Books with author David Woolverton

A companion to such acclaimed works as The Age of Wonder, A Clockwork Universe, and Darwin’s Ghosts—a groundbreaking examination of the greatest event in history, the Scientific Revolution, and how it came to change the way we understand ourselves and our world.We live in a world transformed by scientific discovery. Yet today, science and its practitioners have come under political attack. In this fascinating history spanning continents and centuries, historian David Wootton offers a lively defense of science, revealing why the Scientific Revolution was truly the greatest event in our history.The Invention of Science goes back five hundred years in time to chronicle this crucial transformation, exploring the factors that led to its birth and the people who made it happen. Wootton argues that the Scientific Revolution was actually five separate yet concurrent events that developed independently, but came to intersect and create a new worldview. Here are the brilliant iconoclasts—Galileo, Copernicus, Brahe, Newton, and many more curious minds from across Europe—whose studies of the natural world challenged centuries of religious orthodoxy and ingrained superstition.From gunpowder technology, the discovery of the new world, movable type printing, perspective painting, and the telescope to the practice of conducting experiments, the laws of nature, and the concept of the fact, Wotton shows how these discoveries codified into a social construct and a system of knowledge. Ultimately, he makes clear the link between scientific discovery and the rise of industrialization—and the birth of the modern world we know.

Imagine that fairies are always hiding in the background, quietly playing a part in the events of everyday life. Now imagine that supposedly inanimate objects are actually listening to everything people do. Put those together, and you get the world Anam Cara and her friends live in. Anam is a Solace Fairy who spends her nights trading stories with the model trains she brings to life. Anam's mother, Dóchas, has basically adopted the people who own the trains as her fairy godchildren, and the more Anam learns about their story, the more she wishes her part in the story was bigger. While she's waiting for her chance to do something she thinks is important, Anam strikes up a friendship with a broken-down engine named Foxrun. Foxrun has to wait too, for the day he finally gets fixed. It takes patience for both of them, but they manage to at least have a little fun until the waiting pays off. Anam, Foxrun, and several other people, engines, and fairies see how much they need each other as their separate stories come together into one.

Cleopatra's tomb has been discovered and the Germans are determined to rob it. It's 1937 and the Germans want to use the treasure to finance their global operations. But half-living mummies are trapped inside the tomb. Twelve-year-old Alex O'Connell knows what that means: trouble. If Alex doesn't stop the Germans, they'll ransack the temple -- and Cleopatra will never reach the spirit world. Will Alex get to the tomb in time?

When Alex O’Connell returns to Egypt to resume his training with Ardeth Bay, he expects the usual adventure — fighting evil mummies, chasing bad guys through the desert, and riding his beloved camel, Stinkwad. But Ardeth Bay has something very different in mind. It is time for Alex to be tested. Alex discovers that battling nasty mummies is a whole lot easier than figuring out exactly what he’s being tested on. All he knows is that it involves the egg of a Phoenix and that, if he fails, he will never be a true Medjai.