The Art of The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien


Wayne G. Hammond - 2011
    Tolkien.When J.R.R. Tolkien wrote The Hobbit, he was already an accomplished amateur artist, and drew illustrations for his book while it was still in manuscript. The Hobbit as first printed had ten black and white pictures, two maps, and binding and dust-jacket designs by its author. Later, Tolkien also painted five scenes for colour plates which are some of his best work. His illustrations for The Hobbit add an extra dimension to that remarkable book, and have long influenced how readers imagine Bilbo Baggins and his world.To celebrate the 75th anniversary of the publication of The Hobbit, the complete artwork created by the author for his story has been collected in The Art of The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien. Including related pictures, more than one hundred sketches, drawings, paintings, maps, and plans are presented here, preliminary and alternate versions and experimental designs as well as finished art. Some of these images are now published for the first time, and others for the first time in colour. Fresh digital scans from the Bodleian Libraries in Oxford and Marquette University in Wisconsin allow Tolkien’s Hobbit pictures to be seen more vividly than ever before.The Art of The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien has been written and edited by Wayne G. Hammond and Christina Scull, two of the leading experts on Tolkien and authors of the acclaimed J.R.R. Tolkien: Artist and Illustrator, The Lord of the Rings: A Reader’s Companion, and The J.R.R. Tolkien Companion and Guide.

Cry of the Kalahari


Mark Owens - 1984
    Here they met and studied unique animals and were confronted with danger from drought, fire, storms, and the animals they loved. This best-selling book is for both travelers and animal lovers.

Knock-Out Blackjack: The Easiest Card-Counting System Ever Devised


Olaf Vancura - 1998
    The scientifically devised unbalanced K-O count can be used profitably anywhere blackjack is played: Las Vegas, Atlantic City, Mississippi, riverboat casinos, Native American casinos, the Bahamas, and on cruise ships.This second edition, revised and expanded, is now easier to use than ever. Step into the ring and learn to:Implement an abbreviated system—the “K-O Rookie”— that’s powerful enough to yield a player advantage and simple enough to be mastered in a few hours.Advance to a profession-level system—the “K-O Preferred”—which performs on par with the most sophisticated systems on the market.Win the cat-and-mouse game between the casinos and the players.

Superpower: Australia's Low-Carbon Opportunity


Ross Garnaut - 2019
    We also have the necessary scientific skills. Australia could be the natural home for an increasing proportion of global industry. But how do we make this happen?In this crisp, compelling book, Australia’s leading thinker about climate and energy policy offers a road map for progress, covering energy, transport, agriculture, the international scene and more. Rich in ideas and practical optimism, Superpower is a crucial, timely contribution to this country’s future.

Chernobyl 01:23:40: The Incredible True Story of the World's Worst Nuclear Disaster


Andrew Leatherbarrow - 2016
    It was an act that forced the permanent evacuation of a city, killed thousands and crippled the Soviet Union. The event spawned decades of conflicting, exaggerated and inaccurate stories. This book, the result of five years of research, presents an accessible but comprehensive account of what really happened. From the desperate fight to prevent a burning reactor core from irradiating eastern Europe, to the self-sacrifice of the heroic men who entered fields of radiation so strong that machines wouldn’t work, to the surprising truth about the legendary ‘Chernobyl divers’, all the way through to the USSR’s final show-trial. The historical narrative is interwoven with a story of the author’s own spontaneous journey to Ukraine’s still-abandoned city of Pripyat and the wider Chernobyl Zone. Complete with over 45 pages of photographs of modern-day Pripyat and technical diagrams of the power station, Chernobyl 01:23:40 is a fascinating new account of the world’s worst nuclear disaster.

Why We Hate the Oil Companies: Straight Talk from an Energy Insider


John Hofmeister - 2010
    Now, he's a man on a mission, the founder of Citizens for Affordable Energy, crisscrossing the country in a grassroots campaign to change the way we look at energy in this country. While pundits proffer false new promises of green energy independence, or flatly deny the existence of a problem, Hofmeister offers an insider's view of what's behind the energy companies' posturing, and how politicians use energy misinformation, disinformation, and lack of information to get and stay elected. He tackles the energy controversy head-on, without regard for political correctness. He also provides a new framework for solving difficult problems, identifying solutions that will lead to a future of comfortable lifestyles, affordable and clean energy, environmental protection, and sustained economic competitiveness.

Carrying the Fire: An Astronaut's Journey


Michael Collins - 1974
    In Carrying the Fire, his account of his voyages into space and the years of training that led up to them, Collins reveals the human tensions, the physical realities, and the personal emotions surrounding the early years of the space race. Collins provides readers with an insider's view of the space program and conveys the excitement and wonder of his journey to the moon. As skilled at writing as he is at piloting a spacecraft, Collins explains the clash of personalities at NASA and technical aspects of flight with clear, engaging prose, withholding nothing in his candid assessments of fellow astronauts Neil Armstrong, John Glenn, and Buzz Aldrin, and officials within NASA. A fascinating memoir of mankind's greatest journey told in familiar, human terms, Carrying the Fire is by turns thrilling, humorous, and thought-provoking, a unique work by a remarkable man.

The Free Range Cook


Annabel Langbein - 2011
    Her down-to-earth approach to cooking is both practical and inspiring. Starting with the freshest seasonal ingredients, she shows how easy it is to cook sensational food in a simple, natural way.

The Wild Trees: A Story of Passion and Daring


Richard Preston - 2007
    From the #1 bestselling author of The Hot Zone comes an amazing account of scientific and spiritual passion for the tallest trees in the world, the startling biosystem of Rthe canopy, S and those who are committed to the preservation of this astonishing and largely unknown world.

Einstein: His Life and Universe


Walter Isaacson - 2007
    In this narrative, Walter Isaacson explains how his mind worked and the mysteries of the universe that he discovered.

The Quantum Story: A History in 40 Moments


Jim Baggott - 2011
    From the minds of the world's leading physicists there flowed a river of ideas that would transport mankind to the pinnacle of wonderment and to the very depths of human despair. This was a century that began with the certainties of absolute knowledge and ended with the knowledge of absolute uncertainty. It was a century in which physicists developed weapons with the capacity to destroy our reality, whilst at the same time denying us the possibility that we can ever properly comprehend it.Almost everything we think we know about the nature of our world comes from one theory of physics. This theory was discovered and refined in the first thirty years of the twentieth century and went on to become quite simply the most successful theory of physics ever devised. Its concepts underpin much of the twenty-first century technology that we have learned to take for granted. But its success has come at a price, for it has at the same time completely undermined our ability to make sense of the world at the level of its most fundamental constituents.Rejecting the fundamental elements of uncertainty and chance implied by quantum theory, Albert Einstein once famously declared that 'God does not play dice'. Niels Bohr claimed that anybody who is not shocked by the theory has not understood it. The charismatic American physicist Richard Feynman went further: he claimed that nobody understands it.This is quantum theory, and this book tells its story.Jim Baggott presents a celebration of this wonderful yet wholly disconcerting theory, with a history told in forty episodes -- significant moments of truth or turning points in the theory's development. From its birth in the porcelain furnaces used to study black body radiation in 1900, to the promise of stimulating new quantum phenomena to be revealed by CERN's Large Hadron Collider over a hundred years later, this is the extraordinary story of the quantum world.Oxford Landmark Science books are 'must-read' classics of modern science writing which have crystallized big ideas, and shaped the way we think.

Astronomy For Amateurs (Illustrated Edition)


Camille Flammarion - 2008
    He was usually credited as Camille Flammarion. He was a prolific author of more than fifty titles, including popular science works about astronomy, several notable early science fiction novels, and several works about Spiritualism and related topics. He also published the magazine L'Astronomie, starting in 1882. He maintained a private observatory at Juvisy-sur-Orge, France. He was a founder and the first president of the Socit Astronomique de France, which originally had its own independent journal, BSAF (Bulletin de la Socit Astronomique de France), first published in 1887. He was the first to suggest the names Triton and Amalthea for moons of Neptune and Jupiter, respectively, although these names were not officially adopted until many decades later. His spiritualism studies influenced also some of his science fiction. Other than that his writing about other worlds adhered fairly closely to then current ideas in evolutionary theory and astronomy. Amongst his other works are: The Atmosphere (1873), Popular Astronomy (1907), Astronomy for Amateurs (1904), Omega: The Last Days of the World and Death and its Mystery.