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Audiobooks Narrated by Keith Wickham
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Everyone has an interest in the weather, whether it's to check the prospects for a day out or to know when best to harvest a crop. The Earth's weather systems also provide some of the most dramatic forces of nature, from the vast release of energy in a lightning flash to the devastating impact of tornadoes and hurricanes.
For centuries, our only real guide to future weather was folklore, but with the introduction of the first weather forecasts and maps in Victorian times, attempts were made to give some warning of the weather to come. Until relatively recently, these forecasts could be wildly inaccurate - think of Michael Fish's denial that there was a storm on the way the night before the UK's great storm of 1987. This was due to the mathematically chaotic nature of weather systems, first discovered in the 1960s, the understanding of which would transform forecasting from the 1990s and mean that meteorologists became some of the foremost users of supercomputers.
From the crystalline perfection of the snowflake to the transfer of energy from the Sun, science lies at the heart of the weather and our understanding of it. In recent years, weather science has moved to the leading edge with advanced modelling, versatile use of satellite data and a better understanding of mathematical chaos. This is a true example of hot science at work.
A wide-ranging and compelling account of the historical and current causes of wealth inequality, offering prescriptions for lasting solutions to an intractable problem, and for a more equitable distribution of wealth and resources.
Is equality possible in the 21st century? In The Inequality of Wealth, Liam Byrne, a former Treasury minister in Gordon Brown's government, argues that the economics of the next ten years will be critical in determining the answer to this question - and the nature of all our futures.
Surveying five centuries of British capitalism and the damage wrought by the socially divisive policies of the last ten years, Byrne warns that we're fast approaching a point of no return beyond which we bequeath to Generation Z a dystopian future of irreversible rifts between the super-rich and the rest that erodes the internal bonds of once united countries and triggers the failure or the fracturing of nations. Yet it doesn't need to be like this. Change is now happening so fast that we're seeing the stuff of science fiction become a reality in our own lives. The future won't be land of milk and honey but it could be a place where we live longer, happier healthier and wealthier lives. But only if we master new ways of sharing wealth without war or revolution.
Liam Byrne draws on conversations and debates with former prime ministers, presidents and policymakers around the world together with experts at the OECD, World Bank, and IMF to argue that, after twenty years of statistics and slogans, it's time for solutions that aren't just radical but plausible and achievable as well.
Brian Clegg's acclaimed popular science book Inflight Science explored the science experienced on a plane flight. Interstellar Tours takes that concept and goes large. It takes the reader on a tour of our galaxy on the starship Endurance.
That vessel itself is science fiction. But the phenomena you will visit, from the vast nebulae that are birthplaces of stars to stellar explosions in vast supernovas, creating the elements necessary for life - or from the planets of other solar systems to the unbelievably supermassive black hole at the heart of the Milky Way - all reflect the best picture that current science has to offer.
Accompanying Interstellar Tours is an online gallery with over 50 images and videos in full colour, each directly accessible from the page using QR codes.
Interstellar Tours takes the reader on a tour of our galaxy on the starship Endurance.
That vessel itself is science fiction. But the phenomena you will visit, from the vast nebulae that are birthplaces of stars to stellar explosions in vast supernovas, creating the elements necessary for life - or from the planets of other solar systems to the unbelievably supermassive black hole at the heart of the Milky Way - all reflect the best picture that current science has to offer.
Accompanying Interstellar Tours is an online gallery with over 50 images and videos in full colour, each directly accessible from the page using QR codes.
Interstellar Tours takes the reader on a tour of our galaxy on the starship Endurance.
That vessel itself is science fiction. But the phenomena you will visit, from the vast nebulae that are birthplaces of stars to stellar explosions in vast supernovas, creating the elements necessary for life - or from the planets of other solar systems to the unbelievably supermassive black hole at the heart of the Milky Way - all reflect the best picture that current science has to offer.
It may never be possible to undertake a voyage through the stars for real. But in reading Interstellar Tours, you can enjoy the ultimate cruise across the Milky Way galaxy.
Since antiquity, people have been asking themselves what it means to live a good life. How should I live? What constitutes a good life? What's the role of fate? What's the role of money? Is leading a good life a question of mindset, or is it more about reaching your goals? Is it better to actively seek happiness or to avoid unhappiness?
Each generation poses these questions anew, and somehow the answers are always fundamentally disappointing. Why? Because we're constantly searching for a single principle, a single tenet, a single rule. Yet this holy grail - a single, simple path to happiness - doesn't exist. Rolf Dobelli - successful businessman, founder of the TED-style ideas conference Zurich Minds, bestselling author, and all-around seeker of big ideas - has made finding a shortcut to happiness his life's mission. He's synthesized the leading thinkers and the latest science in happiness to find the best shortcuts to satisfaction in THE ART OF THE GOOD LIFE, his follow up to the international bestseller The Art of Thinking Clearly (which has sold more than 2.5 million copies in 40 languages all around the globe).
THE ART OF THE GOOD LIFE is a toolkit designed for practical living. Here you'll find fifty-two happiness hacks - from guilt-free shunning of technology to gleefully paying your parking tickets - that are certain to optimize your happiness. These tips may not guarantee you a good life, but they'll give you a better chance (and that's all any of us can ask for).
George and Weedon Grossmith's The Diary of a Nobody paints a detailed picture of life in 1892. Pooter's diary notes his daily business, parties, embarrassments, and his agitated relationship with son Lupin - a strikingly familiar world, brought to life by Keith Wickham, which provides continual amusement.
In a Paris Opera House, Chorus singer Christine Daaé develops a relationship with a disfigured Phantom, who she believes to be the Angel of Music, promised to her by her late father.
