This is the book that Daniel Tammet, bestselling author and mathematical savant, was born to write. In Tammet's world, numbers are beautiful and mathematics illuminates our lives and minds. Using anecdotes and everyday examples, Tammet allows us to share his unique insights and delight in the way numbers, fractions and equations underpin all our lives.Inspired by the complexity of snowflakes, Anne Boleyn's sixth finger or his mother's unpredictable behaviour, Tammet explores questions such as why time seems to speed up as we age, whether there is such a thing as an average person and how we can make sense of those we love.Thinking in Numbers will change the way you think about maths and fire your imagination to see the world with fresh eyes.ReviewThinking in Numbers is unprecedented: a pitch-perfect duet between mathematics and literature ... Mathematics, Tammet says, is illimitable. It is a language through which the human imagination expresses itself. Presumably this means mathematics has, or deserves, a literature. In Tammet, it already has a laureate. -- New Scientist A collection of essays on subjects as diverse as Shakespeare and Tolstoy, a rumination on snow and another on chess, as well as a fantastically nuanced piece about his mother. It is a collection which showcases Tammet's extraordinary talent ... a writer of unique capabilities. -- Scotsman Magazine An interesting and often beautiful approach: Tammet writes well... and his love of numbers shines from the page... Tammet's discussion of big numbers is fascinating. -- Daily Telegraph Tammet's choice of subjects is personal, and wonderfully eclectic... What lifts Tammet's entertaining collection above the ordinary are the often surprising links that he sees, explores and explains. -- Sunday Telegraph Explores the 'what if' of maths and links it with literature and life. He is an exhilarating thinker, an exciting writer, and looks at the world with an eclectic, quizzical eye. -- Saga magazine Tammet is an accomplished writer with a prose style akin to a warm embrace... scintillating ... enlightens and entertains in (approximately) equal measure. -- Daily Express When he talks about his own extreme skills, such as his feat of pi memorisation, the book comes alive. -- BBC Focus Daniel Tammet's unique take on the world will prove that life - not just classroom maths - is more than just a numbers game. -- Gay Times As fluid with words as with numbers, his essays are artfully constructed: intriguing openings to entice us; interesting snippets of history; accessible but unpatronising tones; neat endings. -- Independent In Tammet's mind, literature, art and maths are united. For him, maths' real-life applications are not merely tax returns and restaurant bills, but the storytelling of an infinite subject and the reasoning behind our daily existence. -- The Huffington Post Thinking in Numbers is a mind-expanding, kinetic aesthetic experience. My mind shot off the page, spurred to see universal patterns very much alive in everything from the natural world we share to how imagery and metaphor occur in my own creative process. Tammet's poetic mathematics are beautiful guideposts for thinking about life and even love. As I read, I found myself saying, 'Yes, this is true, and this is true, and this is so true...' -- Amy Tan Always informative, always entertaining, Daniel Tammet never loses his respect for the mystery of the universe of number. -- JM Coetzee Born on a Blue Day introduced us to the extraordinary phenomenon of Daniel Tammet, and Thinking in Numbers enlarges one's wonder at Tammet's mind and his all-embracing vision of the world as grounded in numbers. -- Oliver Sacks, MD His aim with Thinking in Numbers is to show that mathematics can be as rich, inspiring and human as literature - and to "bruise" the line between fiction and non-fiction... he succeeds magnificently. -- Times Literary Supplement About the AuthorDaniel Tammet is the critically acclaimed author of the worldwide bestselling memoir, BORN ON A BLUE DAY, and the international bestseller EMBRACING THE WIDE SKY. Tammet's exceptional abilities in mathematics and linguistics are combined with a unique capacity to communicate what it is like to be a savant. His idiosyncratic world view gives us new perspectives on the universal questions of what it is to be human and how we make meaning in our lives. Tammet was born in London in 1979, the eldest of nine children. He lives in Paris. Views: 25
Will the competition between two rival photographers mean disaster for the biggest wedding of the year? Or could it spark an unexpected love? Weddings by Design book 1. Views: 25
In 2003 Kevin Sampsell authored a chapbook memoir of the same title. It was written as a kind of “memory experiment,” in which he recollected luminous details from his childhood in independently amusing chapters. It functioned as an experiential catalogue of American youth in the 70s and 80s. In 2008 Kevin’s estranged father died of an aneurysm. When he returned home to Kennewick, Washington for the funeral, Kevin’s mother revealed to him disturbing threads in their family history—stories of incest, madness, betrayal, and death—which retroactively colored Kevin’s memories of his upbringing and youth. He learned of his mother’s first two husbands, the fathers of his three older, mythologized half-siblings, and the havoc they wreaked on his mother. He learned of his own father’s seething resentment of his step-children, which was expressed in physical, pyschological, and sexual abuse. And he learned more about his oldest step-sister, Elinda, who, as a young girl, was labeled “feebleminded” by a teacher. When she became a teenager, she was sent to a psychiatric hospital. She entered the clinic at 98 pounds. She left two years later 200 pounds, diabetic, having endured numerous shock treatments. Then, after finally returning home, she was made pregnant by Kevin’s father. Only at the end of the book do we learn what chance in life a person like this has. While his family’s story provides the framework of the book, what’s left in between is Kevin’s story of growing up in the Pacific Northwest. He tells of his first jobs, first bands, first loves, and one worn, teal blue suitcase filled with the choicest porn in all of Kennewick, Washington. Employing the same form of memoir as he did in his previous book, Kevin intertwines the tragic with the everyday, the dysfunctional with the fun, lending A COMMON PORNOGRAPHY its undeniable, unsensationalized reality. The elastic conceit of his “memory experiment” captures the many shades and the whole of the Sampsell family—both its tragedy and its resiliency. Kevin relates this history in a charming, honest, insightful, and funny voice. Views: 25
High school sophomore Daisy Jones is just trying to get by unnoticed. It doesn’t help that she’s the new girl at school, lives in a trailer park, and doesn’t even own a cell phone. But there’s a good reason for all that: Daisy has a secret, unpredictable power—one only her best friend, Danielle, knows about.Despite her “gift” (or is it a curse?), Daisy’s doing a good job of fitting in—and a cute senior named Kevin even seems interested in her! But when Daisy tries to help Vivi, a mysterious classmate in a crisis, she soon discovers that her new friend has a secret of her own. Now Daisy and her friends must deal with chilling dreams and messages from the beyond. Can Daisy channel the power she’s always tried to hide—before it’s too late?Extra features include:• A short graphic novel illustrated by Alexis Seabrook, telling Vivi’s story• Danielle’s journal, revealing her deepest thoughts Views: 25
In his bestselling legal thrillers, William Bernhardt has explored the dark side of contemporary politics, power, and the law. Now Bernhardt turns back the clock to the city of Cleveland, Ohio, in the fall of 1935. Based on true events and new discoveries about Eliot Ness, Nemesis is a brilliantly told story featuring this legendary lawman's fateful duel with a terrifyingly new kind of criminal: America 's first serial killer. In Chicago, Eliot Ness had created 'the Untouchables,' the fabled team of federal agents who were beyond corruption and who finally put Al Capone behind bars. Now the headline-grabbing Ness has been moved to Cleveland, where a new mayor desperately needs some positive publicity. The heroic, squeaky-clean Fed is the perfect man to become the city's director of public safety, but by the time Ness starts his new job, a killer has started a career of his own. And this man is as obsessed with blood and mayhem as Eliot Ness is obsessed with justice. One by one, bodies are found, each one decapitated and uniquely dissected with a doctor's skill and a madman's bent. The police are baffled, the population is terrorized, and newspaper headlines blare about the so-called 'Torso Killer.' Though it's not his turf, Ness is forced to cross bureaucratic boundaries and take over the case, working with a dogged, street-smart detective and making enemies every step of the way. The more energy Ness pours into the investigation, the more it takes over his life, his marriage, even his untouchable reputation. Because in Cleveland, there is only one true untouchable: a killer who has the perfect hiding place and the perfect plan for destroying Eliot Ness. From the first primitive use of forensic psychology to a portrait of America battling the Great Depression and a man battling his own demons, Nemesis is a masterwork of mystery, murder, and vivid, dynamic historical suspense. Views: 25
Review“Entertaining, illuminating, and exceedingly fair. . . . A rich, wonderfully original, and extremely textured history of an important time. (The American Spectator )“Amity Shlaes’s fast-paced review of the [Depression] helps enormously in putting it all in perspective.” (Paul Volcker )“Amity Shlaes is among the most brilliant of the young writers who are transforming American financial journalism.” (Paul Johnson, author of *Modern Times* )“The Forgotten Man offers an understanding of the era’s politics and economics that may be unprecedented in its clarity.” (Mark Helprin )“The Forgotten Man is revisionist history at its best—full of fresh insights, undogmatic judgments, and illuminating observations. Shlaes’s account of The Great Depression goes beyond the familiar arguments of liberals and conservatives to make a truly original contribution. And it’s an awfully good read.” (William Kristol, Editor of *The Weekly Standard* )“The Forgotten Man is an incisive and controversial history of the Great Depression that challenges much of the received wisdom.” (Harold Evans, author of The American Century and They Made America ) Views: 25
The New York Times bestselling author of thirty-nine books of fiction, non-fiction, and poetry—including Legends of the Fall, Dalva, and Returning to Earth—Jim Harrison was one of our most beloved and acclaimed writers, adored by both readers and critics. Sundog is a powerful novel about the life and loves of a foreman named Robert Corvus Strang, who worked on giant dam projects around the world until he was crippled in a fall down a three-hundred-foot dam. Now as he tries to regain use of his legs, he has a chance to reassess his life, and a blasé journalist who has heard of Strang's reputation in the field arrives to draw him out about his various incarnations. Strang—who has the violently heightened sensibilities of a man who has gone to the limits and back—recounts his monumental life moving from Michigan to Africa and the Amazon, including his several marriages and children, and dozens of lovers. A feisty,... Views: 25
A compelling and touching coming-of-age story set in the magnificent Australian outback. All my helpless, angry thoughts suddenly came together to form one word.One answer.Australia.On the other side of the world.An escape from everything... Stacey's life's not great. Her dad's run off, she and her mum live alone in a poky flat, school's one big bore and her friends are all bad news. Then, out of the blue, a glamorous gran she's never met comes to visit -- all the way from Australia. When Stacey gets the worst news yet, Grandma Glendine has the perfect solution... Suddenly, Stacey's life in grey old London is swapped for the heat, dust, flies, and even scorpions and snakes, of the outback. Will all this (plus -- yuck! -- an outside toilet) prove too much for Stacey the city-girl? And is her flashy, rich gran quite who she seems...? An accessible, beautifully researched novel, written by... Views: 25
Every year, from the end of June to the end of August, Bruce and his family go to their cedar-clad cottage on the blue, wide lake on the edge of the wilderness. At first, the summer of 1954 seems like any other. But just when he realises life is perfect, everything starts to change. He's ten, the family dynamics are shifting, and over the summer both the harshness of the adult world and the patterns of the natural world reveal themselves. By the time the weather turns he will be a different child, and will have chosen his own path to understanding the world. Views: 25
The legendary biologist, provocateur, and bestselling author mounts a timely and passionate defense of science and clear thinking with this career-spanning collection of essays, including twenty pieces published in the United States for the first time. For decades, Richard Dawkins has been the world's most brilliant scientific communicator, consistently illuminating the wonders of nature and attacking faulty logic. Science in the Soul brings together forty-two essays, polemics, and paeans—all written with Dawkins's characteristic erudition, remorseless wit, and unjaded awe of the natural world. Though it spans three decades, this book couldn't be more timely or more urgent. Elected officials have opened the floodgates to prejudices that have for half a century been unacceptable or at least undercover. In a passionate introduction, Dawkins calls on us to insist that reason take center stage and that gut feelings, even when they don't represent the... Views: 25
