SYNOPSIS

In his wickedly brilliant rst novel, Debut Dagger Award winner Alan Bradley introduces one of the most singular and engaging heroines in recent ction: eleven-year-old Flavia de Luce, an aspiring chemist with a passion for poison. It is the summer of 1950and a series of inexplicable events has struck Buckshaw, the decaying English mansion that Flavias family calls home. A dead bird is found on the doorstep, a postage stamp bizarrely pinned to its beak. Hours later, Flavia nds a man lying in the cucumber patch and watches him as he takes his dying breath. For Flavia, who is both appalled and delighted, life begins in earnest when murder comes to Buckshaw. I wish I could say I was afraid, but I wasnt. Quite the contrary. This was by far the most interesting thing that had ever happened to me in my entire life. To Flavia the investigation is the stuff of science: full of possibilities, contradictions, and connections. Soon her father, a man raising his three daughters alone, is seized, accused of murder. And in a police cell, during a violent thunderstorm, Colonel de Luce tells his daughter an astounding storyof a schoolboy friendship turned ugly, of a priceless object that vanished in a bizarre and brazen act of thievery, of a Latin teacher who ung himself to his death from the schools tower thirty years before. Now Flavia is armed with more than enough knowledge to tie two distant deaths together, to examine new suspects, and begin a search that will lead her all the way to the King of England himself. Of this much the girl is sure: her father is innocent of murderbut protecting her and her sisters from something even worse

ALAN BRADLEY The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie

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CHARLES DARWIN

Darwins theory is based on the notion of variation. It argues that the numerous traits and adaptations that differentiate species from each other also explain how species evolved over time and gradually diverged. Variations in organisms are apparent both within domesticated species and within species throughout the natural world. Variations in colors, structures, organs, and physical traits differentiate a multitude of species from one another. Heredity is the mechanism that perpetuates variations, Darwin argues, as traits are passed from parents to offspring. What is important about these variations to Darwin, though, is the way they allow species to adapt and survive in the natural world. He gives numerous examples of variations that illustrate the wondrous adaptations that allow species to survive in their natural environments: the beak that allows the woodpecker to gather insects, the wings that allow the bat to y, the paddles that allow the porpoise to swim, and so on. Darwin hypothesizes that the minor variations we see within a single speciessuch as variations in size, shape, and color of organismsare related to the more distinct variations seen across different species. His theory of evolution explains how variations cause the origin of species.

The Origin of the Species

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According to Einstein himself, this book is intended "to give an exact insight into the theory of Relativity to those readers who, from a general scientic and philosophical point of view, are interested in the theory, but who are not conversant with the mathematical apparatus of theoretical physics." When he wrote the book in 1916, Einstein's name was scarcely known outside the physics institutes. Having just completed his masterpiece, The General Theory of Relativitywhich provided a brand-new theory of gravity and promised a new perspective on the cosmos as a wholehe set out at once to share his excitement with as wide a public as possible in this popular and accessible book.

ALBERT EINSTEIN Relativity: The Special and General Theory

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The Periodic Table is largely a memoir of the years before and after Primo Levis transportation from his native Italy to Auschwitz as an anti-Facist partisan and a Jew.

PRIMO LEVI

It recounts, in clear, precise, unfailingly beautiful prose, the story of the Piedmontese Jewish community from which Levi came, of his years as a student and young chemist at the inception of the Second World War, and of his investigations into the nature of the material world. As such, it provides crucial links and backgrounds, both personal and intellectual, in the tremendous project of remembrance that is Levis gift to posterity. But far from being a prologue to his experience of the Holocaust, Levis masterpiece represents his most impassioned response to the events that engulfed him. The Periodic Table celebrates the pleasures of love and friendship and the search for meaning, and stands as a monument to those things in us that are capable of resisting and enduring in the face of tyranny.

The Periodic Table

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RICHARD DAWKINS

Richard Dawkins' brilliant reformulation of the theory of natural selection has the rare distinction of having provoked as much excitement and interest outside the scientic community as within it. His theories have helped change the whole nature of the study of social biology, and have forced thousands of readers to rethink their beliefs about life. In his internationally bestselling, now classic volume, The Selsh Gene, Dawkins explains how the selsh gene can also be a subtle gene. The world of the selsh gene revolves around savage competition, ruthless exploitation, and deceit, and yet, Dawkins argues, acts of apparent altruism do exist in nature. Bees, for example, will commit suicide when they sting to protect the hive, and birds will risk their lives to warn the ock of an approaching hawk. This revised edition of Dawkins' fascinating book contains two new chapters. One, entitled "Nice Guys Finish First," demonstrates how cooperation can evolve even in a basically selsh world. The other new chapter, entitled "The Long Reach of the Gene," which reects the arguments presented in Dawkins' The Extended Phenotype, claries the startling view that genes may reach outside the bodies in which they dwell and manipulate other individuals and even the world at large. Containing a wealth of remarkable new insights into the biological world, the second edition once again drives home the fact that truth is stranger than ction.

The Selsh Gene

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STEPHEN HAWKING

From the time of the ancient Greeks through the present time, this historical overview of cosmology is told by one of the most famous and fascinating scientists today. In the ten years since its publication in 1988, Stephen Hawking's book has become a landmark volume in scientic writing, with more than nine million copies sold worldwide. That edition was on the cutting edge of what was then known about the nature of the universe. But the last decade has seen extraordinary advances in the technology of observing both the micro- and the macrocosmic worlds, conrming many of Professor Hawking's theoretical predictions. Eager to bring to his original text the new knowledge revealed by these observations, he has written a new introduction, updated the original chapters throughout, and added an entirely new chapter on the fascinating subject of wormholes and time travel.

A Brief History of Time

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The acknowledged leader and standard in general chemistry, this book maintains its effective and proven features--clarity of writing, scientic integrity, currency, strong exercises, visual emphasis and consistency in presentation. It offers readers an integrated educational solution to the challenges of the learning with an expanded media program that works in concert with the book, helping them to approach problem solving, visualization, and applications with greater success. Chapter topics cover: Matter and Measurement; Atoms, Molecules, and Ions; Stoichiometry: Calculations with Chemical Formulas and Equations; Aqueous Reactions and Solution Stoichiometry; Thermochemistry; Electronic Structure of Atoms; Periodic Properties of the Elements; Basic Concepts of Chemical Bonding; Molecular Geometry and Bonding Theories; Gases; Intermolecular Forces, Liquids, and Solids; Modern Materials; Properties of Solutions; Chemical Kinetics; Chemical Equilibrium; Acid-Base Equilibria; Additional Aspects of Equilibria; Chemistry of the Environment; Chemical Thermodynamics; Electrochemistry; Nuclear Chemistry; Chemistry of the Nonmetals; Metals and Metallurgy; Chemistry of Coordination Compounds; and The Chemistry of Life: Organic and Biological Chemistry. For individuals interested in the study of general chemistry.

THEODORE L. BROWN Chemistry: The Central Science

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JAMES D. WATSON

By identifying the structure of DNA, the molecule of life, Francis Crick and James Watson revolutionized biochemistry and won themselves a Nobel Prize. At the time, Watson was only twenty-four, a young scientist hungry to make his mark. His uncompromisingly honest account of the heady days of their thrilling sprint against other world-class researchers to solve one of science's greatest mysteries gives a dazzlingly clear picture of a world of brilliant scientists with great gifts, very human ambitions, and bitter rivalries. With humility unspoiled by false modesty, Watson relates his and Crick's desperate efforts to beat Linus Pauling to the Holy Grail of life sciences, the identication of the basic building block of life. Never has a scientist been so truthful in capturing in words the avor of his work.

The Double Helix

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Cosmos has 13 heavily illustrated chapters, corresponding to the 13 episodes of the Cosmos television series. In the book, Sagan explores 15 billion years of cosmic evolution and the development of science and civilization. Cosmos traces the origins of knowledge and the scientic method, mixing science and philosophy, and speculates to the future of science. The book also discusses the underlying premises of science by providing biographical anecdotes about many prominent scientists throughout history, placing their contributions into the broader context of the development of modern science. The book covers a broad range of topics, comprising Sagan's reections on anthropological, cosmological, biological, historical, and astronomical matters from antiquity to contemporary times. Sagan reiterates his position on extraterrestrial lifethat the magnitude of the universe permits the existence of thousands of alien civilizations, but no credible evidence exists to demonstrate that such life has ever visited earth.

CARL SAGAN Cosmos

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