A Year in Numbers

***A Strong Words 2023 Book of the Year***

‘A highly enjoyable and serendipitous read!’ – Rob Eastaway, bestselling co-author of Headscratchers: The New Scientist Puzzle Book

Did you know:

-Only around 100 people have ever lived beyond a million hours (that’s about 114 years)
-Around 7% of everyone who has ever lived is currently alive
-The ’12 days of Christmas’ song, when sung in full, results in 364 gifts being given – one for every day… except Christmas

Broken down into 12 chapters that correspond roughly to months of the year – from going ‘back to school’ with arithmetic and times tables through prime numbers and all the way to the 12 Days of Chris-maths, this book features a collection of 365 fascinating numerical ‘nuggets’, accompanied by clear, bite-size explanations of the mathematics that underpin them.

NeuroTribes

Winner of the 2015 Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction
Shortlisted for the Wellcome Book Prize
A Sunday Times and New York Times bestseller
Foreword by Oliver Sacks

What is autism: a devastating developmental condition, a lifelong disability, or a naturally occurring form of cognitive difference akin to certain forms of genius? In truth, it is all of these things and more – and the future of our society depends on our understanding it.

Following on from his groundbreaking article ‘The Geek Syndrome’, Wired reporter Steve Silberman unearths the secret history of autism, long suppressed by the same clinicians who became famous for discovering it, and finds surprising answers to the crucial question of why the number of diagnoses has soared in recent years.

Going back to the earliest autism research and chronicling the brave and lonely journey of autistic people and their families through the decades, Silberman provides long-sought solutions to the autism puzzle while casting light on the growing movement of ‘neurodiversity’ and mapping out a path towards a more humane world for people with learning differences.

Maths Tricks to Blow Your Mind

What is 4% of 75?

Can you calculate 60 + 60 x 0 + 1?

Which is bigger, an 18-inch pizza or two 12-inch pizzas?

Join award-winning maths presenter Kyle D Evans on an entertaining tour of viral maths problems that have gone wild on social media in recent years.

From the infamous ‘Hannah’s sweets’ exam question to percentages ‘life-hacks’, viral maths problems seem to capture the public’s imagination without fail. In Maths Tricks to Blow Your Mind, Kyle presents over 50 viral maths problems with background information, explanations and solutions to similar problems, all in a humorous, accessible and inclusive manner.

Want to dazzle and delight your friends and family? This book shows you how!

The Stronger Sex

‘Fun, rooted in science… May this book give all women strength for the times we now live in.’ Cat Bohannon
A myth-busting vindication of women’s physical strengths

For decades, Starre Vartan – like most women – was told that having a woman’s body meant being weaker than men. Like many women, she mostly believed it.
Not anymore.
Following a half decade of research into the newest science, Vartan shows in The Stronger Sex that women’s bodies are incredibly powerful, flexible, and resilient in ways men’s bodies aren’t. Tossing aside the narrow notion of the tall, muscular man as the measure of strength, Vartan reveals the ways that women surpass men in endurance, flexibility, immunity, pain tolerance, and the ultimate test of any human body: longevity.
In interviews with dozens of researchers from biology, anthropology, physiology, and sports science, plus in-depth conversations with runners, swimmers, wrestlers, woodchoppers, thru-hikers, firefighters, and more, The Stronger Sex squashes outdated ideas about women’s bodies.
It’s a celebration of female strength that doesn’t argue ‘down with men’ but up with us all.

Infinite Powers

Shortlisted for the Royal Society Science Book Prize 2019

A magisterial history of calculus (and the people behind it) from one of the world’s foremost mathematicians.

This is the captivating story of mathematics’ greatest ever idea: calculus. Without it, there would be no computers, no microwave ovens, no GPS, and no space travel. But before it gave modern man almost infinite powers, calculus was behind centuries of controversy, competition, and even death.

Taking us on a thrilling journey through three millennia, professor Steven Strogatz charts the development of this seminal achievement from the days of Archimedes to today’s breakthroughs in chaos theory and artificial intelligence. Filled with idiosyncratic characters from Pythagoras to Fourier, Infinite Powers is a compelling human drama that reveals the legacy of calculus on nearly every aspect of modern civilisation, including science, politics, medicine, philosophy, and much besides.

The Insect Crisis

***A Waterstones Best Books of 2022 pick***

A New Scientist Book of the Year

Shortlisted for the Wainwright Prize for Conservation Writing

‘Fascinating… There is something wondrous in Milman’s revelation of our fragile dependency on insect life as well as its beauty and strangeness.’ Guardian

‘Gripping and especially unnerving.’ David Wallace-Wells

When is the last time you were stung by a wasp? Or were followed by a cloud of midges? Or saw a butterfly? All these normal occurrences are becoming much rarer. A groundswell of research suggests insect numbers are in serious decline all over the world – in some places by over 90%.

The Insect Crisis explores this hidden emergency, arguing that its consequences could even rival climate change. We rely on insect pollination for the bulk of our agriculture, they are a prime food source for birds and fish, and they are a key strut holding up life on Earth, especially our own.

In a compelling and entertaining investigation spanning the globe, Milman speaks to the scientists and entomologists studying this catastrophe and asks why these extraordinary creatures are disappearing. Part warning, part celebration of the incredible variety of insects, this book highlights why we need to wake up to this impending environmental disaster.

Existential Physics

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

Do we have free will? Is the universe compatible with God? Do we live in a computer simulation? Does the universe think?

Physicists are great at complicated research, but they are less good at telling us why it matters. In this entertaining and groundbreaking book, theoretical physicist Sabine Hossenfelder breaks down why we should care. Drawing on the latest research in quantum mechanics, black holes, string theory and particle physics, Existential Physics explains what modern physics can tell us about the big questions.

Filled with counterintuitive insights and including interviews with other leading scientists, this clear and yet profound book will reshape your understanding of science and the limits of what we can know.

Flight Lines

As the sun lowered and turned Gulf St Vincent fiery, they each called a high-pitched ‘peeooowiii!’, flashed their black wing-pits, spread their tail skirts and took flight.

Andrew Darby follows the odysseys of two Grey Plovers, little-known migratory shorebirds, as they take previously uncharted ultramarathon flights from the southern coast of Australia to Arctic breeding grounds. On these extraordinary flights they chance predators, typhoon weather and exhaustion before they can breed, and maybe return to familiar southern feeding grounds. But the greatest threat to these, and other long-distance migrants on the flyway, is China’s dragon economy, engulfing their vital Yellow Sea staging spots.

The author meets the dedicated people working to save these intrepid birds, from Russia to Alaska, and the rim of the Arctic Sea to the coasts of the Southern Ocean. Out of their hard-won science he finds hope for the birds – a bright light for our times.

But his journey to understand this work and these birds almost ends when he is suddenly diagnosed with an incurable cancer. Then he finds science coming to his rescue too.

NeuroTribes (international edition)

Winner of the 2015 Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction
A Sunday Times and New York Times bestseller
Foreword by Oliver Sacks
What is autism: a devastating developmental condition, a lifelong disability, or a naturally occurring form of cognitive difference akin to certain forms of genius? In truth, it is all of these things and more – and the future of our society depends on our understanding it.

Following on from his groundbreaking article ‘The Geek Syndrome’, Wired reporter Steve Silberman unearths the secret history of autism, long suppressed by the same clinicians who became famous for discovering it, and finds surprising answers to the crucial question of why the number of diagnoses has soared in recent years.

Going back to the earliest autism research and chronicling the brave and lonely journey of autistic people and their families through the decades, Silberman provides long-sought solutions to the autism puzzle while casting light on the growing movement of ‘neurodiversity’ and mapping out a path towards a more humane world for people with learning differences.

Maths Tricks to Blow Your Mind

From the infamous ‘Hannah’s sweets’ exam question to percentages ‘life-hacks’, viral maths problems seem to capture the public’s imagination without fail. This is often because they blow people’s minds with their logic, or there are multiple answers, or no answer or at all, or they are just generally wacky. The same people who will openly celebrate that they ‘never got maths’ will fight tooth and nail with their Auntie on Facebook over whether the answer to 60 + 60 x 0 + 1 is 61 or 1 (it’s 61, by the way.).

Why do friends and relatives who would glaze over in a maths lesson pile into a discussion with strangers on social media over why the grey elephant comes from Denmark? Maths teacher and award-winning science communicator Kyle D Evans wants to explore exactly what it is about viral social media puzzles that is so appealing.

Maths Tricks to Blow Your Mind presents 50 or so viral maths problems from recent years with background information, explanations and solutions to similar problems, all in a humorous, accessible and inclusive manner.
Want to dazzle and delight your friends and family? This book shows you how!