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The acclaimed science writer presents a wide-ranging exploration of Antarctica’s history, nature, and global significance in this “rollicking good read” (Kirkus). From the early expeditions of Ernest Shackleton to David Attenborough’s documentary series Frozen Planet, the continent of Antarctica has captured the world’s imagination. After the Antarctic Treaty of 1961, decades of scientific research revealed the true extent of its many mysteries. Now former Nature magazine staff writer Gabrielle Walker tells the full story of Antarctica—from its fascinating history to its uncertain future and the international teams of researchers who brave its forbidding climate. Drawing on her broad travels across the continent, Walker weaves all the significant threads of life on the vast ice sheet into a multifaceted narrative, illuminating what it really feels like to be there and why it draws so many different kinds of people. She chronicles cutting-edge science experiments, visits to the South Pole, and unsettling portents about our future in an age of global warming. “We are all anxious Antarctic watchers now, and Walker's book is the essential primer.”—The Guardian, UK
A full and intimate portrait of the most mysterious continent on earth, and how it holds the key to all our futures.
One of the most dynamic writers and one of the most respected scientists in the field of climate change offer the first concise guide to both the problems and the solutions of global warming. Guiding us past a blizzard of information and misinformation, Gabrielle Walker and Sir David King explain the science of warming, the most cutting-edge technological solutions from small to large, and the national and international politics that will affect our efforts. While there have been many other books about the problem of global warming, none has addressed what we can and should do about it so clearly and persuasively, with no spin, no agenda, and no exaggeration. Neither Walker nor King is an activist or politician, and theirs is not a generic green call to arms. Instead they propose specific ideas to fix a very specific problem. Most important, they offer hope: This is a serious issue, perhaps the most serious that humanity has ever faced. But we can still do something about it. And they’ll show us how.
In 1960 Joe Kittinger fell to earth from the edge of space and lived. Inside a pressure suit, attached to a huge helium balloon, Kittinger freefell from where the earth's atmosphere met space - an appalling, hostile, environment that would freeze us, and burn us and boil us away. It is the air that Kittinger fell through that makes our lives on earth possible - the atmosphere is made up of enfolding layers of air which protect us so completely that we don't even realise the dangers of space lurking just twenty miles above us. We don't just live in the air, we live because of it. Gabrielle Walker's new book illuminates this most extraordinary and yet most underrated substance on earth- air. T...
Did the Earth once undergo a super ice age, one that froze the entire planet from the poles to the equator? In Snowball Earth, gifted writer Gabrielle Walker has crafted an intriguing global adventure story, following maverick scientist Paul Hoffman’s quest to prove a theory so audacious and profound that it is shaking the world of earth sciences to its core. In lyrical prose that brings each remote and alluring locale vividly to life, Walker takes us on a thrilling natural history expedition to witness firsthand the supporting evidence Hoffman has pieced together. That evidence, he argues, shows that 700 million years ago the Earth did indeed freeze over completely, becoming a giant “sn...
The science and history of what lies between us and space: “I never knew air could be so interesting.” —Bill Bryson, New York Times bestselling author of The Body: A Guide for Occupants A flamboyant Renaissance Italian discovers how heavy our air really is (the air filling Carnegie Hall, for example, weighs seventy thousand pounds). A one-eyed barnstorming pilot finds a set of winds that constantly blow five miles above our heads. An impoverished American farmer figures out why hurricanes move in a circle by carving equations with his pitchfork on a barn door. A well-meaning inventor nearly destroys the ozone layer (he also came up with the idea of putting lead in gasoline). A reclusiv...
Longlisted for the Booker Prize 2020 A Spectator Book of the Year ‘A literary rendering of the Top Boy generation... I cannot conjure another work which captures this culture in such depth – or with such brutal honesty – as only lived experience can tell ’ Graeme Armstrong, author of The Young Team
AS SEEN ON BBC FOOTBALL FOCUS AND BT SPORT 'Excellent and thoroughly enjoyable' Sunday Sport 'One man and his quest to see a game in every UEFA nation in one season' Paul Doyle, Guardian EUROPE UNITED follows Matt Walker's unprecedented challenge to experience top-division football in all 55 UEFA countries in a single season. In June 2017, Matt said farewell to his job, surrendered his Fulham FC season ticket and set off for Georgia, the first stop on his mission. He would end his adventure eleven months later in Montenegro, having conquered the continent and captured the imagination of its sporting media. His epic journey would pose its challenges. Yet no amount of airport confusion in Icel...
A school ski trip to a remote Alpine resort descends into terror when a snowstorm cuts off the group from the rest of the world. For, as Charlie and his classmates are about to discover, something ancient and evil lies in wait...
Telling the story of Australia as it is today, Gabrielle Chan has gone hyper-local. In Rusted Off, she looks to her own rural community’s main street for answers to the big questions driving voters. Why are we so fed up with politics? Why are formerly rusted-on country voters deserting major parties in greater numbers than their city cousins? Can ordinary people teach us more about the way forward for government? In 1996 – the same year as Pauline Hanson entered parliament – Gabrielle, the city-born daughter of a Chinese migrant, moved to a sheep and wheat farm in country New South Wales. She provides a window into her community where she raised her children and reflects on its lessons...