'Poignant, funny, engrossing' - Jo Brand Meet Dr Ben Cave. For over thirty years he has worked in prisons and secure hospitals diagnosing and treating some of the most troubled men and women in society. A lifetime of care takes us from delusional disorders to schizophrenia, steroid abuse to drug dependency, personality disorders to paedophilia, and depression so severe a mother can kill her own baby. These are the human stories behind the headlines. The reality of a life spent working with patients with the severest mental health disorders. The tragic and often frightening truth about what happens behind closed doors. Dr Ben Cave takes us on a journey to the heart of this highly emotive environment, putting himself under the microscope as well as his patients. In the process, he allows us to share what they have taught each other, and how it has changed them. To share the psychological battle scars that come with a career on the frontline of our health service. To learn about the brilliant mental health nurses for whom physical injury and verbal abuse are a daily hazard. To learn about ourselves, and what we fear most. ------ Thoughtful, revealing, often haunting and always enlightening, if you liked Unnatural Causes, Do No Harm and This is Going to Hurt this book is for you.

'Based on meticulous research in original sources ... Goodman illustrates vividly how adept [Banks] was ... Shining a light on individuals whose achievements are relatively uncelebrated' Jenny Uglow, New York Review of Books A bold new history of how botany and global plant collecting - centred at Kew Gardens and driven by Joseph Banks - transformed the earth. Botany was the darling and the powerhouse of the eighteenth century. As European ships ventured across the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific oceans, discovery bloomed. Bounties of new plants were brought back, and their arrival meant much more than improved flowerbeds - it offered a new scientific frontier that would transform Europe's industry, medicine, eating and drinking habits, and even fashion. Joseph Banks was the dynamo for this momentous change. As botanist for James Cook's great voyage to the South Pacific on the Endeavour, Banks collected plants on a vast scale, armed with the vision - as a child of the Enlightenment - that to travel physically was to advance intellectually. His thinking was as intrepid as Cook's seafaring: he commissioned radically influential and physically daring expeditions such as those of Francis Masson to the Cape Colony, George Staunton to China, George Caley to Australia, William Bligh to Tahiti and Jamaica, among many others. Jordan Goodman's epic history follows these high seas adventurers and their influence in Europe, as well as taking us back to the early years of Kew Gardens, which Banks developed devotedly across the course of his life, transforming it into one of the world's largest and most diverse botanical gardens. In a rip-roaring global expedition, based on original sources in many languages, Goodman gives a momentous history of how the discoveries made by Banks and his collectors advanced scientific understanding around the world.

WINNER OF THE 2015 COSTA BIOGRAPHY AWARD WINNER OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY SCIENCE BOOK PRIZE 2016 'A thrilling adventure story' Bill Bryson 'Dazzling' Literary Review 'Brilliant' Sunday Express 'Extraordinary and gripping' New Scientist 'A superb biography' The Economist 'An exhilarating armchair voyage' GILES MILTON, Mail on Sunday Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859) is the great lost scientist - more things are named after him than anyone else. There are towns, rivers, mountain ranges, the ocean current that runs along the South American coast, there's a penguin, a giant squid - even the Mare Humboldtianum on the moon. His colourful adventures read like something out of a Boy's Own story: Humboldt explored deep into the rainforest, climbed the world's highest volcanoes and inspired princes and presidents, scientists and poets alike. Napoleon was jealous of him; Simon Bolivar's revolution was fuelled by his ideas; Darwin set sail on the Beagle because of Humboldt; and Jules Verne's Captain Nemo owned all his many books. He simply was, as one contemporary put it, 'the greatest man since the Deluge'. Taking us on a fantastic voyage in his footsteps - racing across anthrax-infected Russia or mapping tropical rivers alive with crocodiles - Andrea Wulf shows why his life and ideas remain so important today. Humboldt predicted human-induced climate change as early as 1800, and The Invention of Nature traces his ideas as they go on to revolutionize and shape science, conservation, nature writing, politics, art and the theory of evolution. He wanted to know and understand everything and his way of thinking was so far ahead of his time that it's only coming into its own now. Alexander von Humboldt really did invent the way we see nature.

An award-winning memoir and instant "New York Times" bestseller that goes far beyond its riveting medical mystery, "Brain on Fire" is the powerful account of one woman's struggle to recapture her identity.
When twenty-four-year-old Susannah Cahalan woke up alone in a hospital room, strapped to her bed and unable to move or speak, she had no memory of how she'd gotten there. Days earlier, she had been on the threshold of a new, adult life: at the beginning of her first serious relationship and a promising career at a major New York newspaper. Now she was labeled violent, psychotic, a flight risk. What happened?
In a swift and breathtaking narrative, Susannah tells the astonishing true story of her descent into madness, her family's inspiring faith in her, and the lifesaving diagnosis that nearly didn't happen. "A fascinating look at the disease that . . . could have cost this vibrant, vital young woman her life" ("People"), "Brain on Fire" is an unforgettable exploration of memory and identity, faith and love, and a profoundly compelling tale of survival and perseverance that is destined to become a classic.

This biography of Charles Darwin, first published in 1937, re-lives Darwin's life year by year, allowing the reader to share his experiences. The book displays Darwin's ideas and how they developed and grew over time. This title will be of great interest to students of the history of science and philosophy.

The Kaokoveld, one of the world’s most forbidding wastes, is host to an assortment of animals that have found ways of surviving in this hostile environment. Here giraffes go entirely without water and rhinos climb towering mountains in search of that scarce resource.

But most unforgettable of all must be the elephants of the Namib. Witnessing these giants cross bare sand dunes is a once-in-a-lifetime sight, and Prof. Fritz Eloff writes evocatively of their habits and environment.

Giants Of The Desert is a fascinating introduction to this harsh world and its denizens, vividly brought to life in both images and words.

Surgeons cut, but physicians... what do physicians actually do? And is it true that other doctors really call them 'the magicians'? John Quin worked for thirty-three years as a physician for the NHS in both Scotland and England, specialising in endocrinology. He was told the subject was easy because 'hormones - well, they just go up and down'. This, it turned out, was something of an over-simplification. Days on the wards were uproariously funny one minute, infinitely tragic the next. From tackling fraudulent medical students to trying and failing to induce hypoglycaemia in Glaswegian alcoholics (all in the name of research), Dr Quin, Medicine Man is packed with vividly told tales of the joy and reward of getting the diagnosis right, the disaster of getting it wrong. Chasing Chekhov's two rabbits of medicine and writing, meanwhile, Quin sought solace in literature, art and music, applying the lessons of Bulgakov's country doctor to 1980s Glasgow, where none of the patients seemed to have a full complement of fingers, and to 21st-century Brighton, dealing with the consequences of a decade of austerity measures. Darkly amusing and with a keen eye for the absurd, this sharply observed memoir is not only an acute insight into the farcical frustrations and tensions of working in a chronically underfunded system but also a timely reminder of the humanity of the NHS staff who care for us.

Michael Jacobs is a pioneer in the development of psychodynamic counselling. While his writing is praised for its lucidity in explaining difficult concepts, and it is well illustrated with case examples from his own work, he has rarely said much about his own history as a psychodynamic psychotherapist and counsellor. In this personal account, concerned mainly with both his professional life as a therapist, writer and teacher and with the developments of counselling generally in Britain, in which he has played a major part, Jacobs presents his own past. It is one that surprisingly for so experienced a therapist, started with no formal training, but which has gone on to be an influence on the training of hundreds of counsellors and therapists. Jacobs traces the development of BACP and UKCP and his part in the formation of both organizations, the development of training in counselling in Britain, much of which with regard to psychodynamic counselling was pioneered by him, and finally his writing and teaching career. The book concludes with a critique of the present state of counselling and psychotherapy in Britain today. "A delight to read! Everyone benefits from a lovely memoir like this: students, experienced colleagues, and the author himself. Michael has built a deserved reputation as an outstanding authority and innovator in the counselling field, in practice as well as in training. His restlessness and his challenging nature are still needed as the sense of crisis in depth and relational therapy work intensifies. The account of his experiences, whether entirely fortuitous and haphazard or fuelled by an individuating sense of vocation, will stimulate thought, feeling and a profound questioning of where our field is heading." Professor Andrew Samuels, Department of Psychosocial and Psychoanalytic Studies, University of Essex, UK "This is the moving and revelatory account of the personal and professional evolution of one of Britain's most prominent pioneering counsellors. In telling his own story, Michael Jacobs also illuminates the development of the counselling movement during the past fifty years and younger readers will discover much to inform and surprise them. This deceptively passionate book inspires and challenges on almost every beautifully written page." Brian Thorne, Emeritus Professor of Counselling, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK; Co-founder, The Norwich Centre for Personal, Professional and Spiritual Development "Michael Jacobs's new memoir kept me wide-awake for most of the night, because I simply could not put this book down! Written with consummate story-telling skills, Jacobs has created an inspiring and enthralling portrait of his remarkable career in the fields of psychotherapy and counselling. A true pioneer of mental health in Great Britain, Jacobs has much to teach us all, and I recommend this new volume most heartily!" Professor Brett Kahr, Institute of Medical Psychology, London, and Senior Clinical Research Fellow in Psychotherapy and Mental Health at the Centre for Child Mental Health, London, UK

During the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, Samuel Bentham influenced both the technology and the administrative ideas employed in the management of the British navy. His influence stemmed from his passion for science, from his desire to achieve improvements based on a belief in the principle of Utility, and from experience gained over eleven years in Russia, a large part in the service of Catherine the Great and Prince Potemkin. Having travelled extensively throughout the north and south of Russia, Poland and Siberia, he managed Potemkin's industries at Krichev, built fast river galleys, armed the Russian flotilla of small craft at Kherson and served with the flotilla that defeated the Turks in the Black Sea. His main ambition was to open river communication in Siberia and develop trade into the Pacific. However he returned to England and in 1796 became Inspector General of Naval Works, a post in which he fought for innovations in the technology and management of the British royal dockyards. Regarded then by the Navy Board as a dangerous maverick, this book reveals the experiences, creativity and thinking that made him a major figure in British naval development.

Published in 1994: This book is to commemorate the one hundredth anniversary of Heinrich Hertz's death at the terribly young age of thirty-six. The introductory biography together with eleven papers by Hertz and seven about him are intended to highlight the importance of Hertz's contributions to physics and at the same time to serve the needs of anyone interested in doing research on this highly gifted scientist.

Arranged in chronological order from the early Greek mathematicians, Euclid and Archimedes through to present-day Nobel Prize winners, 100 Science Discoveries That Changed the World charts the great breakthroughs in scientific understanding. Each entry describes the story of the research, the significance of the science and its impact on the scientific world. There is also a resume of each scientist's career along with their other achievements, sometimes - in the case of Isaac Newton - in a completely unrelated field (laws of motion and the component parts of light). The book covers all branches of science: geometry, number theory, cosmology, the laws of motion, particle physics, electricity, magnetism, the laws of gasses, optical theory, cell biology, conservation of energy, natural selection, radiation, quantum theory, special relativity, superconductivity, thermodynamics, genomes, plate tectonics, and the uncertainty principal. Scientists include: Albert Einstein, Alessandro Volta, Alexander Fleming, Amedeo Avogrado, Andre Geim, Antoine Lavoisier, Antony van Leeuwenhoek, Archimedes, Benoit Mandelbrot, Carl Friedrich Gauss, Charles Darwin, Christian Doppler, Copernicus, Crick and Watson, Dmitri Mendeleev, Edwin Hubble, Enrico Fermi, Ernest Rutherford, Erwin Schrodinger, Euclid, Fermat, Frederick Sanger, Galileo Galilei, Georg Ohm, Georges Lemaitre, Heike Kamerlingh, Isaac Newton, Jacques Charles, James Clerk Maxwell, James Prescott Joule, Jean Buridan, Johanes Kepler, John Ambrose Fleming, John Dalton, John O'Keefe, Joseph Black, Josiah Gibbs, Lord Kelvin, Lord Rayleigh, Louis Pasteur, Marie Curie, Martinus Beijerinck, Michael Faraday, Murray Gell-Mann & George Zweig, Neils Bohr, Nicholas Steno, Peter Higgs, Pierre Curie, Ptolemy, Robert Boyle, Robert Brown, Robert Hooke, Roger Bacon, Rudolf Clausius, Seleucus, Shen Kuo, Stanley Miller, Tyco Brahe, Werner Heisenberg, William Gilbert, William Harvey, William Herschel, William Rontgen, Wolfgang Pauli.

We think of bees as being among the busiest workers in the garden, admiring them for their productivity. But amid their buzzing, they are also great communicators and unusual dancers. As Karl von Frisch (1886-1982) discovered during World War II, bees communicate the location of food sources to each other through complex circle and waggle dances. For centuries, beekeepers had observed these curious movements in hives, and others had speculated about the possibility of a bee language used to manage the work of the hive. But it took von Frisch to determine that the bees' dances communicated precise information about the distance and direction of food sources. As Tania Munz shows in this exploration of von Frisch's life and research, this important discovery came amid the tense circumstances of the Third Reich.The Dancing Bees draws on previously unexplored archival sources in order to reveal von Frisch's full story, including how the Nazi government in 1940 determined that he was one-quarter Jewish, revoked his teaching privileges, and sought to prevent him from working altogether until circumstances intervened. In the 1940s, bee populations throughout Europe were facing the devastating effects of a plague (just as they are today), and because the bees were essential to the pollination of crops, von Frisch's research was deemed critical to maintaining the food supply of a nation at war. The bees, as von Frisch put it years later, saved his life. Munz not only explores von Frisch's complicated career in the Third Reich, she looks closely at the legacy of his work and the later debates about the significance of the bee language and the science of animal communication. This first in-depth biography of von Frisch paints a complex and nuanced portrait of a scientist at work under Nazi rule. The Dancing Bees will be welcomed by anyone seeking to better understand not only this chapter of the history of science but also the peculiar waggles of our garden visitors.

THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER. An unorthodox guide to making things worth making, from 'the father of the iPod and iPhone' and the creator of Nest. Everyone deserves a mentor. For every career crisis, every fork in the road, you need someone to talk to. Someone who's been there before, who knows exactly how wobbly and conflicted you feel, who can give it to you straight: Here's how to think about choosing a job. Here's how to be a better manager. Here's how to approach design. Here's how to start a company. Here's how to run it. Tony Fadell learned all these lessons the hard way. He spent the first 10 years of his career in Silicon Valley failing spectacularly, and the next 20 building some of the most impactful devices in history - the iPod, iPhone, and Nest Learning Thermostat. He has enough stories and advice about leadership, design, startups, mentorship, decision making, devastating screwups, and unbelievable success to fill an encyclopedia. So that's what this book is. An advice encyclopedia. A mentor in a box. But Tony's doesn't follow the standard Silicon Valley credo that you have to radically reinvent everything you do. His advice is unorthodox because it's old school. Because it's based on human nature, not gimmicks. Tony keeps things simple: he just tells you what works. He gives you exactly what you need to make things worth making. PRAISE FOR BUILD 'This is the most fun - and the most fascinating - memoir of curiosity and invention that I've ever read.' Malcolm Gladwell, Host of the Revisionist History podcast. Author of Outliers and Talking to Strangers. 'Whether you're looking to build a great product, a creative team, a strong culture, or a meaningful career, Tony's guidance will get you thinking and rethinking.' Adam Grant, Author of Think Again & Host of the TED podcast WorkLife

In sumptuous and illuminating detail, Simon Winchester, bestselling author of The Professor and the Madman, brings to life the extraordinary story of Joseph Needham--the brilliant Cambridge scientist, freethinking intellectual, and practicing nudist who unlocked the most closely held secrets of China, once the world's most technologically advanced country.

The astonishing biography of Josef Ganz, a Jewish designer from Frankfurt, who in May 1931 created a revolutionary small car: the Maikafer (German for "May bug"). Seven years later, Hitler introduced the Volkswagen. The Nazis not only "took" the concept of Ganz's family car--their production model even ended up bearing the same nickname. The Beetle incorporated many of the features of Ganz's original Maikafer, yet until recently Ganz received no recognition for his pioneering work. The Nazis did all they could to keep the Jewish godfather of the German compact car out of the history books. Now Paul Schilperoord sets the record straight. Josef Ganz was hunted by the Nazis, even beyond Germany's borders, and narrowly escaped assassination. He was imprisoned by the Gestapo until an influential friend with connections to Goring helped secure his release. Soon afterward, he was forced to flee Germany, while Porsche, using many of his groundbreaking ideas, created the Volkswagen for Hitler. After the war, Ganz moved to Australia, where he died in 1967.