In true National Geographic style, this book excites young people about their world and everything in it, so it's no surprise that the 2012 edition landed at #3 on the New York Times best seller list! The 2014 Almanac features fun information, browsable features, and helpful reference on subjects including technology, countries, presidents, animals, weather, funny roadside attractions, outer space, green tips, and natural disasters, just for starters. Chapters include Amazing Animals, Going Green, Geography Rocks, Super Science, Wonders of Nature, Awesome Adventure, Culture Connection, History Happens, and an interactive Fun and Games chapter. Exciting changes for 2014 include:  • Forty percent NEW content, including photos and articles  • Mobile media features in every chapter that readers can download to an iPod Touch or smart phone, including National Geographic animal videos, photo galleries, and interactive games • A brand new special section on cute animals • A fully revamped continents of the world section • A special Fun and Games chapter featuring all-new jokes, games, and comics, featuring funny animal photos and colorful illustrations • A fully updated "Your World" section, which opens the Almanac, will include all-new, up-to-the-moment content • All-new fun facts, activities, games, and crafts • More than 500 photographs, including incredible gorgeous new photo spreads featuring animals, adventure, nature, and more  • 8 Homework Help sections • All facts, figures, and reference material will be updated • And much more...

    There are deep connections between stars and atoms, between the cosmos and the microworld. Just six numbers, imprinted in the "big bang," determine the essential features of our entire physical world. Moreover, cosmic evolution is astonishingly sensitive to the values of these numbers. If any one of them were "untuned," there could be no stars and no life. This realization offers a radically new perspective on our universe, our place in it, and the nature of physical laws.

    The Weather Channel, now America's most watched programming, has in recent years shown us a relentless series of hurricanes, tsunamis, earthquakes, and eruptions killing thousands, turning millions into refugees, and leaving whole cities in shocked, shattered ruins.Of nature's weapons, tornadoes are among the most unforgiving, and here's an unforgettable portrait of these storms and one extraordinary man who challenged them—and produced the first-ever photographs snatched from a rampaging twister's black heart. Tornado chaser Tim Samaras, working with master storyteller Stefan Bechtel, author of Roar of the Heavens, has created a page-turner with narrative force and scientific substance.In the first of five you-are-there accounts, Tornado Hunter opens with a moment-by-moment description of the 2003 catastrophe that engulfed Manchester, South Dakota. The authors evoke the doomed town and its people; the dark menacing funnel; and Samaras's fearless advance into the whirlwind’s core to deploy the ingenious equipment he devised. They interweave the tornado chaser's passion, the fascinating science of the storms themselves, and six decades of progress in predicting and recording their onslaught—an art beholden to Samaras's own groundbreaking inventions.Tim Samaras's 2004 article in National Geographic became one of the most widely read in the magazine’s history. This powerful book is destined to blast its way onto bestseller lists everywhere.

    It is a place where time stops and lives are held in suspension, taken out of circulation. Amongst the jail population are the dangerous inmates: killers and rapists, gang 'hit-men' and serial offenders. They are the most notorious, their reputations sometimes enhanced by glamour, horrendous tales of their misdeeds and by their very incarceration.

    Killing the Rising Sun takes readers to the bloody tropical-island battlefields of Peleliu and Iwo Jima and to the embattled Philippines, where General Douglas MacArthur has made a triumphant return and is plotting a full-scale invasion of Japan.

    Perhaps the world's greatest technological achievement-and a triumph of American spirit and ingenuity-the Apollo 11 mission, and the entire Apollo program, was a mammoth undertaking involving more than 410,000 men and women dedicated to putting a man on the Moon and winning the Space Race against the Soviets.Seen through the eyes of the those who lived it, Shoot for the Moon reveals the dangers, the challenges, and the sheer determination that defined not only Apollo 11, but also the Mercury and Gemini missions that made it possible. Both sweeping and intimate, and based on exhaustive research and dozens of fresh interviews, bestselling author James Donovan's Shoot for the Moon is the definitive and thrilling account of one of humankind's most extraordinary feats of exploration.

    Half a century later, only robots have been to the Red Planet and our astronauts rarely venture beyond Earth orbit.Now Mars is back With everyone from Elon Musk to Ridley Scott and Donald Trump talking about it, interplanetary exploration is back on the agenda and Mars is once again the prime destination for future human expansion and colonisation. In Destination Mars, astrophysicist and science writer Andrew May traces the history of our fascination with the Red Planet and explores the science upon which a crewed mission would be based, from assembling a spacecraft in Earth orbit to surviving solar storms. With expert insight, he analyses the new space race and assesses what the future holds for human life on Mars.

    The first NASA flight director, Kraft emerged from boyhood in small-town America to become a visionary who played an integral role in what would become the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. It's all here, from the legendary Mercury missions that first sent Americans into space through the Gemini and Apollo missions that landed them on the moon. The great heroes of space are here, too-Alan Shepard, John Glenn, Neil Armstrong, Jim Lovell, and Buzz Aldrin-leading the space race that would change the course of U.S. history. From NASA's infancy to its greatest triumphs . . . from the calculated gambles to the near disasters to the pure luck that accompanied each mission, Flight relives the spellbinding events that captured the imagination of the world. It is a stirring tribute to the U.S. space program and to the men who risked their lives to take America on a flight into the unknown-from the man who was there for it all. "A highly readable memoir." (The New York Times Book Review) "A rewarding look at the brief, shining moment when space pathfinders held sway over space warriors." (The Washington Post)

    But their differing views on how to run the newly created United States turned them into the worst of friends. They each became leaders of opposing political parties, and their rivalry followed them to the White House. Full of both history and humor, this is the story of two of America's most well-known presidents and how they learned to put their political differences aside for the sake of friendship.

    The planets were nothing like Earth, however: they were giant gas balls like Jupiter or Saturn. More than 500 planets have been found since then, yet none of them could support life. Now, armed with more powerful technology, planet hunters are racing to find a true twin of Earth. Science writer Michael Lemonick has unique access to these exoplaneteers, as they call themselves, and Mirror Earth unveils their passionate quest. Geoff Marcy, at the University of California, Berkeley, is the world's most successful planet hunter, having found two of the first three extra-solar planets. Bill Borucki, at the NASA Ames Research Center, struggled for more than a decade to launch the Kepler mission-the only planet finder, human or machine, to beat Marcy's record. David Charbonneau, at Harvard, realized that Earths would be much easier to find if he looked at tiny stars called M-dwarfs rather than stars like the Sun-and that he could use backyard telescopes to find them! Unlike those in other races, the competing scientists actually consult and cooperate with one another. But only one will be the first to find Earth's twin. Mirror Earth is poised narrate this historic event as the discovery is made.

    Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Chapters: A Short History of Nearly Everything, the Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid, a Walk in the Woods, Notes From a Small Island, Neither Here nor There: Travels in Europe, Shakespeare: the World as Stage, the Lost Continent: Travels in Small-Town America, the Mother Tongue, Notes From a Big Country, Bryson's Dictionary of Troublesome Words, Down Under, Made in America, Bill Bryson's African Diary. Source: Wikipedia. Free updates online. Not illustrated. Excerpt: A Short History of Nearly Everything (ISBN 0-7679-0817-1) is a general science book by Bill Bryson, which explains some areas of science, using a style of language more accessible to the general public than many other books dedicated to the subject. It was the bestselling popular science book of 2005 in the UK, selling over 300,000 copies. A Short History deviates from Bryson's popular travel book genre, instead describing general sciences such as chemistry, paleontology, astronomy, and particle physics. In it, he explores time from the Big Bang to the discovery of quantum mechanics, via evolution and geology. Bryson tells the story of science through the stories of the people who made the discoveries, such as Edwin Hubble, Isaac Newton, and Albert Einstein. Bill Bryson wrote this book because he was dissatisfied with his scientific knowledge that was, not much at all. He writes that science was a distant, unexplained subject at school. Textbooks and teachers alike did not ignite the passion for knowledge in him, mainly because they never delved in the whys, hows, and whens. "It was as if wanted to keep the good stuff secret by making all of it soberly unfathomable." Bryson, on the state of science books used within his school. It was in his later years that he realized with stunning shame ...More: http: //booksllc.net/?id=101240

    But the path that Jewish immigrants took to enter British-controlled Palestine was a difficult one, fraught with danger and political intrigue. The boat was intercepted by British forces and the refugees were placed in concentration camps.Uris’s blockbuster novel traces the lives of the men and women who brave British naval blockades to help Israel come into being, from Ari Ben Canaan, who works tirelessly to smuggle in settlers, to Kitty Fremont, an American nurse drawn into a vast, tragic history. Weaving together fact and fiction, history and dramatic storylines, Exodus stands today as one of the most influential narratives of the founding of the State of Israel.In QB VII, for Abe Cady, settlement is not an option when the facts of the Holocaust are on trial. A journalist and screenwriter, Cady produced the definitive account of the Holocaust just after World War II. But Polish doctor Adam Kelno, who was pressed into service in a notorious concentration camp, sues Cady for his book’s claim that the doctor conducted terrible experiments on camp inmates. The libel trial that follows tears open old wounds, disrupts lives, and becomes a battle for justice on behalf of tens of thousands of lost and damaged souls.QB VII is a gripping drama, largely based on author Uris’s own protracted libel defense against a former concentration camp surgeon named in his novel Exodus. It was made into the first miniseries in television history.

    It offers up the world of weird in an all-new collection of unbelievable stories from across the globe. The new Ripley's Believe It or Not! app allows hidden content in the book to come alive.A Parents’ Choice Winner in the FUN STUFF category, as well as winner of the 2013 USA Best Book Awards in categories of Young Adult: Non-Fiction and Best Cover Design: Non-Fiction, Dare to Look! is perfect for every household. Jam-packed with a mind-boggling selection of incredible facts, crazy stories, jaw-dropping pictures, lists and interviews, this fantastic book also comes with bonus hidden content that's accessible using our Ripley's Believe It or Not! app. Step right into the world of Ripley's and see it come alive by scanning the special oddSCAN™ logos with a smartphone to reveal exclusive videos, images and more. Organized into thematic chapters, the crazy stories are illustrated with a wealth of amazing images throughout.Published annually, with brand new extraordinary material every year, this interactive series presents the best of Ripley's Believe It or Not!

    Will you achieve the mission and return home to Earth safely, successfully earning the title of the youngest astronaut ever to make it to Mars? Or will you be forced to turn back early? This thrilling adventure offers twenty-two possible endings, but only ONE leads to the ultimate success! With eye-catching comic book style illustrations and information based on scientific facts related to Mars and space exploration, young readers will be over the moon with this entertaining addition to the Worst-Case Scenario series!

    However, this powerful biography provides an in-depth look at the man who grew up in a rural village in South Africa under racist apartheid rule--a regime he ultimately helped overthrow.Denenberg explores the history of South Africa and its often violent struggle for civil rights, while tracing Mandela's role in that history. Lawyer, leader of the African National Congress, political prisoner who spent 26 years in jail, president--no one else has had such enormous influence on his fellow South Africans . . . or his fellow human beings.