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...

The paperback of the Sunday Times bestseller that reveals how the earth became the shape it is today. This book will change the way you see the world - permanently. The face of the earth, criss-crossed by chains of mountains like the scars of old wounds, has changed...

The Romans called it 'the best stone in Britain' and used it to make jewellery. Coal has transformed societies and launched empires. It fuelled the industrial revolution, inspired the Communist manifesto, and was a catalyst for some of the greatest inventions of all time - from the steam engine to...

Earth evolves. From first atom to molecule, mineral to magma, granite crust to single cell to verdant living landscape, ours is a planet constantly in flux. In this radical new approach to Earth's biography, senior Carnegie Institution researcher and national bestselling author Robert M. Hazen...

A burgeoning new city is built on the dreams of the American gold rush. It is also built upon a landscape that has been stretching, sliding and breaking apart for millennia. In 1906 the dreams of this city came crashing down beneath the rippling wave of a horrifying earthquake that turned roads into...

This is the story of a single pebble, whose history carries us into abyssal depths of time, and across the farthest reaches of space. Indeed, starting from this tiny, common speck, Jan Zalasiewicz offers readers a stimulating tour that begins with the Universe's dramatic birth in the unimaginable...