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› Find signed collectible books: 'Big Bang: The Origin of the Universe'
A baffling array of science books claim to reveal how the mysteries of the universe have been discovered, but Simon Singh's Big Bang actually delivers on that promise. General readers will find it to be among the very best books dealing with cosmology, because Singh follows the same plan he used in his brilliant Code Book: he puts people--not equations--first in the story. By linking the progression of the Big Bang theory with the scientists who built it up bit by bit, Singh also uncovers an important truth about how such ideas grow.
Death is an essential element in the progress of science, since it takes care of conservative scientists of a previous generation reluctant to let go of an old, fallacious theory and embrace a new and accurate one.As harsh as this statement seems, even Einstein defended an outmoded idea about the universe when an unknown interloper published equations challenging the great man. Einstein didn't have to die for cosmology to move forward (he reluctantly apologized for being wrong), but stories like this one show how difficult it can sometimes be for new theories to take root. Fred Hoyle, who coined the term "big bang" as a way to ridicule the idea of a universe expanding from some tiny origin point, strongly believed that the cosmos was in a steady state. But Singh shows how Hoyle's research, meant to prove the contrary, added evidence to the expansion model. Big Bang is also a history of astronomical observation, describing the development of new telescopes that were crucial to the development of cosmology. Handwritten summary notes at the end of each long chapter add a charming, classroom feel to this revealing and very readable book. --Therese Littleton [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Black Holes and Baby Universes and Other Essays'
Readers worldwide have come to know the work of Stephen Hawking through his phenomenal million-copy hardcover best-seller A Brief History of Time. Bantam is proud to present the paperback edition of Dr. Hawking's first new book since that event, a collection of fascinating and illuminating essays, and a remarkable interview broadcast by the BBC on Christmas Day, 1992. These fourteen pieces reveal Hawking variously as the scientist, the man, the concerned world citizen, and-always-the rigorous and imaginative thinker. Hawking's wit, directness of style, and absence of pomp characterize all of them, whether he is remembering his first experience at nursery school; calling for adequate education in science that will enable the public to play its part in making informed decisions on matters such as nuclear disarmament; exploring the origins of the future of the universe; or reflecting on the history of A Brief History of Time. Black Holes and Baby Universes is an important work from one of the greatest minds of the twentieth century. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'A Brief History of Time Reader's Companion'
Stephen Hawking, one of the most brilliant theoretical physicists in history, wrote the modern classic A Brief History of Time to help nonscientists understand the questions being asked by scientists today: Where did the universe come from? How and why did it begin? Will it come to an end, and if so, how? Hawking attempts to reveal these questions (and where we're looking for answers) using a minimum of technical jargon. Among the topics gracefully covered are gravity, black holes, the Big Bang, the nature of time, and physicists' search for a grand unifying theory. This is deep science; these concepts are so vast (or so tiny) as to cause vertigo while reading, and one can't help but marvel at Hawking's ability to synthesize this difficult subject for people not used to thinking about things like alternate dimensions. The journey is certainly worth taking, for, as Hawking says, the reward of understanding the universe may be a glimpse of "the mind of God." --Therese Littleton [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Brief History of Time'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes'
Stephen Hawking has earned a reputation as the most brilliant theoretical physicist since Einstein. In this landmark volume, Professor Hawking shares his blazing intellect with nonscientists everywhere, guiding us expertly to confront the supreme questions of the nature of time and the universe. Was there a beginning of time? Will there be an end? Is the universe infinite or does it have boundaries? From Galileo and Newton to modern astrophysics, from the breathtakingly cast to the extraordinarily tiny, Professor Hawking leads us on an exhilarating journey to distant galaxies, black holes, alternate dimensions--as close as man has ever ventured to the mind of God. From the vantage point of the wheelchair from which he has spent more than twenty years trapped by Lou Gehrig's disease, Stephen Hawking has transformed our view of the universe. Cogently explained, passionately revealed, A Brief History of Time is the story of the ultimate quest for knowledge: the ongoing search for the tantalizing secrets at the heart of time and space. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes'
Stephen Hawking, one of the most brilliant theoretical physicists in history, wrote the modern classic A Brief History of Time to help nonscientists understand the questions being asked by scientists today: Where did the universe come from? How and why did it begin? Will it come to an end, and if so, how? Hawking attempts to reveal these questions (and where we're looking for answers) using a minimum of technical jargon. Among the topics gracefully covered are gravity, black holes, the Big Bang, the nature of time, and physicists' search for a grand unifying theory. This is deep science; these concepts are so vast (or so tiny) as to cause vertigo while reading, and one can't help but marvel at Hawking's ability to synthesize this difficult subject for people not used to thinking about things like alternate dimensions. The journey is certainly worth taking, for, as Hawking says, the reward of understanding the universe may be a glimpse of "the mind of God." --Therese Littleton [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Brief History of Time/International Ed'
Stephen Hawking, one of the most brilliant theoretical physicists in history, wrote the modern classic A Brief History of Time to help nonscientists understand the questions being asked by scientists today: Where did the universe come from? How and why did it begin? Will it come to an end, and if so, how? Hawking attempts to reveal these questions (and where we're looking for answers) using a minimum of technical jargon. Among the topics gracefully covered are gravity, black holes, the Big Bang, the nature of time, and physicists' search for a grand unifying theory. This is deep science; these concepts are so vast (or so tiny) as to cause vertigo while reading, and one can't help but marvel at Hawking's ability to synthesize this difficult subject for people not used to thinking about things like alternate dimensions. The journey is certainly worth taking, for, as Hawking says, the reward of understanding the universe may be a glimpse of "the mind of God." --Therese Littleton [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Carl Sagan's Cosmic Connection: An Extraterrestrial Perspective'
In 1973, Carl Sagan published The Cosmic Connection, a daring view of the universe, which rapidly became a classic work of popular science and inspired a generation of scientists and enthusiasts. This seminal work is reproduced here for a whole new generation to enjoy. In Sagan's typically lucid and lyrical style, he discusses many topics from astrophysics and solar system science, to colonization, terraforming and the search for extraterrestrials. Sagan conveys his own excitement and wonder, and relates the revelations of astronomy to the most profound human problems and concerns: issues that are just as valid today as they were thirty years ago. New to this edition are Freeman Dyson's comments on Sagan's vision and the importance of the work, Ann Druyan's assessment of Sagan's cultural significance as a champion of science, and David Morrison's discussion of the advances made since 1973 and what became of Sagan's predictions. Who knows what wonders this third millennium will reveal, but one thing is certain: Carl Sagan played a unique role in preparing us for them. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Cosmic Blueprint: New Discoveries in Nature's Creative Ability to Order the Universe'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Cosmic Connection'
n 1973, Carl Sagan published The Cosmic Connection, a daring view of the universe, which rapidly became a classic work of popular science and inspired a generation of scientists and enthusiasts. This seminal work is reproduced here for a whole new generation to enjoy. In Sagan's typically lucid, lyrical style, he discusses many topics from astrophysics and solar system science, to colonization of other worlds, terraforming and the search for extraterrestrials. [in this book, he] conveys his own excitement and wonder, and relates the revelations of astronomy to the most profound human problems and concerns: issues that are just as valid today as they were 30 years ag [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Cosmic Connection: An Extraterrestrial Perspective'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Cosmicomics'
An enchanting series of stories about the evolution of the universe. Calvino makes characters out of mathematical formulae and simple cellular structures. They disport themselves amongst galaxies, experience the solidification of planets, move from aquatic to terrestrial existence, play games with hydrogen atoms -- and have time for a love life. [via]
› Find signed collectible books: 'Cosmos'
Cosmos was the first science TV blockbuster, and Carl Sagan was its (human) star. By the time of Sagan's death in 1997, the series had been seen by half a billion people; Sagan was perhaps the best-known scientist on the planet. Explaining how the series came about, Sagan recalled:
I was positive from my own experience that an enormous global interest exists in the exploration of the planets and in many kindred scientific topics--the origin of life, the Earth, and the Cosmos, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, our connection with the universe. And I was certain that this interest could be excited through that most powerful communications medium, television.
Sagan's own interest and enthusiasm for the universe were so vivid and infectious, his screen presence so engaging, that viewers and readers couldn't help but be caught up in his vision. From stars in their "billions and billions" to the amino acids in the primordial ocean, Sagan communicated a feeling for science as a process of discovery. Inevitably, some of the science in Cosmos has been outdated in the years since 1980--but Sagan's sense of wonder is ageless. --Mary Ellen Curtin [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Cosmos: International Affairs in the Modern Age'
Cosmos was the first science TV blockbuster, and Carl Sagan was its (human) star. By the time of Sagan's death in 1997, the series had been seen by half a billion people; Sagan was perhaps the best-known scientist on the planet. Explaining how the series came about, Sagan recalled:
I was positive from my own experience that an enormous global interest exists in the exploration of the planets and in many kindred scientific topics--the origin of life, the Earth, and the Cosmos, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, our connection with the universe. And I was certain that this interest could be excited through that most powerful communications medium, television.
Sagan's own interest and enthusiasm for the universe were so vivid and infectious, his screen presence so engaging, that viewers and readers couldn't help but be caught up in his vision. From stars in their "billions and billions" to the amino acids in the primordial ocean, Sagan communicated a feeling for science as a process of discovery. Inevitably, some of the science in Cosmos has been outdated in the years since 1980--but Sagan's sense of wonder is ageless. --Mary Ellen Curtin [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Don't Know Much About the Universe: Everything You Need to Know About the Cosmos but Never Learned'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Don't Know Much About the Universe: Everything You Needed to Know About Outer Space but Never Learned'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'El Fin De La Eternidad / the End of Eternity'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'El Principito / The Little Prince'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'El Principito / The Little Prince'
Uno de los clásicos de la literatura para niños, que en el criterio de muchos debe ser leído y comentado por un adulto, pero también un indiscutible libro para adultos. Mediante la figura de un principito que vive en su propio asteroide, el autor trata sobre los valores humanos y enseñanzas para la vida. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'El Principito / The Little Prince'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory'
There is an ill-concealed skeleton in the closet of physics: "As they are currently formulated, general relativity and quantum mechanics cannot both be right." Each is exceedingly accurate in its field: general relativity explains the behavior of the universe at large scales, while quantum mechanics describes the behavior of subatomic particles. Yet the theories collide horribly under extreme conditions such as black holes or times close to the big bang. Brian Greene, a specialist in quantum field theory, believes that the two pillars of physics can be reconciled in superstring theory, a theory of everything.
Superstring theory has been called "a part of 21st-century physics that fell by chance into the 20th century." In other words, it isn't all worked out yet. Despite the uncertainties--"string theorists work to find approximate solutions to approximate equations"--Greene gives a tour of string theory solid enough to satisfy the scientifically literate.
Though Ed Witten of the Institute for Advanced Study is in many ways the human hero of The Elegant Universe, it is not a human-side-of-physics story. Greene's focus throughout is the science, and he gives the nonspecialist at least an illusion of understanding--or the sense of knowing what it is that you don't know. And that is traditionally the first step on the road to knowledge. --Mary Ellen Curtin [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality'
As a boy, Brian Greene read Albert Camus' The Myth of Sisyphus and was transformed. Camus, in Greene's paraphrase, insisted that the hero triumphs "by relinquishing everything beyond immediate experience." After wrestling with this idea, however, Greene rejected Camus and realized that his true idols were physicists; scientists who struggled "to assess life and to experience the universe at all possible levels, not just those that happened to be accessible to our frail human senses." His driving question in The Fabric of the Cosmos, then, is fundamental: "What is reality?" Over sixteen chapters, he traces the evolving human understanding of the substrate of the universe, from classical physics to ten-dimensional M-Theory.
Assuming an audience of non-specialists, Greene has set himself a daunting task: to explain non-intuitive, mathematical concepts like String Theory, the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, and Inflationary Cosmology with analogies drawn from common experience. For the most part, he succeeds. His language reflects a deep passion for science and a gift for translating concepts into poetic images. When explaining, for example, the inability to see the higher dimensions inherent in string theory, Greene writes: "We don't see them because of the way we see&like an ant walking along a lily pad&we could be floating within a grand, expansive, higher-dimensional space."
For Greene, Rhodes Scholar and professor of physics and mathematics at Columbia University, speculative science is not always as thorough and successful. His discussion of teleportation, for example, introduces and then quickly tables a valuable philosophical probing of identity. The paradoxes of time travel, however, are treated with greater depth, and his vision of life in a three-brane universe is compelling and--to use his description for quantum reality--"weird."
In the final pages Greene turns from science fiction back to the fringes of science fact, and he returns with rigor to frame discoveries likely to be made in the coming decades. "We are, most definitely, still wandering in the jungle," he concludes. Thanks to Greene, though, some of the underbrush has been cleared. --Patrick O'Kelley [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The First Three Minutes: A Modern View of the Origin of the Universe'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Handy Space Answer Book'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'
Don't panic! You're not timetripping! It's the tenth anniversary of the publication of Douglas Adams's zany, best-selling novel, and to celebrate Harmony is reissuing a special edition of this cult classic!
By now the story is legendary. Arthur Dent, mild-mannered, out-to-lunch earth-ling, is plucked from his planet by his friend Ford Prefect just seconds before it was demolished to make way for a hyper-space bypass. Ford, posing as an out-of-work actor, is a researcher for the revised edition of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Together the gruesome twosome begin their now-famous inter-galactic journey through time, space and best-sellerdom.
For Hitchhiker fanatics (you know who you are!) who've read the books, seen the television program, and listened to the radio show, as well as newcomers to Douglas Adams's unique universe -- remember -- don't panic, don't forget to bring a towel, and don't forget to celebrate The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy's tenth anniversary by wearing your bathrobe. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Hitchhikers Trilogy Omnibus Ed'
Contains The Hitchhiker's Guide to Galaxy, The Restaurant at the endof the Universe, and life, the universe and everything [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Illustrated a Brief History of Time'
In the years since its publication in 1988, Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time has established itself as a landmark volume in scientific
writing. It has also become an international publishing phenomenon, translated into forty languages and selling over nine million copies.
The book was on the cutting edge of what was then known about the nature of the universe, but since then there have been extraordinary advances in the
technology of observing both the micro- and the macrocosmic world. These observations have confirmed many of Professor Hawking's theoretical predictions
in the first edition of his book, including the recent discoveries of the Cosmic Background Explorer satellite (COBE), which probed back in time to within 300,000 years of the universe's beginning and revealed the wrinkles in the fabric of space-time that he had projected.
Eager to bring to his original text the new knowledge revealed by these many observations, as well as his most recent research, for this revised and expanded edition Hawking has prepared a new introduction to the book, revised and updated the original chapters throughout, and written an entirely new chapter on the fascinating subject of wormholes and time travel.
In addition, to heighten understanding of complex concepts that readers may have found difficult to grasp despite the clarity and wit of Hawking's writing, this edition is magnificently enhanced throughout with more than 240 full-color illustrations, including satellite images, photographs made possible by spectacular new technological advances such as the Hubble telescope, and computer- generated images of three- and four-dimensional realities. Detailed captions clarify these illustrations, enabling readers to experience the vastness of intergalactic space, the nature of black holes, and the microcosmic world of
particle physics in which matter and antimatter collide.
A classic work that now brings to the reader the latest understanding of cosmology, The Illustrated A Brief History of Time is the story of the ongoing search for the tantalizing secrets at the heart of time and space. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Illustrated Theory of Everything: The Origin and Fate of the Universe'
In physicist Stephan Hawking's brilliant opus, A Brief History Of Time, he presented us with a bold new look at our universe, how it began, and how our old views of physics and tired theories about the creation of the universe were no longer relevant. In other words, Hawking gave us a new look at our world, our universe, and ourselves.
Now, available for the first time in a deluxe full-color edition with never-before-seen photos and illustrations, Hawking presents an even more comprehensive look at our universe, its creation, and how we see ourselves within it. Imagine sitting in a comfortable room listening to Hawking discuss his latest theories and place them in historical context with science's other great achievements-it would be like hearing Christopher Columbus deliver the news about the new world. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Introducing the Universe'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Last Three Minutes: Conjectures About the Ultimate Fate of the Universe'
A speculative description of the end of time applies scientific theory to imagination, predicting the overtaking of black holes, the end of sunlight, the beginning of stardoom, and the crushing effects of gravity. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Le Petit Prince'
Imaginez-vous perdu dans le désert, loin de tout lieu habité, et face à un petit garçon tout blond, surgi de nulle part. Si de surcroît ce petit garçon vous demande avec insistance de dessiner un mouton, vous voilà plus qu'étonné ! À partir de là, vous n'aurez plus qu'une seule interrogation : savoir d'où vient cet étrange petit bonhomme et connaître son histoire.
S'ouvre alors un monde étrange et poétique, peuplé de métaphores, décrit à travers les paroles d'un "petit prince" qui porte aussi sur notre monde à nous un regard tout neuf, empli de naïveté, de fraîcheur et de gravité. Très vite, vous découvrez d'étranges planètes, peuplées d'hommes d'affaires, de buveurs, de vaniteux, d'allumeurs de réverbères.
Cette évocation onirique, à laquelle participent les aquarelles de l'auteur, a tout d'un parcours initiatique, où l'enfant apprendra les richesses essentielles des rapports humains et le secret qui les régit : "On ne voit bien qu'avec le coeur, l'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux."
Oeuvre essentielle de la littérature, ce livre de Saint-Exupéry est un ouvrage que l'on aura à coeur de raconter à son enfant, page après page, histoire aussi de redécouvrir l'enfant que l'on était autrefois, avant de devenir une grande personne ! --Xavier Marciniak [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Le Petit Prince'
Imaginez-vous perdu dans le désert, loin de tout lieu habité, et face à un petit garçon tout blond, surgi de nulle part. Si de surcroît ce petit garçon vous demande avec insistance de dessiner un mouton, vous voilà plus qu'étonné ! À partir de là, vous n'aurez plus qu'une seule interrogation : savoir d'où vient cet étrange petit bonhomme et connaître son histoire.
S'ouvre alors un monde étrange et poétique, peuplé de métaphores, décrit à travers les paroles d'un "petit prince" qui porte aussi sur notre monde à nous un regard tout neuf, empli de naïveté, de fraîcheur et de gravité. Très vite, vous découvrez d'étranges planètes, peuplées d'hommes d'affaires, de buveurs, de vaniteux, d'allumeurs de réverbères.
Cette évocation onirique, à laquelle participent les aquarelles de l'auteur, a tout d'un parcours initiatique, où l'enfant apprendra les richesses essentielles des rapports humains et le secret qui les régit : "On ne voit bien qu'avec le coeur, l'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux."
Oeuvre essentielle de la littérature, ce livre de Saint-Exupéry est un ouvrage que l'on aura à coeur de raconter à son enfant, page après page, histoire aussi de redécouvrir l'enfant que l'on était autrefois, avant de devenir une grande personne ! --Xavier Marciniak [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Life on Other Worlds and How to Find It'
SETI -- the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence -- is undergoing something of a renaissance, and alongside the work of the scientists almost a million PC users round the world are participating in the SERENDIP IV project through the "SETI at Home" initiative from Berkeley University in California. This book is an up-to-date review of todays scientific thinking about where and how we might find life elsewhere in the universe, presented in Stuart Clarks easily read yet authoritative style. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Little Prince'
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry first published The Little Prince in 1943, only a year before his Lockheed P-38 vanished over the Mediterranean during a reconnaissance mission. More than a half century later, this fable of love and loneliness has lost none of its power. The narrator is a downed pilot in the Sahara Desert, frantically trying to repair his wrecked plane. His efforts are interrupted one day by the apparition of a little, well, prince, who asks him to draw a sheep. "In the face of an overpowering mystery, you don't dare disobey," the narrator recalls. "Absurd as it seemed, a thousand miles from all inhabited regions and in danger of death, I took a scrap of paper and a pen out of my pocket." And so begins their dialogue, which stretches the narrator's imagination in all sorts of surprising, childlike directions.
The Little Prince describes his journey from planet to planet, each tiny world populated by a single adult. It's a wonderfully inventive sequence, which evokes not only the great fairy tales but also such monuments of postmodern whimsy as Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities. And despite his tone of gentle bemusement, Saint-Exupéry pulls off some fine satiric touches, too. There's the king, for example, who commands the Little Prince to function as a one-man (or one-boy) judiciary:
I have good reason to believe that there is an old rat living somewhere on my planet. I hear him at night. You could judge that old rat. From time to time you will condemn him to death. That way his life will depend on your justice. But you'll pardon him each time for economy's sake. There's only one rat.The author pokes similar fun at a businessman, a geographer, and a lamplighter, all of whom signify some futile aspect of adult existence. Yet his tale is ultimately a tender one--a heartfelt exposition of sadness and solitude, which never turns into Peter Pan-style treacle. Such delicacy of tone can present real headaches for a translator, and in her 1943 translation, Katherine Woods sometimes wandered off the mark, giving the text a slightly wooden or didactic accent. Happily, Richard Howard (who did a fine nip-and-tuck job on Stendhal's The Charterhouse of Parma in 1999) has streamlined and simplified to wonderful effect. The result is a new and improved version of an indestructible classic, which also restores the original artwork to full color. "Trying to be witty," we're told at one point, "leads to lying, more or less." But Saint-Exupéry's drawings offer a handy rebuttal: they're fresh, funny, and like the book itself, rigorously truthful. --James Marcus [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'National Geographic Picture Atlas of Our Universe'
A lavishly illustrated guide to the universe combines the efforts of an award-winning author and NASA experts, offering a timeline of important space events, an easy-to-use glossary, and a planetarium, observatory, and museums listing. 10,000 first printing. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Origin of the Universe'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'A Short History of Nearly Everything'
One of the worlds most beloved and bestselling writers takes his ultimate journey -- into the most intriguing and intractable questions that science seeks to answer.
In A Walk in the Woods, Bill Bryson trekked the Appalachian Trail -- well, most of it. In In A Sunburned Country, he confronted some of the most lethal wildlife Australia has to offer. Now, in his biggest book, he confronts his greatest challenge: to understand -- and, if possible, answer -- the oldest, biggest questions we have posed about the universe and ourselves. Taking as territory everything from the Big Bang to the rise of civilization, Bryson seeks to understand how we got from there being nothing at all to there being us. To that end, he has attached himself to a host of the worlds most advanced (and often obsessed) archaeologists, anthropologists, and mathematicians, travelling to their offices, laboratories, and field camps. He has read (or tried to read) their books, pestered them with questions, apprenticed himself to their powerful minds. A Short History of Nearly Everything is the record of this quest, and it is a sometimes profound, sometimes funny, and always supremely clear and entertaining adventure in the realms of human knowledge, as only Bill Bryson can render it. Science has never been more involving or entertaining.
From the Hardcover edition. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Theory of Everything: The Origin and Fate of the Universe'
With a title inspired as much by Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker series as Einstein, The Theory of Everything delivers almost as much as it promises. Transcribed from Stephen Hawking's Cambridge Lectures, the slim volume may not present a single theory unifying gravity with the other fundamental forces, but it does carefully explain the state of late 20th-century physics with the great scientist's characteristic humility and charm. Explicitly shunning math, Hawking explains the fruits of 100 years of heavy thinking with metaphors that are simple but never condescending--he compares the settling of the newborn universe into symmetry to the formation of ice crystals in a glass of water, for example. While he explores his own work (especially when speaking about black holes), he also discusses the important milestones achieved by others like Richard Feynman. Though occasionally an impenetrably obscure phrase does slip by, the reader will find the bulk of the text enlightening and engaging. The material, from the nature of time to the possibility that the universe has no beginning or end, is rich and deep and inevitably ignites metaphysical thinking. After all, Hawking is famous for his "we would know the mind of God" remark, which ends the final lecture herein. --Rob Lightner [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide'
It's safe to say that The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is one of the funniest science fiction novels ever written. Adams spoofs many core science fiction tropes: space travel, aliens, interstellar war--stripping away all sense of wonder and repainting them as commonplace, even silly.
This omnibus edition begins with The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, in which Arthur Dent is introduced to the galaxy at large when he is rescued by an alien friend seconds before Earth's destruction. Then in The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, Arthur and his new friends travel to the end of time and discover the true reason for Earth's existence. In Life, the Universe, and Everything, the gang goes on a mission to save the entire universe. So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish recounts how Arthur finds true love and "God's Final Message to His Creation." Finally, Mostly Harmless is the story of Arthur's continuing search for home, in which he instead encounters his estranged daughter, who is on her own quest. There's also a bonus short story, "Young Zaphod Plays It Safe," more of a vignette than a full story, which wraps up this completist's package of the Don't Panic chronicles. As the series progresses, its wackier elements diminish, but the satire of human life and foibles is ever present. --Brooks Peck [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'
At last in paperback in one complete volume, here are the five classic novels from Douglas Adamss beloved Hitchiker series.
The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy
Seconds before the Earth is demolished for a galactic freeway, Arthur Dent is saved by Ford Prefect, a researcher for the revised Guide. Together they stick out their thumbs to the stars and begin a wild journey through time and space.
The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
Facing annihilation at the hands of warmongers is a curious time to crave tea. It could only happen to the cosmically displaced Arthur Dent and his comrades as they hurtle across the galaxy in a desperate search for a place to eat.
Life, the Universe and Everything
The unhappy inhabitants of planet Krikkit are sick of looking at the night sky so they plan to destroy it. The universe, that is. Now only five individuals can avert Armageddon: mild-mannered Arthur Dent and his stalwart crew.
So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish
Back on Earth, Arthur Dent is ready to believe that the past eight years were all just a figment of his stressed-out imagination. But a gift-wrapped fishbowl with a cryptic inscription conspires to thrust him back to reality. So to speak.
Mostly Harmless
Just when Arthur Dent makes the terrible mistake of starting to enjoy life, all hell breaks loose. Can he save the Earth from total obliteration? Can he save the Guide from a hostile alien takeover? Can he save his daughter from herself? [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Universe in a Nutshell'
Stephen Hawking, science's first real rock star, may be the least-read bestselling author in history--it's no secret that many people who own A Brief History of Time have never finished it. Hawking's The Universe in a Nutshell aims to remedy the situation, with a plethora of friendly illustrations to help readers grok some of the most brain-bending ideas ever conceived.
Does it succeed? Yes and no. While Hawking offers genuinely accessible context for such complexities as string theory and the nature of time, it's when he must translate equations to sentences that the limits of language get in the way. But Hawking has simplified the origin of the universe, the nature of space and time, and what holds it all together to an unprecedented degree, inviting nonscientists to share his obvious awe and love of the unseen forces that shape it all.
Yes, it's difficult reading, but it's worth it. Hawking is one of the great geniuses of our time, a man whose life has been devoted to thinking in the abstract about the universe. With his help, and pictures--lots of pictures--we can seek to understand a bit more of the cosmos. --Therese Littleton [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Whole Shebang: A State-Of-The-Universes Report'
Plenty of books try to explain the origin of the universe, but despite the ascendance of the Big Bang theory, numerous details of that theory remain in flux as new observations are made and new hypotheses formed (and then confirmed or rejected). Timothy Ferris's The Whole Shebang is an up-to-date account of the various mechanisms believed to have contributed to the universe as we now know it, from the Big Bang itself to inflation to superstrings. The Whole Shebang eschews mathematics and formulae and explains cosmological concepts in clear and enticing prose. If you need an update on the state of the universe, you'll find it here. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Brevisima Historia Del Tiempo/a Brief History of Time'
En 1988 aparecio un libro que iba a cambiar de arriba abajo nuestra concepcion del universo y que se convirtio en uno de los mayores best-sellers cientificos: "Historia del tiempo", de Stephen Hawking, el mayor genio del siglo xx despues de Einstein. Pese a su exito colosal, aquel libro presentaba algunas dificultades de comprension para el publico menos familiarizado con los principios de la fisica teorica. Ahora, diecisiete años despues, el profesor Hawking ha escrito este libro maravilloso y sencillo que pone al alcance del comun de los mortales los grandes misterios del mundo y de la vida. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'El Catalejo Lacado'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'El Cometa/the Comet'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Contacto'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Historia Del Tiempo'
HISTORIA DEL TIEMPO es un libro de divulgación sobre el espacio y el tiempo escrito por uno de los físicos teóricos más prestigiosos de la actualidad. En él STEPHEN W. HAWKING presenta de forma clara y concisa los conceptos fundamentales de la mecánica newtoniana, la teoría de la relatividad, la mecánica cuántica y la cosmología contemporánea, temas todos ellos que, junto a su interés intrínseco, permiten enmarcar el problema de fondo tratado en el libro: el origen del universo y la creación del espacio-tiempo, llegando a asomarse a campos más amplios y aventurados, como la metafísica e incluso la teología, al plantearse la naturaleza de Dios creador, o más bien garante del sentido del universo.(*CR*) [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Historia del tiempo / A Brief History of Time: del big bang a los agujeros negros / From Big Bangs to the Black Holes'
More editions of Historia del tiempo / A Brief History of Time: del big bang a los agujeros negros / From Big Bangs to the Black Holes:
› Find signed collectible books: 'El Principito / The Little Prince'
Uno de los clásicos de la literatura para niños, que en el criterio de muchos debe ser leído y comentado por un adulto, pero también un indiscutible libro para adultos. Mediante la figura de un principito que vive en su propio asteroide, el autor trata sobre los valores humanos y enseñanzas para la vida. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'El principito/ The Little Prince'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Los tres primeros minutos del universo / The first three minutes of the universe'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Una Breve Historia De Casi Todo/a Short History of Nearly Everything'
One of the worlds best-selling writers takes his ultimate journey into the most intriguing and consequential questions that science seeks to answer. Its a dazzling quest, to understand what that has transpired from the Big Bang to the rise of civilization. Or, as the author puts it, &how we went from there being nothing at all to there being something, and then how a little of that something turned into us, and also what happened in between and since. Description in Spanish: Bill Bryson se describe como un viajero renuente, pero ni siquiera cuando está en su casa, en la seguridad de su estudio, puede contener esa curiosidad que siente por el mundo que le rodea. En Una breve historia de casi todo intenta entender qué ocurrió entre la Gran Explosión y el surgimiento de la civilización, cómo pasamos de la nada a lo ahora somos. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Le Miroir D'Ambre'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Le Petite Prince'
Imaginez-vous perdu dans le désert, loin de tout lieu habité, et face à un petit garçon tout blond, surgi de nulle part. Si de surcroît ce petit garçon vous demande avec insistance de dessiner un mouton, vous voilà plus qu'étonné ! À partir de là, vous n'aurez plus qu'une seule interrogation : savoir d'où vient cet étrange petit bonhomme et connaître son histoire.
S'ouvre alors un monde étrange et poétique, peuplé de métaphores, décrit à travers les paroles d'un "petit prince" qui porte aussi sur notre monde à nous un regard tout neuf, empli de naïveté, de fraîcheur et de gravité. Très vite, vous découvrez d'étranges planètes, peuplées d'hommes d'affaires, de buveurs, de vaniteux, d'allumeurs de réverbères.
Cette évocation onirique, à laquelle participent les aquarelles de l'auteur, a tout d'un parcours initiatique, où l'enfant apprendra les richesses essentielles des rapports humains et le secret qui les régit : "On ne voit bien qu'avec le coeur, l'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux."
Oeuvre essentielle de la littérature, ce livre de Saint-Exupéry est un ouvrage que l'on aura à coeur de raconter à son enfant, page après page, histoire aussi de redécouvrir l'enfant que l'on était autrefois, avant de devenir une grande personne ! --Xavier Marciniak [via]
› Find signed collectible books: 'Le Cosmicomiche'
Softcover. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Il Piccolo Principe'
«Gli uomini hanno delle stelle che non sono le stesse. Per gli uni, quelli che viaggiano, le stelle sono delle guide. Per altri non sono che delle piccole luci. Per altri, che sono dei sapienti, sono dei problemi. Per il mio uomo daffari erano delloro. Ma tutte queste stelle stanno zitte. Tu, tu avrai delle stelle come nessuno haÉ» «Che cosa vuoi dire?» «Quando tu guarderai il cielo, la notte, visto che io abiterò in una di esse, visto che io riderò in una di esse, allora sarà per te come se tutte le stelle ridessero. Tu avrai, tu solo, delle stelle che sanno ridere!» [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Das Bernstein-Teleskop'
Gleich vom Anfang der ersten Szene an wird Das Bernstein-Teleskop den Leser packen und nicht mehr loslassen. Wir verraten an dieser Stelle allerdings nur, dass man sofort feststellt, wer zum Schluss von Das Magische Messer Lyra gefangen genommen hat, obwohl es nicht klar ist, ob die Absichten dieses Individiums nun gut oder böse sind. Wir erfahren auch, dass Will nach wie vor im Besitz der Klinge ist, die ihn befähigt, sich den Weg von einer Welt zur anderen zu schneiden, und dass sich ihm mittlerweile zwei geflügelte Freunde angeschlossen haben, die fest entschlossen sind, ihn zur Bergfestung Lord Asriels zu begleiten. Der Junge hat allerdings nur ein Ziel vor Augen -- seine Freundin zu retten und ihr den Alethiometer zurückzugeben, ein Instrument, das ihr und den Lesern von Der goldene Kompass und dessen Fortsetzung so viel offenbart hat. Wir müssen auch nicht lange warten, bis wir das "Prickeln des Sternenlichts" auf Serafina Pekkalas Haut erfahren dürfen, während sie einen ausgehungerten Iorek Byrnison ausfindig macht und ihn für Lord Asriels Kreuzzug anwirbt.
In der Zwischenzeit kämpfen die zwei Fraktionen der Kirche darum, als erste an Lyra heranzukommen. Eine davon ist sogar bereit, einem ihrer Priester schon im Voraus Absolution zu gewähren, sollte es ihm gelingen, die Todsünde zu begehen, das Mädchen zu töten; für diese Tyrannen wäre dies nichts Geringeres als "eine heilige Pflicht".
In dieser letzten Folge seiner Trilogie hat sich Philip Pullman die höchsten Ziele gesetzt. Sie darf ihren Vorgängern in Sachen schierer Action und Originalität in nichts nachstehen und muss gleichzeitig alle noch bestehenden Rätsel auflösen. Die gute Nachricht hierbei ist, dass es keine ernsthaft schlechten Nachrichten gibt. Nicht, dass Das Bernstein-Teleskop keine verfahrenen und riskant-gefährlichen Situationen enthalten würde -- die gibt es zuhauf (wer wollte es auch anders haben?). Aber Pullman führt seine Trilogie zu einem Schluss, der sowohl friedlich als auch niederschmetternd ist. Mit einem Erzählstil, der klar und dennoch lyrisch und plastisch daherkommt, blendet sich der Autor mühelos in die Gedankenwelt seiner Hauptfiguren ein und wieder aus. Er wartet zudem mit einigen zusätzlichen Welten auf. In einer davon wird Dr. Mary Malone in eine scheinbar einfache Gesellschaft aufgenommen. Das Milieu der Mulefa (auch hier verraten wir nicht mehr) macht sie reich an Bewusstsein, während ihr Leben einem langsamen und gemessenen Rhythmus folgt.
Im Verlauf seines Epos erhält Pullman seine Szenen gewaltiger Schönheit und Zärtlichkeit aufrecht und gewährt uns sogar den einen oder anderen Moment der humorvollen Entspannung. An einer Stelle beispielsweise schikaniert Lyras Mutter eine Reihe kirchlicher Befehlsempfänger. Mrs. Coulter ist ohne Frage so berauschend und umwerfend wie eh und je. Kann es sein, dass wir sie letztendlich sogar bewundern werden, während sie ihr verzweifeltes Spiel zu Ende bringt? In diesem Fall -- wie auch sonst -- ist Das Bernstein-Teleskop wahrlich ein Buch der Offenbarungen, das sich von der sichtbaren Dunkelheit zur strahlenden Wahrheit bewegt. --Kerry Fried [via]
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