An informative exploration of earthquakes places a particular focus on the San Francisco disaster of 1906, describing how it affected more than two hundred miles of California, triggered a vast firestorm, and destroyed the gold-rush capital, in an account that reveals the geological underpinnings that caused the earthquake. Reader's Guide available. Reprint. 150,000 first printing.

The journalist-author of The Professor and the Madman describes his journey into the troubled region of the Balkans, journeying into an area that includes Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Montegro, Albania, Kosovo, and Turkey to explore the impact of war on the people of the region. Reprint. 47,000 first printing. (view table of contents)

Product Description: Travel is no longer a luxury and not always an entertainment. Many journeys need to be made‹to get home or away from an enemy, to work, to find a last resting place, or because someone has told you to go. This issue of Granta is about such journeys; you might call it necessary travel writing, with Decca Aitkenhead: looking for cheap sex and drugs; Manuel Bauer: a child¹s escape over the Himalayas; Isabel Hilton: what have they done to Beijing?; Ian Jack: the train crash that stopped Britain; Ryszrd Kapuscinski: in the forests of Cameroon; Ian McEwan: on the retreat to Dunkirk, 1940; John Ryle: the last Emperor makes his last journey; Dayanita Singh: inside a sanctuary for girls in Benares; Simon Winchester: how Britain and the US made a people homeless; plus the untold story of how the FBI pursued James Baldwin at home, revealed by James Campbell...read more

Why do we say bete noir and not 'black beast', doppelganger and not 'double goer'? This book gives insights into different cultures and languages by looking at the distinctive words they use as well as giving a whole new vocabulary for those elusive things there is never a word for.

The best-selling author of The Professor and the Madman describes the history, culture, and geography of Korea and shares the author's experiences exploring the major cities and countryside, from the southern-most tip of Korea to the DMZ border with North Korea. Reprint. 25,000 first printing.

Considers the global impact of the 1883 eruption of the Krakatoa volcano, documenting its cause of an immense tsunami that killed 40,000 people, its impact on the weather for several years, and its role in anti-Western Islamic fundamentalism.

Product Description: Calcutta is a city in a state of permanent surprise, where amazement is around every crumbling corner, and astonishment lurks over every rickshow-puller's shoulder. It is a city that never ceases to shock those who pass through, and it is also a city that manages to delight and enthrall those who are stalwart enough to stay and brave enough to make an effort to look, and to see...read more

From the author of the bestselling The Professor and the Madman comes the fascinating story of the father of modern geologyIn 1793, William Smith, the orphan son of a village blacksmith, made a startling discovery that was to turn the science of geology on its head. While surveying the route for a canal near Bath, he noticed that the fossils found in one layer of the rocks he was excavating were very different from those found in another. And out of that realization came an epiphany: that by following these fossils one could trace layers of rocks as they dipped, rose and fell -- clear across England and clear across the world.Obsessed with creating a map that would showcase his discovery, Smith spent the next twenty years traveling England alone, studying rock outcroppings and gathering information. In 1815 he published a hand-painted map more than eight feet tall and six feet wide. But four years later, swindled out of his profits, Smith ended up in debtors' prison. His wife went mad. He lived as a homeless man for ten long years.Eventually a kindly aristocrat discovered him; Smith, the quiet genius and 'father of geology' was brought back to London and showered with the honors that he rightly deserved. Here now is his astounding story.

An enthralling glimpse into the life of William Smith, a nineteenth-century engineer who became the founding father of modern geology, explores his creation of a lavish map detailing his discovery that rocks are comprised of many different layers amidst the backdrop of his wife's madness and debtors prison. By the author of The Professor and the Madman. Reprint.

Product Description: The Meaning of Everything is a scintillating account of the creation of the greatest monument ever erected to a living language, the Oxford English Dictionary. Simon Winchester's supple, vigorous prose illuminates this dauntingly ambitious project: a seventy-year odyssey to create the grandfather of all word-books...read more

Product Description: From the best-selling author of The Professor and the Madman, The Map That Changed the World, and Krakatoa comes a truly wonderful celebration of the English language and of its unrivaled treasure house, the Oxford English Dictionary...read more