path.
The Photo Ark: One Man's Quest to Document the World's Animals
Joel Sartore - 2017
His powerful message, conveyed with humor, compassion, and art: to know these animals is to save them.Sartore intends to photograph every animal in captivity in the world. He is circling the globe, visiting zoos and wildlife rescue centers to create studio portraits of 12,000 species, with an emphasis on those facing extinction. He has photographed more than 6,000 already and now, thanks to a multi-year partnership with National Geographic, he may reach his goal. This book showcases his animal portraits: from tiny to mammoth, from the Florida grasshopper sparrow to the greater one-horned rhinoceros. Paired with the eloquent prose of veteran wildlife writer Douglas Chadwick, this book presents a thought-provoking argument for saving all the species of our planet.
Dark Mirror
Diane Duane - 1993
Humanity’s greatest dreams have become reality. Along with dozens of other sentient races, the people of Earth have formed the United Federation of Planets—a galactic civilization that governs much of the known universe for the good of all. Over the past two centuries, mankind has tamed its basest instincts, and reached the stars…But suppose it hadn’t happened that way at all? Suppose instead humanity’s darkest impulses, its most savage, animalistic desires had triumphed? Suppose that the empire mankind made out in the stars was one ruled by terror, where only those willing to brutalize their own kind and their neighbors could survive?One hundred years ago, four crewmembers of the U.S.S. Enterprise crossed the dimensional barrier and found just such an empire. A mirror image of their own universe, populated by nightmare duplicates of their shipmates. Barely able to escape with their lives, they returned thankful that the accident that brought them there could not be duplicated. Or so they thought.But now the scientists of that empire have found a doorway into our universe. Thier plan: to destroy from within, to replace one of our starships with one of theirs. Their victims: the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise NCC 1701-D.
Lord of the Isles
David Drake - 1997
She has survived the cataclysm that destroyed the powerful empire of the Isles in her time. She finds herself in a small town far from the new centers of power, but among a small group who, all unknowing, will become the focus of a new struggle for dominance and magical power that will shake this world, and others. For The Hooded One, the most powerful sorcerer of all time, has also survived the ancient catastrophe he created. The peace of the small village is destroyed in an instant, and the young principles must set out on a quest to meet their destiny.
Up the Line
Robert Silverberg - 1969
It was tricky, though, taking group after group of tourists back to the same historic event without meeting yourself coming or going. Trickier still was avoiding the temptation to become intimately involved with the past and interfere with events to come. The deterrents for any such actions were frighteningly effective. So Judson Daniel Elliott played by the book. Then he met a lusty Greek in Byzantium who showed him how rules were made to be broken... and set him on a family-history-go-round that would change his past and his future forever!
Lucky Starr, Book 1
Paul French - 1993
Now from this award-winning author, here are two tales of the adventures of David Satrr - a bold and resourceful champion of interstellar justice.
David Starr, Space Ranger
Earth is on the brink of catastrophe. The vital foodstuffs supplied by its Martian colony are being poisoned. Working in secret, the ruling Council of Science sends David Starr, its youngest member, to the Martian farmlands to discover the truth behind the murders...
Lucky Starr and the Pirates of the Asteroids
Years ago, David Starr's parents were murdered by pirates from the asteroid belt. Now the pirates are threatening the commerce and safety of the far-flung Terrestrial Empire. David Starr - known to his friends as Lucky - has plans for vengeance: a daring foray into the pirates' forbidden lair that will wipe them out forever...
Brothers
Ben Bova - 1995
Essef - When genetic research yields the hope of immortality, two brothers, both doctors, find themselves on opposite sides of the controversy, and they must bridge the gap that divides them on an issue that could mean nothing less than life or death for millions.