The Age of Wonder

Author: Richard Holmes
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307378322
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 710

Book Description
The Age of Wonder is a colorful and utterly absorbing history of the men and women whose discoveries and inventions at the end of the eighteenth century gave birth to the Romantic Age of Science. When young Joseph Banks stepped onto a Tahitian beach in 1769, he hoped to discover Paradise. Inspired by the scientific ferment sweeping through Britain, the botanist had sailed with Captain Cook in search of new worlds. Other voyages of discovery—astronomical, chemical, poetical, philosophical—swiftly follow in Richard Holmes's thrilling evocation of the second scientific revolution. Through the lives of William Herschel and his sister Caroline, who forever changed the public conception of the solar system; of Humphry Davy, whose near-suicidal gas experiments revolutionized chemistry; and of the great Romantic writers, from Mary Shelley to Coleridge and Keats, who were inspired by the scientific breakthroughs of their day, Holmes brings to life the era in which we first realized both the awe-inspiring and the frightening possibilities of science—an era whose consequences are with us still. BONUS MATERIAL: This ebook edition includes an excerpt from Richard Holmes's Falling Upwards.

Age of Wonders

Author: David G. Hartwell
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 0765398133
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 313

Book Description
Age of Wonders: Exploring the World of Science Fiction gives an insider's view of the strange and wonderful world of science fiction, by one of the most respected editors in the field, David G. Hartwell (1941-2016). David G. Hartwell edited science fiction and fantasy for over twenty years. In that time, he worked with acclaimed and popular writers such as Robert A. Heinlein, Poul Anderson, Frank Herbert, Roger Zelazny, Robert Silverberg, Gene Wolfe, Nancy Kress, L.E. Modesitt, Terry Bisson, Lisa Goldstein, and Philip Jose Farmer, and discovered hot new talents like Kathleen Ann Goonan and Patrick O'Leary. Now in Age of Wonder, Hartwell describes the field he loved, worked in, and shaped as editor, critic, and anthologist. Like those other American art forms, jazz, comics, and rock 'n' roll, science fiction is the product of a rich and fascinating subculture. Age of Wonder is a fascinating tour of the origins, history, and culture of the science fiction world, written with insight and genuine affection for this wonder-filled literature, and addressed to newcomers and longtime SF readers alike. Age of Wonder remains "the landmark work" Roger Zelazny called the first edition. The book contains sections that offer advice on teaching courses in science fiction, disquisitions on the controversial subgenre of hard SF, and practical explanations of the economics of publishing science fiction and fantasy. Age of Wonder still lives up to Hugo and Nebula Award winner Vonda McIntyre's description: "An entertaining and provocative book that will inspire discussion and argument for years to come." At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Time of Wonder

Author: Robert McCloskey
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0451481852
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 34

Book Description
Winner of the Caldecott Medal! For fans of Blueberries for Sal, One Morning in Maine, and Make way for Ducklings. "Out on the islands that poke their rocky shores above the waters of Penobscot Bay, you can watch the time of the world go by, from minute to minute, hour to hour, from day to day . . ." So begins this classic story of one summer on a Maine island from the author of One Morning in Maine and Blueberries for Sal. The spell of rain, the gulls and a foggy morning, the excitement of sailing, the quiet of the night, the sudden terror of a hurricane, and, in the end, the peace of the island as the family packs up to leave are shown in poetic language and vibrant, evocative pictures.

Season of Wonder

Author: RaeAnne Thayne
Publisher: HQN Books
ISBN: 1488096465
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 286

Book Description
The Perfect Holiday Read! It’s a long way from New York to Idaho…but could they have found a home at last? Dani Capelli has never truly belonged anywhere. And from her earliest days as a foster child in Queens, she would have been lost if it weren’t for her love of animals. Until high school, when she fell hard for the wrong boy, and found herself pregnant—and married—by graduation. Two daughters later, Dani realized her mistake and filed for divorce, and with the help of scholarships and loans—and a lot of macaroni and cheese dinners—she enrolled in vet school. Things were finally looking up…until her ex-husband became her late husband, in the most notorious way possible. Now Dani and her daughters need an out-of-town pass more than ever. So when the retiring Haven Point veterinarian offers her a chance to settle in the small Idaho town and take over his practice, she jumps at it. But adjusting to the charming mountain community isn’t easy; thirteen-year-old Silver begins acting out while six-year-old Mia is growing too attached to Haven Point and everything in it, especially their next-door-neighbor, Deputy Sheriff Ruben Morales. And Dani can’t blame her. Ruben is everything she’s secretly wanted—and everything she can’t bear to risk loving…and losing. As the holidays draw near, their shared concern for Dani’s daughters brings them closer together, giving Ruben the chance to show this big-city woman just how magical Christmas in Haven Point can be...and that the promise of a home at last is very real in the most wondrous season of the year… Don’t miss Christmas at the Shelter Inn, New York Times bestselling author RaeAnne Thayne’s latest charming story about two sisters coming together and finding hope one magical Christmas, years after tragedy and loss tore their family apart. Other heartwarming reads from RaeAnne Thayne: All is Bright Sleigh Bells Ring Christmas in Snowflake Canyon Snow Angel Cove (Hope's Crossing Series) Snowfall on Haven Point (Haven Point Series) Coming Home for Christmas (Haven Point Series) Cafe at Beach End Summer at the Cape The Sea Glass Cottage The Path to Sunshine Cove The Cliff House

The A-Z of Wonder Women

Author: Yvonne Lin
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
ISBN: 0316420964
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 52

Book Description
Celebrate historic and contemporary Wonder Women from around the world, from Ada Lovelace to Zaha Hadid! Highlighting notable and inspiring women from across the globe and throughout time, The A-Z of Wonder Women features biographies of trailblazers and groundbreakers, including Ada Lovelace, Oprah Winfrey, Ruth Ginsberg, and Wajeha al-Huwaider. This empowering alphabet-style book celebrates a wide range of skills and masteries in the arts, politics and activism, STEM, and more, providing accessible facts about these heroic women--and inspiring young readers to make the change they want to see in the world.

Wonder of Wonders

Author: Alisa Solomon
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
ISBN: 0805095292
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 484

Book Description
A sparkling and eye-opening history of the Broadway musical that changed the world In the half-century since its premiere, Fiddler on the Roof has had an astonishing global impact. Beloved by audiences the world over, performed from rural high schools to grand state theaters, Fiddler is a supremely potent cultural landmark. In a history as captivating as its subject, award-winning drama critic Alisa Solomon traces how and why the story of Tevye the milkman, the creation of the great Yiddish writer Sholem-Aleichem, was reborn as blockbuster entertainment and a cultural touchstone, not only for Jews and not only in America. It is a story of the theater, following Tevye from his humble appearance on the New York Yiddish stage, through his adoption by leftist dramatists as a symbol of oppression, to his Broadway debut in one of the last big book musicals, and his ultimate destination—a major Hollywood picture. Solomon reveals how the show spoke to the deepest conflicts and desires of its time: the fraying of tradition, generational tension, the loss of roots. Audiences everywhere found in Fiddler immediate resonance and a usable past, whether in Warsaw, where it unlocked the taboo subject of Jewish history, or in Tokyo, where the producer asked how Americans could understand a story that is "so Japanese." Rich, entertaining, and original, Wonder of Wonders reveals the surprising and enduring legacy of a show about tradition that itself became a tradition. Wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles.

Wonder

Author: Frank C. Keil
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262046490
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 333

Book Description
How we can all be lifelong wonderers: restoring the sense of joy in discovery we felt as children. From an early age, children pepper adults with questions that ask why and how: Why do balloons float? How do plants grow from seeds? Why do birds have feathers? Young children have a powerful drive to learn about their world, wanting to know not just what something is but also how it got to be that way and how it works. Most adults, on the other hand, have little curiosity about whys and hows; we might unlock a door, for example, or boil an egg, with no idea of what happens to make such a thing possible. How can grown-ups recapture a child’s sense of wonder at the world? In this book, Frank Keil describes the cognitive dispositions that set children on their paths of discovery and explains how we can all become lifelong wonderers. Keil describes recent research on children’s minds that reveals an extraordinary set of emerging abilities that underpin their joy of discovery—their need to learn not just the facts but the underlying causal patterns at the very heart of science. This glorious sense of wonder, however, is stifled, beginning in elementary school. Later, with little interest in causal mechanisms, and motivated by intellectual blind spots, as adults we become vulnerable to misinformation and manipulation—ready to believe things that aren’t true. Of course, the polymaths among us have retained their sense of wonder, and Keil explains the habits of mind and ways of wondering that allow them—and can enable us—to experience the joy of asking why and how.

The Clockwork Universe

Author: Edward Dolnick
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0062042262
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 404

Book Description
New York Times bestselling author Edward Dolnick brings to light the true story of one of the most pivotal moments in modern intellectual history—when a group of strange, tormented geniuses invented science as we know it, and remade our understanding of the world. Dolnick’s earth-changing story of Isaac Newton, the Royal Society, and the birth of modern science is at once an entertaining romp through the annals of academic history, in the vein of Bill Bryson’s A Short History of Nearly Everything, and a captivating exploration of a defining time for scientific progress, in the tradition of Richard Holmes’ The Age of Wonder.

The Books of Wonder

Author: Tommy Wonder
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780945296171
Category : Magic tricks
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description

Toys in the Age of Wonder

Author: Mark Rich
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476639787
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 345

Book Description
By the middle 1800s, toys were appearing in forms that drew upon--and that inspired--advances in areas such as optics, biology, geography, transportation, and automation. In these decades, too, a new type of wonder tale was being brought to maturity by a Poe-inspired Jules Verne. The modern wonder tale's highly-charged vision expressed the hopes and the fears, and the delights and the traumas, engendered by "new worlds idealism"--that Western pursuit of both mechanical and geographical conquest. Exploring realms belonging to childhood, literature, science, and history, this innovative study weaves together the histories of wonder tales and children's toys, focusing specifically on their modern aspects and how they reflect and express the social attitudes of that time period beginning around 1859 and ending around 1957.