Science

Aldersey-Williams, Hugh. Periodic tales: the curious lives of the elements. 2011. TB 18555.The elements have lives: personalities and attitudes, talents and shortcomings, stories rich with meaning. In this book you'll meet iron that rains from the heavens and noble gases that light the way to vice. You'll learn how lead can tell your future while zinc may one day line your coffin. You'll discover what connects the bones in your body with the Whitehouse in Washington, the glow of a streetlamp with the salt on your dinner table. Read by Matt Williamson, 13 hours 45 minutes TB 18555.

Aldrin, Buzz. Magnificent desolation: the long journey home from the moon. TB 21240.Aldrin gives a harrowing first-person account of the Apollo 11 lunar landing that came within seconds of failure. He also opens up with remarkable candour about his more personal trials - and eventual triumphs - back on Earth.2010. Read by John Chancer. 12 hours 35 minutes.

Bizony, Piers. How to build your own spaceship: the science of personal space travel. 2009. TB 18282.Private space flight has long been a science fiction dream. Today it is on the verge of realisation. Major entrepreneurs are investing in a new generation of lightweight, efficient spacecraft; start-up companies specialising in space tourism and spaceport development are burgeoning; and NASA and the American aviation authorities are altering decades-old legislation to make private space adventure possible. This book tells you how to join the space race. Read by Rupert Holliday Evans, 6 hours 44 minutes. TB 18282.

Clynes, Tom. The boy who played with fusion: extreme science, extreme parenting, and how to make a star. 2015. TB22533.By the age of 14, Wilson became the youngest person in history to achieve nuclear fusion. At the age of 17 Wilson is winning international science competitions with devices designed to

prevent terrorists from shipping radioactive material into the US. How could someone so young achieve so much, and what can Wilson's story teach parents and teachers about how to support high-achieving children? Science journalist Tom Clynes follows Taylor Wilson's extraordinary journey.Read by Paul Birchard. 11 hours 16 minutes. TB22533.

Connelly, Charlie. Bring me sunshine: a windswept, rain-soaked, sun-kissed, snow-capped guide to our weather. 2012. TB 20269.An entertaining and informative look at the weather, packed with weather-related science, weather trivia and amusing weather anecdotes. Read by Charlie Connelly, 8 hours 49 minutes. TB 20269.

Cox, Brian. Why does E=MC[squared]? (and why should we care?). 2010. TB 18677.Professor Brian Cox and Professor Jeff Forshaw consider the real meaning behind the iconic sequence of symbols that make up Einstein's most famous equation.Read by Peter Crerar. 8 hours 36 minutes.

Cox, Brian. Wonders of the solar system. 2010. TB 18647.This book introduces the readers to the planets and moons beyond our world, finding the biggest, most bizarre, most powerful natural phenomena. Using some of the most spectacular and extreme locations on Earth, the author will show us Wonders never thought possible. Read by Matt Williamson, 6 hours 57 minutes.TB 18647.

Cox, Brian. Wonders of the universe. 2011. TB 18646.13.7 billion years old. 93 billion light years wide. It contains over 100 billion galaxies, each containing hundreds of billions of stars. Professor Cox uses the evidence found in the natural world around us to explain its simple truths. The same laws of light, gravity, time, matter and energy that govern us here on Earth are the same as those applied in the Universe. Read by Matt Williamson, 7 hours 47 minutes. TB 18646.

Davies, P C W. God and the new physics. 1990. TB 17540.How did the world begin and how will it end? These questions are not new; what is new, Paul Davies argues, is that science may now be on the verge of answering them. Here he explains how the recent far-reaching discoveries of the new physics are revolutionizing our view of the world and, in particular, throwing light on many of the questions formerly posed by religion. Science, Davies believes, has come of age, and can now offer a surer path to God than can religion. Read by Adrian Grove, 12 hours 10 minutes. TB 17540.

Gleick, James. Isaac Newton. 2004. TB 19757.This is a portrait of Isaac Newton, the man who changed our understanding of the universe and of science through his discoveries of the fundamental mechanics of the cosmos. Read by Greg Wagland, 7 hours 4 minutes. TB 19757.

Goldacre, Ben. Bad science. 2009. TB 16965.Dr Ben Goldacre is the author of the 'Bad Science' column in the Guardian and his book is about all the 'bad science' we are constantly bombarded with in the media and in advertising. At a time when science is used to prove everything and nothing, everyone has their own 'bad science' moments - from the useless pie-chart on the back of cereal packets to the use of the word 'visibly' in cosmetics ads. This book will help people to quantify their instincts - that a lot of the so-called 'science' which appears in the media and in advertising is just wrong or misleading. Read by Adrian Grove, 13 hours 14 minutes.TB 16965.

Grady, Wayne The bone museum: travels in the lost worlds of dinosaurs and birds. 2000. TB 18227.Wayne Grady, the science editor of Equinox, and Phil Currie, a Canadian palaeontologist, travel to Patagonia, China, and the Alberta Badlands. Living in tents, experiencing rain, mud, windstorms, disagreements, and the ultimate glimpse of bone, they try to find conclusive evidence in an ongoing debate: did dinosaurs go extinct, or evolve into birds of the modern world? Read by Bernard Boland, 11 hours 22 minutes.TB 18227.

Hamilton, James. Faraday: the life. 2009. TB 19716.A biography of Michael Faraday, one of the giants of 19th century science and discoverer of electricity, who was at the centre of a scientific renaissance in London. This book is an exploration of his life, work and times. Read by Bob Rolett, 18 hours 59 minutes. TB 19716.

Hart-Davis, Adam. The book of time: the secrets of time, how it works and how we measure it. 2011. TB 19719.This is an illustrated guide to the biggest of the 'big ideas' by one of the UK's best loved scientists and historians. Time is explained in an accessible way that makes it the perfect guide for fans of popular science. Read by Matt Williamson, 8 hours 20 minutes. TB 19719.

Hawking, S W. A briefer history of time. 2005. TB 18051.A Briefer History of Time expands on the great subjects of the original. Purely technical concepts, such as the mathematics of chaotic boundary conditions, are gone. Conversely, subjects of wide interest have now been given entire chapters of their own, including relativity, curved space, and quantum theory. Read by Eric Davies, 4 hours 23 minutes.TB 18051.

Hawking, S W. The universe in a nutshell. 2001. TB 18052."A brief history of time" introduced the fascinating world of theoretical physics to readers all over the world. Now, Hawking turns to the major breakthroughs that have occurred in the years since the release of his first book. He brings to us the cutting edge of theoretical physics, where truth is often stranger than fiction, and explains in layman's terms the principles that control our universe. Read by Simon Prebble, 3 hours 29 minutes.TB 18052.

McCrery, Nigel. Silent witnesses: a history of forensic science. 2013. TB 20928.The history of forensic science over the last two centuries, during which time a combination of remarkable intuition, painstaking

observation and leaps in scientific knowledge have developed this fascinating branch of detection.Read by William Gaminara. 7 hours 32 minutes. TB 20928.

Miodownik, Mark. Stuff matters: the strange stories of the marvellous materials that shape our man-made world. 2014. TB21932.The inner workings of the man-made world, the miracles of craft, design, engineering and ingenuity that surround us every day are revealed by explaining the science and history of materials we take entirely for granted, while introducing some of humankind's most ingenious and improbable inventions. Read by Brian Fenton. 7 hours 33 minutes. TB21932.

Moore, Wendy. The knife man. 2006. TB 19853.The extraordinary world of 18th-century anatomist John Hunter is unveiled, a pioneer in the then fledgling sciences of geology, biology and evolution, and his efforts to take surgery out of the realms of superstition and into the domain of science. Read by Sherry Baines, 20 hours 4 minutes. TB 19853.

Ryan, Frank. The mysterious world of the human genome. 2015. TB22834.Your genome defines you at the most profound level. That same genome is present in every one of the approximately 100,000 billion cells that make you who you are as an individual member of the human species. Frank Ryan leads us into a series of remarkable revelations about our human history, into the very distant past of our ancestor's lives and their prehistoric exploration of our beautiful planet, revealing the true secrets to the human genome which makes each of us who we are.Read by Matt Bates. 10 hours 25 minutes. TB22834.

Sacks, Oliver W. Uncle Tungsten: memories of a chemical boyhood. 2012. TB21609.Oliver Sacks turns his trained analytical eye on a startling new subject - himself. The world authority in his field, this book is an insight into the mind and background of one of the finest and most accessible scientists today. Read by Steve Hodson. 13 hours 41 minutes. TB21609.

Spufford, Francis Backroom boys: the secret return of the British boffin. 2004. TB 19748.The bittersweet story of how Britain lost its industrial tradition but got back something else - technologists whose work has kept Concorde flying, created the computer game, conquered the mobile-phone business and sent the Beagle 2 probe to burrow in the sands of Mars. Read by Martin Reeve, 9 hours 57 minutes. TB 19748.

Nature

Abraham, Marc. Vet on call: my first year as an out-of-hours vet. 2011. TB 20068.When his father sat him down and told him to make something of himself, young vet Marc Abraham decided to do it the hard way by setting up an emergency out of hours clinic. Read by Nick Gylaw, 6 hours 58 minutes. TB 20068.

Ackerman, Diane. Cultivating delight: a natural history of my garden. 2001. TB 17872.A celebration of the sensory pleasures of the garden, from deadheading flowers to studying slugs. Ackerman describes the unexpected drama, and the sanctuary, that her garden provides. Her hymn to the outdoors and the pleasure we take in it ranges from descriptions of nature's violence to loneliness, portrayed by clamouring male crickets in spring, to sheer wonderment. Read by Ann Saunders, 11 hours 15 minutes. TB 17872.

Barkham, Patrick. Badgerlands: the twilight world of Britain's most enigmatic animal. 2014. TB22296.Britain is the home of the badger; there are more badgers per square kilometre in this country than in any other. Yet many of us have never seen one alive and in the wild. They are nocturnal creatures who vanish into their labyrinthine underground setts at the first hint of a human. Here, Patrick Barkham follows in the footsteps of his badger-loving grandmother, to meet the feeders, farmers and scientists who know their way around Badgerlands:

the mysterious world in which these distinctively striped creatures snuffle, dig and live out their complex social lives.Read by David Learner. 10 hours 27 minutes. TB22296.

Buxton, Simon. The shamanic way of the bee: ancient wisdom and healing practices of the bee masters. 2006. TB405337.Bee shamanism may well be the most ancient and enigmatic branch of shamanism. In this ethnography and spiritual memoir, Simon Buxton, an elder of the Path of Pollen, reveals for the first time the richness of this tradition and its unique ceremonies. Read by volunteers, 8 hours 32 minutes. TB405337.

Elder, Charlie. While flocks last: an armchair birdwatcher goes in search of our most endangered species. 2009. TB 19315.Armed with a field guide and a pair of binoculars, Charlie Elder travels the length and breadth of the British Isles to spot 40 bird species in serious decline. He looks at why their numbers have fallen, what efforts are being made to encourage their recoveries and meets experts and enthusiasts who are working to make a difference. Read by Michael Tudor Barnes, 9 hours 40 minutes. TB 19315.

Goulson, Dave. A sting in the tale. TB 20653.Dave Goulson's ground-breaking research into the mysterious ways of the bumblebee led him on a mission to protect our rarest bees and to reintroduce it to its native land. 2013. Read by Peter Crerar. 9 hours 11 minutes. TB 20653.

Graham-Jones, Oliver. Zoo tails. 2001. TB21797.Oliver Graham-Jones became veterinary officer of London Zoo in 1950. A pioneer of many of the techniques now used by vets around the world, he was instrumental in building the first animal hospital, and in moving London Zoo away from its Victorian past into the high-tech world of modern veterinary medicine. In Zoo Tails, he tells us about some of the animals he cared for, situations he faced, what it felt like when he was faced with an escaped bear or an injured elephant. Read by Bob Rollett. 4 hours 26 minutes. TB21797.

Hick, Gillian. Vet among the pigeons. 2010. TB 21142. With a mixed base animal practice in Wicklow, Gillian also travels regularly to inner city Dublin to work in the Bluecross animal welfare clinic. From six foot snakes to snuffling hedgehogs, Gillian encounters it all, along with the help of her ever-expanding young family.Read by Grainne Gillis. 6 hours 19 minutes. TB 21142.

Holmes, Martha. Life: extraordinary animals, extreme behaviour. 2009. TB 17163.A study of animal behaviour, exploring the key groups of animals that inhabit this planet and their survival strategies. By telling a series of stories and focusing on intimate details, the book draws us into the biggest story of all - the many different ways animals and plants cope with the challenges of life and, ultimately, the survival of their species. Read by Thomas Eyre, 6 hours 9 minutes. TB 17163.

Jackman, Brian. The Marsh lions. 1982. TB 15520.The story of a pride of wild lions living in Kenya's finest game reserve, The Maasai Mara Reserve - 700 square miles of high rolling plain, adjoining the Serengeti. The authors spent five years following and photographing the Marsh pride, recording the daily dramas of life and death on the African plains. Read by Virginia McKenna, 1 hour 49 minutes.TB 15520.

King, Simon. Shetland diaries: otters, orcas, puffins and wonderful people. 2010. TB 17559.Long before he set foot on the islands, Simon King fell in love with Shetland. This extraordinary northern wilderness is home to otters and a vast seabird colony, but it was a chance encounter with a killer whale that compelled him to spend a year getting to know the place of his boyhood dreams. With his wife and young daughter, Simon experienced Shetland through the changing seasons and discovered the wildlife and the warmth of community in these islands battered by the North Sea. Read by Mike Aherne, 7 hours 19 minutes. TB 17559.

Lister-Kaye, John. The White Island.1972. TB405360.In the late 1960s Gavin Maxwell, moved to the lighthouse keepers' cottages on Eilean Bàn (White Island), an island between the Isle of Skye and the Scottish mainland. John Lister-Kaye was invited by Gavin to come to the White Island firstly, to help him write a book on British mammals, and secondly to help convert the island into a private zoo for the birds and mammals of the West Highlands. This book describes in detail that venture. Read by volunteers, 6 hours 22 minutes. TB405360.

Livingston, John A. Rogue primate: an exploration of human domestication. 2001. Canadian Library Nonfiction. TB21988.In the 1970s, environmentalist John Livingston began to find serious flaws in the conventional conservation argument. He began to challenge the belief that the survival of undomesticated plants and animals in a world dominated by humans could be enabled through "resource conservation" managed by humans. He argues that our dependence on ideas -- in effect, our own domestication -- has cut us off from the natural world, and led us to believe that our domination over nature is itself "natural."Read by Keith Melville. 10 hours 18 minutes. TB21988.

MacFarlane, Robert. The wild places. 2008. TB 20564."The Wild Places" is both an intellectual and a physical journey, and Macfarlane travels in time as well as space. He mixes history, memory and landscape in a strange and beautiful evocation of wildness and its vital importance.Read by Peter Kenny. 9 hours 5 minutes. TB 20564.

Mottershead, June. Our zoo. 2014. TB22994.When George Mottershead moved to the village of Upton-by-Chester in 1930 to realise his dream of opening a zoo without bars, his four-year-old daughter June had no idea how extraordinary her life would become. Soon her best friend was a chimpanzee called Mary. Chester Zoo has since achieved worldwide renown. June Mottershead chronicles the heartbreak, the humour, the trials and triumphs, above all the characters, both human and animal, who shaped her childhood.Read by Emily Pennant-Rea. 6 hours 19 minutes. TB22994.

O'Connor, Denis. Paw tracks at Owl Cottage. 2012. TB 21434.When Denis O'Connor and his wife Catherine return to Owl Cottage, only to find it in a dilapidated state, they decide to restore his former home. But the memory of Denis's beloved cat, Toby Jug, still lingers on. On impulse, he buys four Maine Coon kittens and names them Pablo, Carlos, Luis and Max.Read by Gordon Griffin. 6 hours 52 minutes.

Stott, Rebecca. Darwin's ghosts: in search of the first evolutionists. 2012. TB 19750.An account of the collective daring of a few like-minded men who had the imagination to speculate on nature's ways and the courage to publish at a time when doing so, for political as well as religious reasons, was to risk everything. Read by Teresa Quigley, 12 hours 36 minutes. TB 19750.

Sprackland, Jean. Strands: a year of discoveries on the beach. 2012. TB 19931. A series of meditations prompted by walking on the wild estuarial beaches of Ainsdale Sands between Blackpool and Liverpool, 'Strands' is about what is lost and buried then discovered, about all the things you find on a beach, dead or alive, about flotsam and jetsam, about mutability and transformation. Read by Sally Newton, 7 hours 9 minutes.TB 19931.

Svendsen, Elisabeth. A passion for donkeys. 1989. TB 19253.A celebration of the donkey - its habits, its physical well-being, even its breeding. There is information on owning, caring for, training and, above all, loving these gentle animals. The author, who runs a donkey sanctuary in Devon, tells of the 4,000 donkeys that have enjoyed the peace of the sanctuary and of her worldwide travels on behalf of the donkey, and in particular her efforts to better the animal's lot in the Third World. Read by Monica Kendall, 11 hours 22 minutes. TB 19253.

Wigan, Michael. The salmon. 2013. TB 21080.A fascinating journey into the extraordinary world of this king of fish.

Read by Tom Carter. 11 hours 50 minutes. TB 21080.

Zuk, M. Sex on six legs: lessons on life, love, and language from the insect world. 2011. TB 19323.'Sex on Six Legs' examines the bedroom lives of creepy crawlies, from insects the size of a poppy seed and living on a camel's hump to spiders living in your house. Through that lens she looks at how such small creatures can achieve personality, language and childcare, and what they can teach us. Read by Melissa Chapin, 7 hours 35 minutes.TB 19323.

Technology

Cadbury, Deborah. Seven wonders of the industrial world. 2004. TB 19184.Deborah Cadbury explores the history behind the epic monuments that spanned the industrial revolution from Brunel's extraordinary Great Eastern, the Titanic of its day that joined the two ends of the empire, to the Panama Canal, that linked the Atlantic and Pacific oceans half a century later. Read by Sarah Whitehouse, 10 hours 55 minutes.TB 19184.

Transport

Allani, Magda. Dark waters: chronicle of a story untold: a survivor's account of the Marchioness Disaster on the Thames. 2011. TB 19564.London: the summer of '89. A glittering crowd of Cambridge and Oxford graduates, models, photographers and fun people gathered to board the Marchioness riverboat and celebrate the 26th birthday of Antonio de Vasconcellos, one of London's highest paid financiers. Twenty minutes after setting sail, The Marchioness was hit, run over and sunk. It was a night that ended the lives of 51 young people and left a mystery that is unsolved to this day. Magda Allani was aboard the Marchioness when it sank. In this evocative account she recreates the disaster and asks a series of disturbing questions. Read by Magda Allani, 9 hours 17 minutes. TB 19564.

Byrne, Eugene. Brunel. 2014. TB22034. In a BBC poll in 2002, Isambard Kingdom Brunel was voted the second-greatest Briton of all time, only eclipsed by Churchill. It's often claimed that through his ships, bridges, tunnels and railways Brunel played a critical role in creating the modern world. Never tied to a dusty office, he crammed enough work, adventure and danger into a single year to last a lesser person a lifetime. He was also a brilliant showman, a flamboyant personality and charmer who time and again succeeded in convincing investors to finance schemes which seemed impossible. Read by Greg Wagland. 3 hours 3 minutes. TB22034

Glancey, Jonathan. Giants of steam. 2012. TB 20092.The story of the last, and greatest, generation of steam railway locomotives in regular main line service, set against a backdrop of political upheavals and conflicts. Read by Jon Cartwright, 15 hours. TB 20092.

Hamilton-Paterson, James. Empire of the clouds: when Britain's aircraft ruled the world. 2011. TB 20093.In 1945 Britain was the world's leading designer and builder of jet aircraft - a world-class achievement that was not mere rhetoric. How did Britain so lose the plot that today there is not a single aircraft manufacturer of any significance in the country? And what was it like to be alive in that marvellous post-war moment? Read by Peter Wickham, 11 hours 6 minutes.TB 20093.

Heald, Henrietta. William Armstrong: magician of the north. 2010. TB 19720.Visionary inventor, engineer and businessman, William Armstrong brought global renown to his great Elswick works on Tyneside and built for himself the first house in the world to be lit with hydroelectricity, Cragside. Read by Elizabeth Proud, 15 hours 48 minutes. TB 19720.

Holmes, Richard. Falling upwards: how we took to the air. 2013. TB 20728.Meet the pioneer generation of balloon aeronauts, the enigmatic group of men and women who risked their lives to take to the air (or fall from the sky) and so discovered a new dimension of human experience.2013. Read by Peter Crerar. 14 hours 4 minutes. TB 20728.

Isaacson, Walter. Einstein: his life and universe. 2008. TB 19724.Einstein was a rebel and nonconformist from boyhood days, and these character traits drove both his life and his science. In this narrative, Walter Isaacson explains how his mind worked and the mysteries of the universe that he discovered. Read by Richard Burnip, 26 hours 14 minutes. TB 19724.

Martin, Andrew, Belles and whistles: five journeys through time on Britain's trains. 2014. TB22042.Andrew Martin recreates five famous train journeys by travelling aboard their nearest modern day equivalents. As Martin explains how we got from dining on kippers and champagne aboard the Brighton Belle to takeaway coffee in airline-type seating, he presents an idiosyncratic history of Britain's railways, combining humour, historical anecdote, reportage from the present and romantic evocations of the past. Read by David Learner. 8 hours 53 minutes. TB22042.

Martin, Andrew. Underground, overground: a passenger's history of the Tube. 2012. TB 19731.Andrew Martin embarks on a wonderfully engaging social history of London's underground railway system and along the way he attempts to untangle the mess that is the Northern Line, visit every station in a single day - and find out which gaps to be especially mindful of. Read by James Parsons, 8 hours 48 minutes. TB 19731.

Simmons, Jack. The Victorian railway. 2009. TB22682.The railway was the archetypal creation of the Victorian age. It transformed the whole social and intellectual fabric of Britain, affected Victorian thought and language, figured in literature of the

age, inspired artists, transformed communications and expanded the horizons of ordinary folk. This book looks at the railway in Victorian times from the origins and initial construction to the spreading impact on the nation; from engineers and financiers to the effect on leisure and the environment.Read by Mike Aherne. 18 hours 43 minutes. TB22682.

The Titanic disaster: as reported in the British national press, April-July 1912. 1997. TB 11623.Based on a collection of contemporary newspaper cuttings, this book gives a rare insight into the findings of the American and British Inquiries. The reports, primarily from Britain's "Daily Sketch" and "The Times", retain their wealth of human interest 80 years on. Hearsay, rumour and gossip, form part of the anecdotal contribution to this work, whose coverage also considers public reaction to the event. Read by Multiple narrators, 12 hours 7 minutes. TB 11623.

Walker, Fred M. Song of the Clyde: a history of Clyde shipbuilding. 2001. TB 20157.Packed with stories about famous yards and significant individuals, as well as the ships themselves, of interest to all ship historians and all who love Glasgow. Read by David Monteath, 12 hours 36 minutes. TB 20157.

Wolmar, Christian. Engines of war: how wars were won & lost on the railways. 2010. TB 18393.Before the nineteenth century, armies had to rely on slow and unreliable methods of transportation to move soldiers and equipment during times of conflict. However, the birth of the railway in the early 1830s would transform the theatres of war. "Engines of War" spans more than a century and takes in all the engagements in which railways played a part, including the Crimean War, American Civil War, both world wars, the Korean War, and the Cold War - with its mysterious missile trains. It shows that the 'iron road' not only made armies far more mobile, but also greatly increased the scale and power of available weaponry. Read by Peter Crerar, 11 hours 48 minutes. TB 18393.