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Books

Steve Jobs

January 2012

The biography of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs - drawn from three years of exclusive interviews with author Walter Isaacson - is probably the definitive portrait of the difficult genius.


The World's Greatest Idea: The 50 Greatest Ideas That Have Changed Humanity

The World's Greatest Idea

October 2011

From abstract concepts to realised innovations, the direction of our civilisation has swerved with these world-changing ideas.


Geek Nation

Geek Nation

August 2011

India is a country on the verge of becoming a scientific superpower, supported by a pool of scientifically engaged labourers - or 'geeks'.


FlashForward

FlashForward

January 2010

Without warning, almost the entire population of Earth blacks out for two minutes. Helicopters fall from the sky, patients in surgery bleed to death and people who were swimming drown.


Where Did We Come From?

Where Did We Come From?

September 2006

Where Did We Come From? is the Australian edition of a book sold overseas as The Smithsonian Intimate Guide to Human Origins. It is a beautifully illustrated account of human evolution, from the first hominids to relatively recent times when Homo sapiens began to spread across the world.


K-Machines

K-Machines

September 2006

K-Machines is a sequel to Godplayers (2005), with which it forms a complete diptych. They develop an appealing vision of how a high-technology future might turn out, if everything goes as well as we can hope.


Where Stuff Comes From

Where Stuff Comes From

September 2006

Where Stuff Comes From is interested not so much in objects themselves and how they work, as in the sociology of why we want 'stuff', how it fits into our lives, and how and why designers create it for us.


Space Race

Space Race

September 2006

Amid the current spate of books concerning the 1960s comes this dramatic retelling of humanity's first steps on its journey into space.


The Unexpected Einstein: The Real Man Behind the Icon

The Unexpected Einstein: The Real Man Behind the Icon

September 2006

In The Unexpected Einstein, Denis Brian examines and, where necessary, corrects many myths that have grown up around the real Albert Einstein.


Addicted to Oil

Addicted to Oil

September 2006

Ian Rutledge's book chronicles the rise of America's oil dependency, its political and geological explorations in the Middle East, and some of the science and history of oil itself.


Pushing Ice

Pushing Ice

September 2006

Alastair Reynolds has effortlessly produced space operas with a gothic bent and cooler-than cool protagonists. In Pushing Ice, Reynolds tones down the space battles for an intelligent novel of man's future among the stars.


Pi: A Biography of the World's Most Mysterious Number

Pi: A Biography of the World's Most Mysterious Number

August 2006

Good old pi. The ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. According to this book, pi's been known - in an approximate form - since about 2000bc. And, of course, because the thing is 'irrational' (a number which can't be expressed as a finite decimal number) we will never have anything but approximations.


Earth Time: Exploring the Deep Past from Victorian England to the Grand Canyon

Earth Time: Exploring the Deep Past from Victorian England to the Grand Canyon

June 2006

Less than two centuries ago devout Englishmen pronounced that the fossils of animals that lived tens of thousands (or even millions) of years ago, had once been creatures killed in the Biblical flood survived only by Noah and his 'passengers'. In the standard early Victorian view, the Earth was created in 4004bc, and the alluvial deposits around the mouth of the Thames sat on top of debris left by the flood.


Looking for Life, Searching the Solar System

Looking for Life, Searching the Solar System

June 2006

Imagine: in belated recognition of your abilities you've just received the call from NASA and are, as of today, in charge of the U.S. space program, with a budget of trillions and carte blanche to explore the universe as and how you will. OK, what next? Where do you start?


Origins: Fourteen Billion Years of Cosmic Evolution

Origins: Fourteen Billion Years of Cosmic Evolution

June 2006

In Origins, the authors want to "uncover the story of how part of the Universe turned into ourselves". To do that, they need to explain the history of the Universe, and what it is made of: "fourteen billion years of cosmic evolution", as the subtitle says.