From the award-winning and bestselling author of Cod comes the dramatic, human story of a simple substance, an element almost as vital as water, that has created fortunes, provoked revolutions, directed economies and enlivened our recipes. Salt is common, easy to obtain and...

A groundbreaking examination of the role that wood and trees have played in our global ecosystem--including human evolution and the rise and fall of empires--in the bestselling tradition of Yuval Harari's Sapiens and Mark Kurlansky's Salt. As the dominant species on...

An engrossing and revealing study of why we deem certain animals "pests" and others not--from cats to rats, elephants to pigeons--and what this tells us about our own perceptions, beliefs, and actions, as well as our place in the natural world A squirrel in the garden. A rat...

What happens when we die? The bestselling author of Stiff and Packing for Mars "makes a clever investigator and a thoroughly entertaining, if skeptical, tour guide." (Janet Maslin, New York Times) "A hilarious look at...

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * "The story of modern medicine and bioethics--and, indeed, race relations--is refracted beautifully, and movingly."--Entertainment Weekly NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE FROM HBO® STARRING OPRAH WINFREY AND ROSE BYRNE * ONE OF THE "MOST...

We all know the basics of punctuation. Or do we? A look at most neighborhood signage tells a different story. Through sloppy usage and low standards on the internet, in email, and now text messages, we have made proper punctuation an endangered species. In Eats, Shoots & Leaves, former editor...

This book is concerned with the most devastating fungal diseases in history. These are the plagues of trees and crop plants, caused by invisible spores that have reshaped entire landscapes and decimated human populations. The Triumph of the Fungi focuses on the fascinating biology of the well- and...

Throughout history, food has done more than simply provide sustenance. It has acted as a tool of social transformation, political organization, geopolitical competition, industrial development, military conflict and economic expansion.An Edible History of Humanity is an account of how food...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER * ONE OF BARACK OBAMA'S FAVORITE BOOKS OF THE YEAR * TIME'S TEN BEST NONFICTION BOOKS OF THE DECADE * ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES'S FIVE BEST BOOKS OF THE 21ST CENTURY * A KIRKUS REVIEWS BEST...

A New York Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, and Amazon Charts Bestseller! "The glowing ghosts of the radium girls haunt us still." --NPR Books  Discover the gripping and inspiring true story of The Radium Girls, a groundbreaking work by acclaimed author Kate Moore....

First published in 2001. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

From a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter at The New York Times comes the troubling story of the rise of the processed food industry--and how it used salt, sugar, and fat to addict us. Salt Sugar Fat is a journey into the highly secretive world of the...

You undoubtedly know what a paperclip is and how to use it, but did you know that during the Second World War the people of Norway adopted paperclips as a symbol of protest against the occupying Nazis? Really Useful tells these and other stories of how the things we use every day came into...