Maths & Science Books

Internationally known theoretical physicist and bestselling author Lawrence Krauss offers provocative, revelatory answers to the most basic philosophical questions: Where did our universe come from? Why is there something rather than nothing? And how is it all going to end? Why is there something ra...

A practical field guide to New Zealand's native edible plants. Over 190 trees, shrubs, herbs, ferns, mushrooms, lichens and seaweeds are described in detail in this useful and attractive book, with information on which part is edible and when, how plants have been utilised, particularly by Maori, th...

This is a brilliant new book from the bestselling author of "The Tipping Point" and "Blink". Why are people successful? For centuries, humankind has grappled with this question, searching for the secret to accomplishing great things. In this stunning new book, Malcolm Gladwell ta...

'Quiet is a startling, important and readable page-turner that will make quiet people see themselves in a whole new light.' Naomi Wolf, author of The Beauty Myth 'Once in a blue moon, a book comes along that gives us startling new insights. Quiet is that book: part page-turner, part cutting-edge...

“Answers around 100 questions we’ve all wondered about or asked…. A tremendous amount of potentially useful information in a well-written, entertaining, and easy-to-understand format.”—Library Journal Do gentlemen really prefer blondes? Marilyn Monroe, Scarlet Johansson and Gwyneth Paltrow would ...

"A Brief History of Time," published in 1988, was a landmark volume in science writing and in world-wide acclaim and popularity, with more than 9 million copies in print globally. The original edition was on the cutting edge of what was then known about the origins and nature of the univer...

Bill Bryson describes himself as a reluctant traveller: but even when he stays safely in his own study at home, he can't contain his curiosity about the world around him. A Short History of Nearly Everything is his quest to find out everything that has happened from the Big Bang to the rise of civil...

"A powerful argument for how to think about the place of religion in the modern world. It's going to be a classic." -- Seed Magazine "The God Delusion" caused a sensation when it was published in 2006. Within weeks it became the most hotly debated topic, with Dawkins himself b...

If you're a programmer, hacker, or maker who is interested in learning how to cook, this book is for you. In this book, I'll cover the basics of cooking and provide a number of simple and fun recipes as part of the food hacking experiments, while at the same time exploring the science behind the exa...

Jan Fennell's remarkable gifts have earned her the nickname "the dog whisperer". Her unique understanding of the canine world and its instinctive language has enabled her to bring even the most desperate and delinquent of dogs to heel. This easy-to-follow guide to understanding Jan's si...

A further revised edition of the definitive Field Guide to New Zealand Birds. This is the only field guide to birds that is officially endorsed by the Ornithological Society of New Zealand. Hugh Robertson has further updated the book from its revision in 2000. As well as being a comprehensive, syste...

This unique book is designed to appeal to children and adults alike 'There has never been an identification book like this in New Zealand,' says Andrew Crowe.. The book covers 98 endemic, native, introduced or migrant bird species from all the main habitats. Nine identification habitats feature fou...

This handy field guide provides concise desciptions of 100 of New Zealand's common seaweeds. All are illustrated in vivid watercolour, with notes about distribution, habitat and general information. An introductory section describes the ecology, collection and study of seaweeds, and there is an exte...

Our understanding of life on earth is always developing. In this age of genetics and microbiology, Andreas Suchantke brings a lifetime of holistic biological research to the question of the development and evolution of plants and animals. Following Goethe's participatory method, and drawing on his o...

Britain's greatest science writer comprehensively rebuts the creationists by pulling together the incontrovertible evidence for evolution. In 1859 Charles Darwin's masterpiece, On the Origin of Species, shook society to its core. Darwin was only too aware of the storm his theory of evolution woul...

The Fabric of the Cosmos is an astonishing grand tour of the universe and the best layman's guide to current thinking on 'how everything works'. This rollercoaster ride explores the mysteries of space and time; asks questions about the nature of reality, dark matter, space warps and wiggles; and wil...

Like the kiwi and the kauri, snapper - tamure - holds a special place in the hearts of many New Zealanders. It’s our iconic fish, and is celebrated by writers, photographers, scientists, historians, artists, divers, chefs and keen anglers, in this inspiring book by well-known fisherman and aut...

Roundworld is in trouble again, and this time it looks fatal. Having created it in the first place, the wizards of Unseen University feel vaguely responsible for its safety. They know the creatures who lived there escaped the impending Big Freeze by inventing the space elevator - they even intervene...

The fishes of New Zealand are part of the Indo-Pacific fish fauna, by far the richest in the world. This guide covers many bony (or teleostean) reef fishes belonging to the super class PISCES, class OSTEICHTHYES, and discusses their habits by day and night, their modes of life, diet and relation to ...

New Zealand has a colourful array of both native and introduced wild flowering plants. This handbook provides quick and simple identification of over 200 of these. It contains botanical descriptions, and looks at food use and healing properties of wild flowers.

Roger Swainston's breathtaking artwork provides a fascinating overview of the extraordinary diversity of Australia's marine and freshwater fishes. Here, more than 1500 remarkable illustrations portray every family of fishes ever recorded from Australian waters. The names of all known species are lis...

Paul Davies' The Mind of God is a scientific search for the meaning of the universe. Ranging across the cosmos, Davies explores the origin of the universe, the laws of nature, mathematics, the beginning and end of everything. Ultimately, he seeks to provide a glimpse into the meaning of it all. This...

What are things made of? What is the sun? Why is there night and day, winter and summer? Why do bad things happen? Are we alone? Throughout history people all over the world have invented stories to answer profound questions such as these. Have you heard the tale of how the sun hatched out of an ...

No one has done more to shape our view of what makes us human than Charles Darwin, whose seismic theory of evolution turned the Victorian world upside down, utterly rewrote our notions of life on earth and is still attacked by religious creationists today.

This succinct text outlines the main classes of transition metal organometallic complexes and introduces the reader to the chemistry of compounds with metal-carbon *s-bonds: metal carbonyls, metal alkyls, and metal alkylidenes and alkylidnes. The synthetic methods leading to each class of compounds ...

Guardian columnist Dr Ben Goldacre takes us on a hilarious, invigorating and informative journey through the bad science we're fed by the worst of the hacks and the quacks! When Dr Ben Goldacre saw someone on daytime TV dipping her feet in an 'Aqua Detox' footbath, releasing her toxins into the wat...

Victoria University physicist Paul Callaghan has given a series of public lectures around New Zealand, sponsored by the David and Genevieve Becroft Foundation and the Royal Society of New Zealand, entitled 'Beyond the Farm and the Theme Park'. The lectures have been on the subject of sustainable wea...

This year marks the 150th anniversary of the publication of Charles Darwin's "On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life". In his landmark study, Darwin theorised that populations evolve over the course of generations throug...

A farmer cultivates genetically modified potatoes so that a customer at Mc Donald's half a world away can enjoy a long, golden french fry. A gardener plants tulip bulbs in the autumn and in the spring has a riotous patch of colour to admire. Two simple examples of how humans act on nature to get wha...

Einstein is the great icon of our age: the kindly refugee from oppression whose wild halo of hair, twinkling eyes, engaging humanity and extraordinary brilliance made his face a symbol and his name a synonym for genius. He was a rebel and nonconformist from boyhood days. His character, creativity an...

How would the world change if human beings vanished from the earth right now, for good? What would the planet be like in a day, a week, a month...a millennium? Just how long will our greatest achievements and our biggest mistakes last after we are gone? To discover the answers, Alan Weisman looks to...

THE ANT AND THE FERRARI offers readers a clear, navigable path through the big questions that confront us all today. What is the meaning of life? Can we be ethical beings in today’s world? Can we know if there is life after death? Is there such a thing as Absolute Truth? What caused the Big B...

Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor Southern tobacco farmer whose cancer cells - taken without her knowledge - became one of the most important tools in medicine. The first 'immortal' human tissue grown in culture, HeLa cells were vital for developing the po...

The Wonders of the Solar System as you have never seen them before. Prof Brian Cox introduces the planets and moons beyond our world, finding the biggest, most bizarre, most powerful natural phenomena. Using the latest scientific imagery along with cutting edge CGI and some of the most spectac...

This substantially revised and expanded edition of the Checklist of the Birds of New Zealand is the official list of all the birds in the New Zealand region, including Norfolk and Macquarie Islands, and the Ross Dependency, Antarctica. Published in association with the Ornithological Society of New ...

Almost fifty years after he first crossed the small screen, Doctor Who remains a science fiction touchstone. His exploits are thrilling, his world is mind-boggling, and that time travel machine is almost certainly an old-fashioned blue police box once commonly found in London. Paul Parsons's plain-...

Most people would like to be more creative, more persuasive and more attractive. For years, gurus and 'life coaches' have urged people to improve their lives by changing the way they think and behave, but scientific research has revealed that many of their techniques, from group brainstorming to vis...

An astonishing new science called neuroplasticity is overthrowing the centuries- old notion that the human brain is immutable. In this revolutionary look at the brain, psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Norman Doidge, M.D., provides an introduction to both the brilliant scientists championing neuroplast...

Shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize and winner of the Royal Society Prize for Science Books, Richard Holmes's dazzling portrait of the age of great scientific discovery is a groundbreaking achievement. The book opens with Joseph Banks, botanist on Captain Cook's first Endeavour voyage, who ste...

This is an outstanding overview of the history of the Earth from a unique planetary perspective for introductory courses in the earth sciences. The book approaches Earth history as an evolution, encompassing the origin of the cosmos through the inner working of living cells. Earth: Evolution of a H...