By definition scientists are an inquisitive lot. But what are the scientific curiosities and concerns on the minds of Australians? What worries them, baffles them, and sets their curiosity meter to 10 out of 10? To find out, the Office of the Chief Scientist (OCS) took the nation’s intellectual temperature, surveying 1186 Australians: men and women aged 18 to 65, from all education levels and locations around Australia. The results frame this book: a collection of essays covering the diverse areas of science Australians are curious about. Edited by eminent science writer Leigh Dayton and including a foreword from Australia’s Chief Scientist, Ian Chubb. The collection covers a range of issues, including food and farming technology, environmental upheaval, health, fuel and energy technology and space exploration.

A NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • The moving story of an undocumented child living in poverty in the richest country in the world—an incandescent debut from an astonishing new talent • A TODAY SHOW #READWITHJENNA PICK In Chinese, the word for America, Mei Guo, translates directly to “beautiful country.” Yet when seven-year-old Qian arrives in New York City in 1994 full of curiosity, she is overwhelmed by crushing fear and scarcity. In China, Qian’s parents were professors; in America, her family is “illegal” and it will require all the determination and small joys they can muster to survive. In Chinatown, Qian’s parents labor in sweatshops. Instead of laughing at her jokes, they fight constantly, taking out the stress of their new life on one another. Shunned by her classmates and teachers for her limited English, Qian takes refuge in the library and masters the language through books, coming to think of The Berenstain Bears as her first American friends. And where there is delight to be found, Qian relishes it: her first bite of gloriously greasy pizza, weekly “shopping days,” when Qian finds small treasures in the trash lining Brooklyn’s streets, and a magical Christmas visit to Rockefeller Center—confirmation that the New York City she saw in movies does exist after all. But then Qian’s headstrong Ma Ma collapses, revealing an illness that she has kept secret for months for fear of the cost and scrutiny of a doctor’s visit. As Ba Ba retreats further inward, Qian has little to hold onto beyond his constant refrain: Whatever happens, say that you were born here, that you’ve always lived here. Inhabiting her childhood perspective with exquisite lyric clarity and unforgettable charm and strength, Qian Julie Wang has penned an essential American story about a family fracturing under the weight of invisibility, and a girl coming of age in the shadows, who never stops seeking the light.

'Not a cosy series of reminiscences but a slice of bygone reality. This delightful collection of country curiosities shows rural life in the raw a hundred or more years ago. Hugely enjoyable, a real eye-opener and surprisingly useful!' Alan Titchmarsh A perfectly formed and beautifully presented collection of titbits from the ever-surprising pages of Country Life. Flitting from observations on cheese rolling in Gloucestershire to smuggling silk in Sussex, from Shakespeare's Avon to the vanishing sign language of country tramps ... and all by way of a charming rumination on the origins of the simnel cake. Within these lovely pages there will indeed be something for everyone. Classic writing on the idyllic British countryside, Wodehousian ruminations on fishing and golf, and moving accounts of beloved (and unusual) pets. With a highly entertaining blend of expert views and humorous asides, Curious Observationsis a perfect Christmas gift.

Learn the difference between a farrow and a barrow, and what distinguishes a weanling from a yearling. Country and city mice alike will delight in Julia Rothman’s charming illustrated guide to the curious parts and pieces of rural living. Dissecting everything from the shapes of squash varieties to how a barn is constructed and what makes up a beehive to crop rotation patterns, Rothman gives a richly entertaining tour of the quirky details of country life.

A remarkable history of the two-centuries-old relationship between the United States and China, from the Revolutionary War to the present day From the clipper ships that ventured to Canton hauling cargos of American ginseng to swap Chinese tea, to the US warships facing off against China's growing navy in the South China Sea, from the Yankee missionaries who brought Christianity and education to China, to the Chinese who built the American West, the United States and China have always been dramatically intertwined. For more than two centuries, American and Chinese statesmen, merchants, missionaries, and adventurers, men and women, have profoundly influenced the fate of these nations. While we tend to think of America's ties with China as starting in 1972 with the visit of President Richard Nixon to China, the patterns—rapturous enchantment followed by angry disillusionment—were set in motion hundreds of years earlier. Drawing on personal letters, diaries, memoirs, government documents, and contemporary news reports, John Pomfret reconstructs the surprising, tragic, and marvelous ways Americans and Chinese have engaged with one another through the centuries. A fascinating and thrilling account, The Beautiful Country and the Middle Kingdom is also an indispensable book for understanding the most important—and often the most perplexing—relationship between any two countries in the world.

This book presents a choice selection of monstrous beings and fabulous creatures from Greenland, across the North Atlantic to Scandinavia, and the Baltic States.

By turns witty and profound, The Curious Enlightenment of Professor Caritat is a novel in the spirit of Gulliver's Travels or Animal Farm. Telling the story of the travels of a Professor Caritat, who is in search of the perfect world, Steven Lukes us on an irreverent romp through the history of western political philosophy. Doing for that discipline what Sophie's World did for philosophy in general, The Curious Enlightenment of Professor Caritat is both a refreshing humorous introduction to the clasing ideologies of our time, and a passionate defence of the much-abused Enlightenment and its core values of reason, freedom and tolerance.

Text and illustrations describe the sights and sounds of nighttime in the country.

Winner of the Overseas Press Club of America's Cornelius Ryan Award • Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Nonfiction A New York Times Book Review Notable Book • Named a Best Book of the Year by New York Magazine and The Progressive "A deeply honest and brave portrait of of an individual sensibility reckoning with her country's violent role in the world." —Hisham Matar, The New York Times Book Review In the wake of the September 11 attacks and the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, Suzy Hansen, who grew up in an insular conservative town in New Jersey, was enjoying early success as a journalist for a high-profile New York newspaper. Increasingly, though, the disconnect between the chaos of world events and the response at home took on pressing urgency for her. Seeking to understand the Muslim world that had been reduced to scaremongering headlines, she moved to Istanbul. Hansen arrived in Istanbul with romantic ideas about a mythical city perched between East and West, and with a naïve sense of the Islamic world beyond. Over the course of her many years of living in Turkey and traveling in Greece, Egypt, Afghanistan, and Iran, she learned a great deal about these countries and their cultures and histories and politics. But the greatest, most unsettling surprise would be what she learned about her own country—and herself, an American abroad in the era of American decline. It would take leaving her home to discover what she came to think of as the two Americas: the country and its people, and the experience of American power around the world. She came to understand that anti-Americanism is not a violent pathology. It is, Hansen writes, “a broken heart . . . A one-hundred-year-old relationship.” Blending memoir, journalism, and history, and deeply attuned to the voices of those she met on her travels, Notes on a Foreign Country is a moving reflection on America’s place in the world. It is a powerful journey of self-discovery and revelation—a profound reckoning with what it means to be American in a moment of grave national and global turmoil.

In spring, when City Dog runs free in the country for the first time, he spots Country Frog sitting on a rock, waiting for a friend. “You’ll do,” Frog says, and together they play Country Frog games. In summer, they meet again and play City Dog games. Through the seasons, whenever City Dog visits the country he runs straight for Country Frog’s rock. In winter, things change for City Dog and Country Frog. Come spring, friendship blooms again, a little different this time. Mo Willems’ spare, poignant text and Jon J. Muth’s expressive watercolors team up to tell a story that will resonate with readers of all ages.