Showing results by publisher "Fourth Estate" in Science & Engineering

'BRILLIANTLY CLEAR AND CAPTIVATING PROSE' STEPHEN FRY A WATERSTONES BOOK OF YEAR 2023 An award-winning mathematician explores the maths behind the games we love and why we love to play them. Where should you move first in Connect 4? What is the best property in Monopoly? And how can pi help you...

‘Sea State marks the arrival of a gifted and exciting new voice’ Jon McGregor, author of Reservoir 13 SHORTLISTED FOR THE GORDON BURN PRIZE SHORTLISTED FOR THE PORTICO PRIZE A GUARDIAN BEST BOOK OF 2021 A candid examination of the life of North Sea oil riggers, and an explosive portrayal of...

** As seen on ITV Tonight… THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER ** 'Clear and compelling' Chris van Tulleken 'Really interesting and insightful' Joe Wicks 'Fascinating' Tim Spector – What if the food you eat could rewind your biological clock? From the rising incidence of cancer in the under-50s to...

A BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week ‘A subject that could not be more important. A compact classic!’ Bill McKibben ‘I learned something new – and found something amazing – on every page’ Anthony Doerr, author of All the Light We Cannot See From Pulitzer Prize winner Annie Proulx – whose...

Winner of The Royal Society of Literature Jerwood Award for Non-Fiction in 2011 and the Authors' Foundation Roger Deakin Award in 2011 A stunning debut in the tradition of Robert Macfarlane and Helen Macdonald Of all the birds of the British Isles, the raptor reigns supreme, sparking the...

WINNER OF THE GUARDIAN FIRST BOOK AWARD 2011 WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION 2011 ‘Profound, eloquent and searching’ SUNDAY TIMES ‘Essential reading’ INDEPENDENT ‘Masterly’ GUARDIAN ‘Extraordinary’ NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW Riveting, audacious and now more urgent...

In The Sea Inside, Philip Hoare sets out to rediscover the sea, its islands, birds and beasts. He begins on the south coast where he grew up, a place of almost monastic escape. From there he travels to the other side of the world - the Azores, Sri Lanka, New Zealand - in search of encounters with animals and people. Navigating between human and natural history, he asks what these stories mean for us now.

Mossy greens, conker browns, cream, chocolate and deepest black; add stripes, swirls and splotches and you have some of the most striking wildlife Britain has to offer. In Meetings with Moths ecologist Katty Baird roams Scotland seeking out, documenting and observing moths. Green Longhorns...

The story of two nineteenth-century scientists who revealed one of the most significant events in the natural history of this planet: the existence of dinosaurs. In ‘The Dinosaur Hunters’ Deborah Cadbury brilliantly recreates the remarkable story of the bitter rivalry between two men: Gideon...

In the tradition of The Perfect Storm and Into Thin Air, Rachel Slade’s Into the Raging Sea is a nail-biting account of the sinking of the container ship El Faro, the crew of thirty-three who perished onboard, and the destructive forces of globalisation that put the ship in harm’s way. On 1...

Shortlisted for the 2023 Highland Book Prize ‘Joyful and mindful, a powerful argument for being still and listening’ Sunday Times A book about birds, birdsong and the countryside they inhabit, from the critically acclaimed author of Raptor. In Wild Air, James Macdonald Lockhart sets out to...

Will a computer ever compose a symphony, write a prize-winning novel, or paint a masterpiece? And if so, would we be able to tell the difference? As humans, we have an extraordinary ability to create works of art that elevate, expand and transform what it means to be alive. Yet in many other...

‘Cinematic, suspenseful, totally immersive’ ZOË SCHLANGER ‘Explosive … fascinating’ RENI EDDO-LODGE ‘Riveting’ ERIC KLINENBERG The explosive true story of a secret group of radicals who launched a clandestine battle to save the planet, and what their legacy illuminates about the...

In Footprints, David Farrier explores what traces we will leave for the very deep future. From long-lived materials like plastic and nuclear waste, to the 50 million kilometres of roads spanning the planet, in modern times we have created numerous objects and landscapes with the potential to endure through deep time. Our carbon could linger in the atmosphere for 100,000 years, and the remains of our cities will still exist millions of years from now as a layer in the rock.

‘When I am disturbed, even angry, gardening has been a therapy. When I don't want to talk I turn to Plot 29, or to a wilder piece of land by a northern sea. There, among seeds and trees, my breathing slows; my heart rate too. My anxieties slip away.’ As a young boy in 1960s Plymouth, Allan...

In The Smallest Lights in the Universe, MIT astrophysicist Sara Seager interweaves the story of her search for meaning and solace after losing her first husband to cancer, her unflagging search for an Earth-like exoplanet and her unexpected discovery of new love. Sara Seager has made it her life's work to peer into the spaces around stars - looking for exoplanets outside our solar system, hoping to find the one-in-a-billion world enough like ours to sustain life. But with the unexpected death of her husband, her life became an empty, lightless space. 

Unique, transgressive and as funny as its subject, A Life Discarded has all the suspense of a murder mystery. Written with his characteristic warmth, respect and humour, Masters asks you to join him in celebrating an unknown and important life left on the scrap heap. A Life Discarded is a...

How have our emotions shaped the course of human history? And how have our experience and understanding of emotions evolved with us? We humans like to think of ourselves as rational creatures, who, as a species, have relied on calculation and intellect to survive. But many of the most important...

An intimate portrait of an everyday genius. Alexander Master’s landlord, Simon, lives in the basement of their Cambridge house. Between teetering towers of outdated maps and slagheaps of plastic bags, Simon eats endless meals of tinned kippers and plans trips on the Cambridge public transport...

‘One of the best novels of the year so far’ The Times A SPECTATOR BOOK OF THE YEAR ‘Unlike anything I’ve read. Haunting and huge, and funny and sensuous. It’s wonderful’ Tessa Hadley ‘I just enjoyed it so very much’ Philip Pullman It is the 17th century and a wall is being built...