Category Archives: Knopf

Fermat’s Enigma – Simon Singh

by Myrna Posted on November 19, 2019

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Fermat’s Enigma

The Epic Quest to Solve the World’s Greatest Mathematical Problem

Simon Singh

Genre: Mathematics

Price: $2.99

Publish Date: September 8, 1998

Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group

Seller: Penguin Random House LLC


xn + yn = zn, where n represents 3, 4, 5, …no solution "I have discovered a truly marvelous demonstration of this proposition which this margin is too narrow to contain." With these words, the seventeenth-century French mathematician Pierre de Fermat threw down the gauntlet to future generations.  What came to be known as Fermat's Last Theorem looked simple; proving it, however, became the Holy Grail of mathematics, baffling its finest minds for more than 350 years.  In  Fermat's Enigma –based on the author's award-winning documentary film, which aired on PBS's "Nova"–Simon Singh tells the astonishingly entertaining story of the pursuit of that grail, and the lives that were devoted to, sacrificed for, and saved by it.  Here is a mesmerizing tale of heartbreak and mastery that will forever change your feelings about mathematics.

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Fermat’s Enigma – Simon Singh

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Sibley’s Birding Basics – David Allen Sibley

by Myrna Posted on November 17, 2019

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Sibley’s Birding Basics

David Allen Sibley

Genre: Nature

Price: $10.99

Publish Date: October 1, 2002

Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group

Seller: Penguin Random House LLC


From the renowned author of the New York Times  best seller  The Sibley Guide to Birds, a comprehensive, beautifully illustrated guide to identifying birds in the field–an essential companion for birders of all skill and experience levels. The Sibley Guide to Birds and The Sibley Guide to Bird Life and Behavior are both universally acclaimed as the new standard source of species information. And now David Sibley, America’s premier birder and best-known bird artist, turns his attention to the general characteristics that influence the appearance of all birds, unlocking the clues to their identity. In 200 beautifully rendered illustrations and 16 essays, this scientifically precise volume distills the essence of Sibley’s own experience and skills, providing a solid introduction to “naming” the birds.  Birding Basics reviews how one can get started as a birder–the equipment necessary, where and when to go birding, and perhaps most important, the essential things to look for when birds appear in the field–as well as the basic concepts of bird identification and the variations that can change the appearance of a bird over time or in different settings. Sibley also provides critical information on the aspects of avian life that differ from species to species: feathers (color, arrangement, shape, molt), behavior and habitat, and sounds. With Sibley as your guide, when you learn how to interpret what the feathers, the anatomical structure, the sounds of a bird tell you—when you know the clues that show you why there’s no such thing as “just a duck”—birding will be more fun, and more meaningful. An essential addition to the Sibley shelf!

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Sibley’s Birding Basics – David Allen Sibley

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Beyond Earth – Charles Wohlforth & Amanda R. Hendrix, Ph.D.

by Myrna Posted on October 11, 2019

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Beyond Earth

Our Path to a New Home in the Planets

Charles Wohlforth & Amanda R. Hendrix, Ph.D.

Genre: Physics

Price: $1.99

Publish Date: November 15, 2016

Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group

Seller: Penguin Random House LLC


From a leading planetary scientist and an award-winning science writer, a propulsive account of the developments and initiatives that have transformed the dream of space colonization into something that may well be achievable.   We are at the cusp of a golden age in space science, as increasingly more entrepreneurs—Elon Musk, Richard Branson, Jeff Bezos—are seduced by the commercial potential of human access to space. But Beyond Earth does not offer another wide-eyed technology fantasy: instead, it is grounded not only in the human capacity for invention and the appeal of adventure but also in the bureaucratic, political, and scientific realities that present obstacles to space travel—realities that have hampered NASA’s efforts ever since the Challenger disaster.   In Beyond Earth, Charles Wohlforth and Amanda R.Hendrix offer groundbreaking research and argue persuasively that not Mars, but Titan—a moon of Saturn with a nitrogen atmosphere, a weather cycle, and an inexhaustible supply of cheap energy, where we will even be able to fly like birds in the minimal gravitational field—offers the most realistic and thrill­ing prospect of life without support from Earth. (With 8 pages of color illustrations) 

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Beyond Earth – Charles Wohlforth & Amanda R. Hendrix, Ph.D.

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The Body – Bill Bryson

by Myrna Posted on September 8, 2019

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The Body

A Guide for Occupants

Bill Bryson

Genre: Life Sciences

Price: $14.99

Expected Publish Date: October 15, 2019

Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group

Seller: Penguin Random House LLC


Bill Bryson, bestselling author of A Short History of Nearly Everything , takes us on a head-to-toe tour of the marvel that is the human body. As addictive as it is comprehensive, this is Bryson at his very best, a must-read owner's manual for everybody. Bill Bryson once again proves himself to be an incomparable companion as he guides us through the human body–how it functions, its remarkable ability to heal itself, and (unfortunately) the ways it can fail. Full of extraordinary facts (your body made a million red blood cells since you started reading this) and irresistible Bryson-esque anecdotes, The Body will lead you to a deeper understanding of the miracle that is life in general and you in particular. As Bill Bryson writes, "We pass our existence within this wobble of flesh and yet take it almost entirely for granted." The Body will cure that indifference with generous doses of wondrous, compulsively readable facts and information.

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The Body – Bill Bryson

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The Fabric of the Cosmos – Brian Greene

by Myrna Posted on August 21, 2019

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The Fabric of the Cosmos

Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality

Brian Greene

Genre: Science & Nature

Price: $2.99

Publish Date: February 8, 2005

Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group

Seller: Penguin Random House LLC


From Brian Greene, one of the world’s leading physicists and author of the Pulitzer Prize finalist The Elegant Universe , comes a grand tour of the universe that makes us look at reality in a completely different way. Space and time form the very fabric of the cosmos. Yet they remain among the most mysterious of concepts. Is space an entity? Why does time have a direction? Could the universe exist without space and time? Can we travel to the past? Greene has set himself a daunting task: to explain non-intuitive, mathematical concepts like String Theory, the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, and Inflationary Cosmology with analogies drawn from common experience. From Newton’s unchanging realm in which space and time are absolute, to Einstein’s fluid conception of spacetime, to quantum mechanics’ entangled arena where vastly distant objects can instantaneously coordinate their behavior, Greene takes us all, regardless of our scientific backgrounds, on an irresistible and revelatory journey to the new layers of reality that modern physics has discovered lying just beneath the surface of our everyday world.

Source – 

The Fabric of the Cosmos – Brian Greene

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The Constants of Nature – John Barrow

by Myrna Posted on August 13, 2019

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The Constants of Nature

The Numbers That Encode the Deepest Secrets of the Universe

John Barrow

Genre: Science & Nature

Price: $2.99

Publish Date: March 9, 2004

Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group

Seller: Penguin Random House LLC


Reality as we know it is bound by a set of constants—numbers and values that dictate the strengths of forces like gravity, the speed of light, and the masses of elementary particles. In The Constants of Nature , Cambridge Professor and bestselling author John D.Barrow takes us on an exploration of these governing principles. Drawing on physicists such as Einstein and Planck, Barrow illustrates with stunning clarity our dependence on the steadfastness of these principles. But he also suggests that the basic forces may have been radically different during the universe’s infancy, and suggests that they may continue a deeply hidden evolution. Perhaps most tantalizingly, Barrow theorizes about the realities that might one day be found in a universe with different parameters than our own.

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The Constants of Nature – John Barrow

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Facing the Wave – Gretel Ehrlich

by Myrna Posted on July 19, 2019

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Facing the Wave

A Journey in the Wake of the Tsunami

Gretel Ehrlich

Genre: Nature

Price: $1.99

Publish Date: February 12, 2013

Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group

Seller: Penguin Random House LLC


** Kirkus Best Books of the Year (2013)** ** Kansas City Star Best Books of the Year (2013)** A passionate student of Japanese poetry, theater, and art for much of her life, Gretel Ehrlich felt compelled to return to the earthquake-and-tsunami-devastated Tohoku coast to bear witness, listen to survivors, and experience their terror and exhilaration in villages and towns where all shelter and hope seemed lost. In an eloquent narrative that blends strong reportage, poetic observation, and deeply felt reflection, she takes us into the upside-down world of northeastern Japan, where nothing is certain and where the boundaries between living and dying have been erased by water.   The stories of rice farmers, monks, and wanderers; of fishermen who drove their boats up the steep wall of the wave; and of an eighty-four-year-old geisha who survived the tsunami to hand down a song that only she still remembered are both harrowing and inspirational. Facing death, facing life, and coming to terms with impermanence are equally compelling in a landscape of surreal desolation, as the ghostly specter of Fukushima Daiichi, the nuclear power complex, spews radiation into the ocean and air. Facing the Wave is a testament to the buoyancy, spirit, humor, and strong-mindedness of those who must find their way in a suddenly shattered world.

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Facing the Wave – Gretel Ehrlich

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The Beak of the Finch – Jonathan Weiner

by Myrna Posted on July 16, 2019

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The Beak of the Finch

A Story of Evolution in Our Time

Jonathan Weiner

Genre: Life Sciences

Price: $1.99

Publish Date: May 30, 1995

Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group

Seller: Penguin Random House LLC


Winner of the Pulitzer Prize Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize On a desert island in the heart of the Galapagos archipelago, where Darwin received his first inklings of the theory of evolution, two scientists, Peter and Rosemary Grant, have spent twenty years proving that Darwin did not know the strength of his own theory. For among the finches of Daphne Major, natural selection is neither rare nor slow: it is taking place by the hour, and we can watch. In this dramatic story of groundbreaking scientific research, Jonathan Weiner follows these scientists as they watch Darwin's finches and come up with a new understanding of life itself. The Beak of the Finch  is an elegantly written and compelling masterpiece of theory and explication in the tradition of Stephen Jay Gould. With a new preface.

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The Beak of the Finch – Jonathan Weiner

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The Story of the Human Body – Daniel Lieberman

by Myrna Posted on July 6, 2019

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The Story of the Human Body

Evolution, Health, and Disease

Daniel Lieberman

Genre: Life Sciences

Price: $1.99

Publish Date: October 1, 2013

Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group

Seller: Penguin Random House LLC


In this landmark book of popular science, Daniel E. Lieberman—chair of the department of human evolutionary biology at Harvard University and a leader in the field—gives us a lucid and engaging account of how the human body evolved over millions of years, even as it shows how the increasing disparity between the jumble of adaptations in our Stone Age bodies and advancements in the modern world is occasioning this paradox: greater longevity but increased chronic disease.   The Story of the Human Body brilliantly illuminates as never before the major transformations that contributed key adaptations to the body: the rise of bipedalism; the shift to a non-fruit-based diet; the advent of hunting and gathering, leading to our superlative endurance athleticism; the development of a very large brain; and the incipience of cultural proficiencies. Lieberman also elucidates how cultural evolution differs from biological evolution, and how our bodies were further transformed during the Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions.   While these ongoing changes have brought about many benefits, they have also created conditions to which our bodies are not entirely adapted, Lieberman argues, resulting in the growing incidence of obesity and new but avoidable diseases, such as type 2 diabetes. Lieberman proposes that many of these chronic illnesses persist and in some cases are intensifying because of “dysevolution,” a pernicious dynamic whereby only the symptoms rather than the causes of these maladies are treated. And finally—provocatively—he advocates the use of evolutionary information to help nudge, push, and sometimes even compel us to create a more salubrious environment. (With charts and line drawings throughout.)

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The Story of the Human Body – Daniel Lieberman

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The Dreamt Land – Mark Arax

by Myrna Posted on June 17, 2019

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The Dreamt Land

Chasing Water and Dust Across California

Mark Arax

Genre: Nature

Price: $15.99

Publish Date: May 21, 2019

Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group

Seller: Penguin Random House LLC


"You can't understand California without understanding water, and no one is better at doing that than Mark Arax, whose depth of knowledge about the Central Valley is organic and unparalleled. Plus, he writes like a dream." –Mark Bittman, author of Food Matters A vivid, searching journey into California's capture of water and soil–the epic story of a people's defiance of nature and the wonders, and ruin, it has wrought Mark Arax is from a family of Central Valley farmers, a writer with deep ties to the land who has watched the battles over water intensify even as California lurches from drought to flood and back again. In The Dreamt Land, he travels the state to explore the one-of-a-kind distribution system, built in the 1940s, '50s and '60s, that is straining to keep up with California's relentless growth. This is a heartfelt, beautifully written book about the land and the people who have worked it–from gold miners to wheat ranchers to small fruit farmers and today's Big Ag. Since the beginning, Californians have redirected rivers, drilled ever-deeper wells and built higher dams, pushing the water supply past its limit. The Dreamt Land weaves reportage, history and memoir to confront the "Golden State" myth in riveting fashion. No other chronicler of the West has so deeply delved into the empires of agriculture that drink so much of the water. The nation's biggest farmers–the nut king, grape king and citrus queen–tell their story here for the first time. This is a tale of politics and hubris in the arid West, of imported workers left behind in the sun and the fatigued earth that is made to give more even while it keeps sinking. But when drought turns to flood once again, all is forgotten as the farmers plant more nuts and the developers build more houses. Arax, the native son, is persistent and tough as he treks from desert to delta, mountain to valley. What he finds is hard earned, awe-inspiring, tragic and revelatory. In the end, his compassion for the land becomes an elegy to the dream that created California and now threatens to undo it.

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The Dreamt Land – Mark Arax

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