Books published by publisher N . Y.: W. W. Norton

Space is a world devoid of the things we need to live and thrive: air, gravity, hot showers, fresh produce, privacy, beer. Space exploration is in some ways an exploration of what it means to be human. How much can a person give up? How much weirdness can they take? What happens to you when you can't walk for a year? have sex? smell flowers? What happens if you vomit in your helmet during a space walk? Is it possible for the human body to survive a bailout at 17,000 miles per hour? To answer these questions, space agencies set up all manner of quizzical and startlingly bizarre space simulations. As Mary Roach discovers, it's possible to preview space without ever leaving Earth. From the space shuttle training toilet to a crash test of NASA's new space capsule (cadaver filling in for astronaut), Roach takes us on a surreally entertaining trip into the science of life in space and space on Earth.

Unmarked text. Unclipped dust jacket. 175p. References and Notes. The American biologist Edward O. Wilson, considered to be one of the world's greatest living scientists, has argued for the fundamental unity of all knowledge and the need to search for consilience. This volume is about the survival of the planet, written in the form of an impassioned letter to a Southern Baptist pastor. Measures 5.75x8.25 inches. Very Good in very good dust jacket. Hardcover. (#28407)

His two companions dead, food and supplies vanished in a crevasse, Douglas Mawson was still one hundred miles from camp.On January 17, 1913, alone and near starvation, Douglas Mawson, leader of the Australasian Antarctic Expedition, was hauling a sledge to get back to base camp. The dogs were gone. Now Mawson himself plunged through a snow bridge, dangling over an abyss by the sledge harness. A line of poetry gave him the will to haul himself back to the surface. Mawson was sometimes reduced to crawling, and one night he discovered that the soles of his feet had completely detached from the flesh beneath. On February 8, when he staggered back to base, his features unrecognizably skeletal, the first teammate to reach him blurted out, Which one are you? This thrilling and almost unbelievable account establishes Mawson in his rightful place as one of the greatest polar explorers and expedition leaders. It is illustrated by a trove of Frank Hurley s famous Antarctic photographs, many never before published in the United States. 24 pages of illustrations

Think of all the problems in the world, in the city or town where you live, on your own block: pollution, violence, children who can't read, housebound elderly people, litter in the street, the homeless. If only somebody would do something about these things. . . . Why not you? Why not now? You don't need to be a high-profile social activist to effect positive social change. How to Make the World a Better Place, in this updated and expanded edition, shows how just one person can make a difference in solving global, national, and local problems. Whether you're interested in feeding the hungry, protecting the environment, helping the homeless, or making your community a safer place to live, you'll find the means to get started in this book. Each chapter alerts you to problems that require attention, explains the issues and what has to be done about them, tells you specifically what you can do to help, and lists the addresses and phone numbers of organizations that you can contact. The twenty-fifth anniversary of Earth Day finds us all more socially and environmentally conscious than ever before. All it takes for you to make a difference is one first step? this book gives you the advice, the encouragement, the information, and the resources you need to take it. Then, instead of simply thinking about the world's problems, you'll be solving them.

"One of the greatest love stories in world literature." —Vladimir Nabokov In a novel of unparalleled richness and complexity, set against the backdrop of Russian high society, Tolstoy charts the course of the doomed love affair between Anna, a beautiful married woman, and Count Vronsky, a wealthy army officer who pursues Anna after becoming infatuated with her at a ball. Although she initially resists his charms Anna eventually succumbs, falling passionately in love and setting in motion a chain of events that lead to her downfall. In this extraordinary novel, Tolstoy seamlessly weaves together the lives of dozens of characters, while evoking a love so strong that those who experience it are prepared to die for it.

I wrote this book because I fell in love with a story. The story concerned a small group of undervalued professional baseball players and executives, many of whom had been rejected as unfit for the big leagues, who had turned themselves into one of the most successful franchises in Major League Baseball. But the idea for the book came well before I had good reason to write it-before I had a story to fall in love with. It began, really, with an innocent question: how did one of the poorest teams in baseball, the Oakland Athletics, win so many games? With these words Michael Lewis launches us into the funniest, smartest, and most contrarian book since, well, since Liar's Poker. Moneyball is a quest for something as elusive as the Holy Grail, something that money apparently can't buy: the secret of success in baseball. The logical places to look would be the front offices of major league teams, and the dugouts, perhaps even in the minds of the players themselves. Lewis mines all these possibilities-his intimate and original portraits of big league ballplayers are alone worth the price of admission-but the real jackpot is a cache of numbers-numbers!-collected over the years by a strange brotherhood of amateur baseball enthusiasts: software engineers, statisticians, Wall Street analysts, lawyers and physics professors.