McLeods Booksellers

The Book of Humans - The Story of How We Became Us by Adam Rutherford

$34.99 NZD

Category: Science

'Charming, compelling and packed with information. I learned more about biology from this short book than I did from years of science lessons. A weird and wonderful read' PETER FRANKOPAN We like to think of ourselves as exceptional beings, but is there really anything special about us that sets us apar t from other animals? Humans are the slightest of twigs on a single family tree that encompasses four billion years, a lot of twists and turns, and a billion species. All of those organisms are rooted in a single origin, with a common code that underwrites our existence. This paradox - that our biology is indistinct from all life, yet we consider ourselves to be special - lies at the heart of who we are. In this original and entertaining tour of life on Earth, Adam Rutherford explores how many of the things once considered to be exclusively human are not: we are not the only species that communicates, makes tools, utilises fire, or has sex for reasons other than to make new versions of ourselves. Evolution has, however, allowed us to develop our culture to a level of complexity that outstrips any other observed in nature. THE BOOK OF HUMANS tells the story of how we became the creatures we are today, bestowed with the unique ability to investigate what makes us who we are. Illuminated by the latest scientific discoveries, it is a thrilling compendium of what unequivocally fixes us as animals, and reveals how we are extraordinary among them. With illustrations by Alice Roberts ...Show more

50 Must-See Wonders of the Night Sky by Bob King

$37.99 NZD

Category: Science

Take your night watching to the next level with Bob King's bucket list collection of 57 remarkable night sky wonders and dark sky destinations. Fill your nights with adventure and the ability to see some of the incredible phenomenon of the sky with this must-have book. Learn all about the brightest and best stars, planets, meteors, comets and constellations using the naked eye, binoculars, telescopes and apps. Each curiosity is complete with sight-seeing activities to help you see the deep-sky marvels, whether it's as simple as using your hands as a guide or tracking night sky conditions on an app; Bob is your guide to make sure you're able to find each and every phenomenon. Complete with practical background information, technological resources, equipment guides, astro travel suggestions and a comprehensive checklist to keep track of what you've seen, this is the ultimate resource for any sky watcher. Book jacket. ...Show more

21 Lessons for the 21st Century by Yuval Noah Harari

$38.00 NZD

Category: Science

**THE NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER** Sapiens showed us where we came from. Homo Deus looked to the future. 21 Lessons for the 21st Century explores the present. How can we protect ourselves from nuclear war, ecological cataclysms and technological disruptions? What can we do about the epidemic of fake news o r the threat of terrorism? What should we teach our children? Yuval Noah Harari takes us on a thrilling journey through today's most urgent issues. The golden thread running through his exhilarating new book is the challenge of maintaining our collective and individual focus in the face of constant and disorienting change. Are we still capable of understanding the world we have created? ...Show more

Astronomy: A Visual Guide by Ian Ridpath; Dorling Kindersley Travel Staff

$48.00 NZD

Category: Science

Take a tour of the Universe, from the 150km impact craters on the Moon to Jupiter's Great Red Spot - a 643kmph swirling storm that started in the 1600s. This stunningly illustrated slipcase is lavishly designed to cover every aspect of astronomy. Learn about the history of discoveries in the field, fro m the earliest human civilizations to the present day. Discover more about astronomical phenomena, from the supermassive black hole at the centre of our galaxy, and what happens when a star runs out of energy, to theories about the fate of the Universe - including the Big Crunch and the Big Rip, and take a visual tour of the Solar System, complete with the very latest photographs of the planets. A definitive month-by-month guide to the night sky, with profiles of all 88 constellations, over 100 star charts, and an Almanac of astronomical events over the next decade, will help you to navigate your way around the night sky, and locate stars, galaxies, and other objects. Featuring no-nonsense advice on how to observe the skies using the naked eye, binoculars, and telescopes, Astronomyis the perfect guide for keen amateur astronomers, as well as a great reference book for the whole family. ...Show more

Dictionary of Astronomy

$11.99 NZD

Category: Science

30-Second Meteorology: The 50 Most Significant Events and Phenomena, Each Explained in Half a Minute by Adam Scaife

$12.99 NZD

Category: Science | Series: 30 Second

If you only have 30 seconds, there is time - using this book - to make sense of the science behind the seeming vagaries of the weather, the controversies, predictions and forecasts for climate change that shape our day-to-day experiences of the great outdoors. Ever since Aristotle first tried to explain the forces that seem to fall from the heavens, meteorology has opened up the study of weather, and caused disputes over the reasons why seasons change, where precipitation falls, why winds blow and when the sun shines. From halcyon days to hurricanes, super cells to silver linings, global warming to giant hailstones, here is the ultimate guide to a near universal preoccupation: what's the weather like? ...Show more

The Edge of Memory - Ancient Stories, Oral Tradition and the Post-Glacial World by Patrick Nunn

$32.99 NZD

Category: Science

In The Edge of Memory, Patrick Nunn explores the science in folk history. He looks at ancient tales and traditions that may be rooted in scientifically verifiable fact, and can be explored via geological evidence, such as the Biblical Flood.We all know those stories that have been told in our families f or generations. The ones that start "Have I ever told you about your great, great Uncle ...?" In some cultures these stories have been passed down for thousands of years, and often reveal significant information about how the surrounding environment has changed and the effect it has had on societies--from stories referring to coastal drowning to the devastation caused by meteorite falls.Take Australian folklore, for instance. People arrived in Australia more than 60,000 years ago, and the need to survive led to the development of knowledge that was captured orally in stories passed down through the generations. These stories conveyed both practical information and recorded history, and they frequently made reference to a coastline that was very different to the one we recognize today. In at least 21 different communities along the fringe of Australia, flood stories were recorded by European anthropologists, missionaries, and others. They described a lost landscape that is now under as much as 100 feet of ocean. And these folk traditions are backed up by hard science. Geologists are now starting to corroborate the tales through study of climatic data, sediments and land forms; the evidence was there in the stories, but until recently, nobody was listening.The Edge of Memory is an important book that explores the wider implications for our knowledge of how human society has developed through the millennia. ...Show more

What's Your Type? the Strange History of Myers-Briggs and the Birth of Personality Testing by Merve Emre

$35.00 NZD

Category: Science

'History that reads like biography that reads like a novel - a fluid narrative that defies expectations and plays against type' New York Times'This is a sparkling biography - not of a person, but of a popular personality tool' Adam Grant An unprecedented history of the personality test conceived a centu ry ago by a mother and her daughter - fiction writers with no formal training in psychology - and how it insinuated itself into our boardrooms, classrooms, and beyond. The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator is the most popular personality test in the world. It has been harnessed by Fortune 100 companies, universities, hospitals, churches, and the military. Its language - of extraversion vs. introversion, thinking vs. feeling - has inspired online dating platforms and Buzzfeed quizzes alike. And yet despite the test's widespread adoption, experts in the field of psychometric testing, a $500 million industry, struggle to account for its success - no less validate its results. How did the Myers-Briggs insinuate itself into our jobs, our relationships, our internet, our lives? First conceived in the 1920s by the mother-daughter team of Katherine Briggs and Isabel Briggs Myers, a pair of aspiring novelists and devoted homemakers, the Myers-Briggs was designed to bring the gospel of Carl Jung to the masses. But it would take on a life of its own, reaching from the smoke-filled boardrooms of mid-century New York to Berkeley, California, where it was honed against some of the 20th century's greatest creative minds. It would travel across the world to London, Zurich, Cape Town, Melbourne, and Tokyo; to elementary schools, nunneries, wellness retreats, and the closed-door corporate training sessions of today. Drawing from original reporting and never-before-published documents, What's Your Type? examines nothing less than the definition of the self - our attempts to grasp, categorise and quantify our personalities. Surprising and absorbing, the book, like the test at its heart, considers the timeless question: What makes you you? ...Show more

Rocket Men - The Daring Odyssey of Apollo 8 and the Astronauts Who Made Man's First Journey to the Moon by Robert Kurson

$40.00 NZD

Category: Science

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - The riveting inside story of three heroic astronauts who took on the challenge of mankind's historic first mission to the Moon, from the bestselling author of Shadow Divers. "Robert Kurson tells the tale of Apollo 8 with novelistic detail and immediacy."--Andy Weir, #1 New Yo rk Times bestselling author of The Martian and Artemis By August 1968, the American space program was in danger of failing in its two most important objectives: to land a man on the Moon by President Kennedy's end-of-decade deadline, and to triumph over the Soviets in space. With its back against the wall, NASA made an almost unimaginable leap: It would scrap its usual methodical approach and risk everything on a sudden launch, sending the first men in history to the Moon--in just four months. And it would all happen at Christmas. In a year of historic violence and discord--the Tet Offensive, the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert Kennedy, the riots at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago--the Apollo 8 mission would be the boldest, riskiest test of America's greatness under pressure. In this gripping insider account, Robert Kurson puts the focus on the three astronauts and their families: the commander, Frank Borman, a conflicted man on his final mission; idealistic Jim Lovell, who'd dreamed since boyhood of riding a rocket to the Moon; and Bill Anders, a young nuclear engineer and hotshot fighter pilot making his first space flight. Drawn from hundreds of hours of one-on-one interviews with the astronauts, their loved ones, NASA personnel, and myriad experts, and filled with vivid and unforgettable detail, Rocket Men is the definitive account of one of America's finest hours. In this real-life thriller, Kurson reveals the epic dangers involved, and the singular bravery it took, for mankind to leave Earth for the first time--and arrive at a new world. Praise for Rocket Men "In 1968 we sent men to the Moon. They didn't leave boot prints, but it was the first time humans ever left Earth for another destination. That mission was Apollo 8. And Rocket Men, under Robert Kurson's compelling narrative, is that under-told story."--Neil deGrasse Tyson "Rocket Men is a riveting introduction to the Apollo 8] flight. . . . Kurson details the mission in crisp, suspenseful scenes. . . . A] gripping book."--The New York Times Book Review ...Show more

30-Second Theories by Paul Parsons (Editor)

$24.99 NZD

Category: Science | Series: 30-Second

The primary ideas of science, presented in one easy-to-understand volume.

30-Second Psychology by Christian Jarrett (Editor)

$24.99 NZD

Category: Science | Series: 30 Second Ser.

A compact yet detailed introduction to the primary theories of psychology and the history of its development.

How to Change Your Mind: The New Science of Psychedelics by Michael Pollan

$38.00 NZD

Category: Science

The No.1 New York Times Bestseller 'Gripping and surprising ... Pollan makes losing your mind sound like the sanest thing a person could do' The New York Times Book Review Could psychedelic drugs change our worldview? One of America's most admired writers takes us on a mind-altering journey to the fro ntiers of human consciousness When LSD was first discovered in the 1940s, it seemed to researchers, scientists and doctors as if the world might be on the cusp of psychological revolution. It promised to shed light on the deep mysteries of consciousness, as well as offer relief to addicts and the mentally ill. But in the 1960s, with the vicious backlash against the counter-culture, all further research was banned. In recent years, however, work has quietly begun again on the amazing potential of LSD, psilocybin and DMT. Could these drugs in fact improve the lives of many people? Diving deep into this extraordinary world and putting himself forwardas a guinea-pig, Michael Pollan has written a remarkable history of psychedelics and a compelling portrait of the new generation of scientists fascinatedby the implications of these drugs. How to Change Your Mind is a report from what could very well be the future of human consciousness. 'His approach is steeped in honesty and self-awareness. His cause is just, his thinking is clear, and his writing is compelling' - Washington Post   'An easy-going humane generosity ... mischievous self-regard ... as if Henry David Thoreau had had an encounter with Woody Allen and never been quite the same since' - Simon Schama ...Show more