Best Nature Conservation
A stunning and unique collection of satellite images of Earth that offer an unexpected look at humanity, derived from the wildly popular Daily Overview Instagram account. "Absolutely gorgeous, yet utterly gut-wrenching" – Wired "Stunning, surprising and intriguing photographs of Earth from the skies." "Grant’s book...uses satellite photography to reveal both environmental wonders and suburban sprawl from a new perspective." – Smithsonian "The awesomeness of earth from above" – The Atlantic "Stunning" – Huffington Post "A tour de force of research and image presentation" – American Photo.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Have spent the past couple nights flipping through it with my kids and discussing fascinating subjects."
"It's really more than just a coffee table book - I found it mind-expanding; a combination of great beauty and deep truth."
"Great book and Pictures Amazing."
"A totally necessary and beautiful book."
"The images are stunning!"
"The kids loved to flip through it and got more ideas on how human being have intervened the Earth."
"Absolutely BEAUTIFUL book!!!!"
"This beautiful book is now the star of our coffee table."
The Appalachian Trail trail stretches from Georgia to Maine and covers some of the most breathtaking terrain in America–majestic mountains, silent forests, sparking lakes. “Bill Bryson could write an essay about dryer lint or fever reducers and still make us laugh out loud.” – Chicago Sun-Times.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"I'm a sexagenarian who, on a recent vacation, happened to walk out and back on the first three miles or so of the southern terminus of the Appalachian Trail (Springer Mtn, GA) and, in a fit of exhilaration, decided then and there that I would, by golly, hike the AT before I died. As I was joyfully entertained by his incisive sense of humor, I was simultaneously and seriously learning history, biology, geology (and several other -ologies) as well as being discomfitted by Bryson's documentation of our culture's dismissive practices regarding ecology."
"Read one and except for a few events, you've pretty much read them all and almost any extended backpacking trip involves the same rigors, risks, weather and that mixture of misery and exhilaration."
"One of the funniest books you will every read."
"Bill's storytelling captured me immediately...I was taking every step he took, I enjoyed every vista he looked out on, I was eavesdropping on his conversations with his fellow hikers and feeling the spectrum of emotions held for his friend and hiking companion."
"An adventure that walks you experientially and historically through the nation's longest series of trails from Georgia to Maine while feeling every fear from blisters, hunger, thirst, wildlife, climate changes, man's limitations and nature's nuances, all the while trekking with a forty pound pack on your back, and any one of these could do you in, well it's a wonder why the wild is so compelling."
"With the film in theaters, I decided to pick it up and give it a go. I loved this book, and place it among Jon Krakauer's "Into the Wild," Cheryl Strayed's "Wild," and Elizabeth Gilbert's "The Last American Man" in terms of well-written essays that explore our yearning to return to a simpler, untethered way of life."
"Unfortunately some of his stories about what happened to people along the trail, made me not that interested in walking any trail."
"I think Bill Bryson is an incredibly good writer whose humor extends to poking as much fun at himself as he does at others."
In this evocative and lavishly illustrated narrative, Ken Burns and Dayton Duncan delve into the history of the park idea, from the first sighting by white men in 1851 of the valley that would become Yosemite and the creation of the world’s first national park at Yellowstone in 1872, through the most recent. additions to a system that now encompasses nearly four hundred sites and 84 million acres. If Ken Burns’s upcoming documentary film on America’s National Parks is as good as the book laying open before me, he has another huge winner. The result is almost elegiac, producing the same kind of goose bumps that Burns created in his early work on the Brooklyn Bridge and the Civil War . Namely, as Burns puts it in the introduction, “for the first time in human history, land--great sections of our natural landscape--was set aside, not for kings or noblemen or the very rich, but for everyone, for all time.” As Wallace Stegner once observed, and the book’s subtitle echoes, this may have been “America’s best idea.” Burns links the idea to Jefferson’s magic words in the Declaration of Independence (i.e. “We hold these truths...”), our quasi-sacred text on human freedom, which takes on an almost spiritual resonance amidst the vistas of Yosemite or Yellowstone. Dayton Duncan , Burns's longtime colleague, has provided most of the text, which is designed to cast a spell that matches the wonder of the stunning illustrations.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"This book is full of breathtaking images, making it the perfect coffee table book for anyone who enjoys exploring our beautiful country and its national parks."
"Great photos and historical commentary."
"Beautiful book with gorgeous pictures!"
"We were given this book as a gift and are now getting it to give to a family member as a gift."
"This presentation is more than 5 stars !!!"
Best Solar Energy
Of course, the reality is more complicated than that, yet generating electricity from sunlight alone is a powerful resource, with applications and benefits throughout the world. This best-selling, internet linked book answers all these questions and shows you how to use the power of the sun to generate electricity yourself. As well as explaining the underlying principles, it provides a step-by-step guide so that you can successfully design and install a solar energy system from scratch. He has advised the Obama Administration on the use of solar energy and regularly speaks on television and radio about renewable energy technology.Michael also develops new solar energy technology.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"The book has just right information regarding solar electricity- its fundamental and how to size and install a system."
"This book provides a lot of information about diy solar projects, but recommends not doing it without a professional."
"Very informative book for begineers."
"It's a pretty good survey of solar electricity... unfortunately for me, I was hoping for a little more."
"Very up to date and full of information."
"A wonderful and a very good information book especially for the people who want to know and to learn about the pv panels."
"Whether you have a deep understanding of electricity or you have basic knowledge, this book will guide you towards the right system for you."
Best Wind Energy
But William had read about windmills, and he dreamed of building one that would bring to his small village a set of luxuries that only 2 percent of Malawians could enjoy: electricity and running water. Amazon Best of the Month, September 2009: Discarded motor parts, PVC pipe, and an old bicycle wheel may be junk to most people, but in the inspired hands of William Kamkwamba, they are instruments of opportunity.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"There is a picture here that points the way for the promise of new technology."
"It was a brilliant choice and really quite eye opening for a 12 year old to hear about how he was lucky to be able to go to school. It was fantastic to see how William managed to salvage parts from the junk yard to build his creation. It worked well as it brought a different perspective to our discussion and it was a great way of including children in a hobby that I hope they will all preserve as they grow older."
"In spite of this, William's insatiable curiosity and a chance library book on physics provided him the desire to build his own windmill out of tools and supplies he fashioned out of discarded junk."
"In one American book, he found a picture of a windmill that generated electricity, and discovered that windmills had been used for ages to irrigate crops. He had no money, but he found scrap materials and built his first windmill, modified it to increase or decrease the power, installed a light bulb and created a light switch."
"The amazing story of a young boy,growing up in poverty and life-threatening challenges,who refused to be dissuaded from expanding his knowledge in the face of closed educational opportunities."
"This book was *initially* difficult to read."
"It was an uplifting story."
Best Nuclear Engineering
Book by Manson Benedict, Thomas H. Pigford, Hans Wolfgang Levi.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"nice price, time-honored reference."
"A ride to Nuclear Chemical Engineering LAND!"
"A ride to Nuclear Chemical Engineering LAND!"
Best Petroleum Engineering
Deemed "the best history of oil ever written" by Business Week and with more than 300,000 copies in print, Daniel Yergin’s Pulitzer Prize–winning account of the global pursuit of oil, money, and power has been extensively updated to address the current energy crisis. The Prize portrays the interweaving of national and corporate interests, the conflicts and stratagems, the miscalculations, the follies, and the ironies." "Impassioned and riveting...only in the great epics of Homer will readers regularly run into a comparable string of larger-than-life swashbucklers and statesmen, heroes and villains."
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"It focuses on the effects of oil on the economies of both consuming and producing nations as well how access to oil affects the political power of nations."
"It makes no sense to export a precious finite resource, and it makes a lot of sense to use our enemy's supply first."
"This is the third copy of this book that I have purchased."
"The sentiments of various people and groups towards oil (good or bad) were negligible in the book which gave it almost a sterile feel. I now have a much stronger understanding of just how oil plays its enormous role in the global society. I can't say enough about how well this book informs its reader in an enjoyable and insightful way. It may at points be dry material, but in no way did i feel like this book was written over my head."
"Although concentrated on the oil industry, this book is really an incredible history of the twentieth century, which makes a lot of sense considering the paramount of oil to that era and now."
"This is a long book, but if you want to write a comprehensive story of oil and its impact on the economy spanning more than a century, it's going to be long."
"This is one of the best histories of the Oil Business."
Best Environmental Economics
In this evocative and lavishly illustrated narrative, Ken Burns and Dayton Duncan delve into the history of the park idea, from the first sighting by white men in 1851 of the valley that would become Yosemite and the creation of the world’s first national park at Yellowstone in 1872, through the most recent. additions to a system that now encompasses nearly four hundred sites and 84 million acres. If Ken Burns’s upcoming documentary film on America’s National Parks is as good as the book laying open before me, he has another huge winner. The result is almost elegiac, producing the same kind of goose bumps that Burns created in his early work on the Brooklyn Bridge and the Civil War . Namely, as Burns puts it in the introduction, “for the first time in human history, land--great sections of our natural landscape--was set aside, not for kings or noblemen or the very rich, but for everyone, for all time.” As Wallace Stegner once observed, and the book’s subtitle echoes, this may have been “America’s best idea.” Burns links the idea to Jefferson’s magic words in the Declaration of Independence (i.e. “We hold these truths...”), our quasi-sacred text on human freedom, which takes on an almost spiritual resonance amidst the vistas of Yosemite or Yellowstone. Dayton Duncan , Burns's longtime colleague, has provided most of the text, which is designed to cast a spell that matches the wonder of the stunning illustrations.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"This book is full of breathtaking images, making it the perfect coffee table book for anyone who enjoys exploring our beautiful country and its national parks."
"Great photos and historical commentary."
"We were given this book as a gift and are now getting it to give to a family member as a gift."
"This presentation is more than 5 stars !!!"
"Gave it as a Christmas gift to a cousin who is traveling this year to western national parks."
Best Physics
His stick-figure drawings about science, technology, language, and love have an enormous, dedicated following, as do his deeply researched answers to his fans’ strangest questions. His responses are masterpieces of clarity and wit, gleefully and accurately explaining everything from the relativistic effects of a baseball pitched at near the speed of light to the many horrible ways you could die while building a periodic table out of all the actual elements. What if there were a book that considered weird, sometimes ridiculous questions, and it was so compelling that you found yourself skimming its pages to find out what would happen if you threw a baseball at light speed? As he does in his extraordinarily popular xkcd webcomic, Munroe applies reason and research to hypothetical conundrums ranging from the philosophical to the scientific (often absurd, but never pseudo) that probably seemed awesome in your elementary school days—but were never sufficiently answered. When the goal of any researcher is to lay claim to a tiny niche in a crowded discipline, it’s hard for laypeople to find answers to the really important interdisciplinary questions. Fortunately, such people can turn to Randall Munroe, the author of the XKCD comic strip loved by fans of internet culture. while dealing with relationships and the meaning of a computer-centric life, xkcd has become required reading for techies across the world….The Internet has also created a bond between Mr. Munroe and his readers that is exceptional. But at its most ambitious, it either packs massive amounts of interesting information into a small space, or engages in breathtaking experiments with the medium….
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"I love the blog and was really looking forward to this book, but buying the kindle edition was a mistake."
"This is a great way to enjoy older questions and answers over again, updated, and to share them with new people, and the new questions and answers - never featured on the website - are delightful; I won't spoil it for you, but my favorite has to be the answer to "If a bullet with the density of a neutron star were fired from a handgun (ignoring the how) at the Earth's surface, would the Earth be destroyed?" If you have even a passing interest in science and ever enjoy daydreaming about the fantastic or the ridiculous, this book is for you. Gift season is coming up; thanks to this book my Christmas shopping will be a great deal easier."
"Randall Munroe hits that oddball humor sweet spot with zany questions and actual, scientific--and most importantly, interesting--answers."
"Randall Munroe's XKCD is a cornerstone of the World-Wide Web, and he brings the same intelligence and overabundance of careful research here to absolutely hilarious (and often randomly awesome or terrible) questions."
"Best bathroom book ever... and I mean that in the very best possible way you can imagine."
"All wrapped up in a well made book sufficient for display."
"Whether it's taking a dip in a nuclear reactor cooling pool, or halting the earth's spin just to see what would happen, Monroe accepts the intellectual challenge and delivers with gusto."
"They're hyperlinked, and you can use the links on the footnote to jump back But the page bounds move slightly every time, and notes near the top activate the Kindle options rather than the footnote."
Best Antique & Collectible Precious Metals
“I have been metal detecting for over 5 years and this great metal detecting guide book taught me plenty of new tips and tricks.” - Mike in Texas. While this metal detecting book may be geared towards the novice treasure hunter, there are plenty of choice tips that even experienced treasure hunters can pick up. Mark Smith reveals some of his best guarded metal detecting secrets in this metal detecting guide that puts more treasure in your find's pouch. Learn how to find more treasure by: understanding common metal detecting terminology, understanding which metal detectors work the best and where, understanding how and why a metal detector works, other equipment you will need, proper etiquette, what you can expect to find, why you should never throw anything away, how to identify your finds, how to identify jewelry, how to tell if it is real gold, how to metal detect with children, which recovery tools work the best, how to recover treasure, how to metal detect private property, how to identify unknown metal detecting finds, metal detecting creeks, rivers and lakes, pinpointing, making weak targets stronger, cleaning your finds, the best places to use your metal detector, selling your finds and more! Find out how you can maximize your treasure with this informative metal detecting book today.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"I loved the information, It was very specific and helpful, It had lists that were really helpful, like what areas to aim for, What tools are necessary, What settings you should use in order to get the most out of your time out metal detecting."
"Covers everything you need to get started,or expand on what you already know."
"Book looked awesome by cover pretty basic inside good but not awesome big print good for old guys a book anybody with a little experience could have written will not order any other books by this writer."
"Mark hits it solid in that detecting info he has accumulated."
"Me and my 10 year old grandson loved this book, we bought a second hand metal detector at the local pawn shop for $36 and have been having a blast finding relics, coins, just exploring, I highly recommend this book if you are a beginner."
"I really enjoyed this book."
"Excellent introduction."
"Mark explains to the novice the basics of metal detecting."
Best Physics of Energy
Today, Enron is the biggest business story of our time, and Fortune senior writers Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind are the new Woodward and Bernstein. It reveals as never before major characters such as Ken Lay, Jeff Skilling, and Andy Fastow, as well as lesser known players like Cliff Baxter and Rebecca Mark. Their prose is effortless, like a sprinter floating down the track.” —USA Today “Well-reported and well-written.” —Warren Buffett Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind collaborated on this book when they both were Fortune senior writers.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Many of the main characters at Enron have personalities as big someone written for fiction, so the book is actually fairly entertaining despite the dry and factual subject matter."
"Enron was a high wire act, a company on steroids, an innovator, obsessed on making deals and its stock price."
"I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in American business, corporate greed, or the money machinations of Wall Street."
"Once heralded as the most innovative, paradigm changing company in the world was brought low by the fact its business didn’t actually do anything."
"It answers the question: Why do we enjoy so much stories about high flying business types who crash and burn by their own hubris and greed?"
"Starting with an overview of the players and the original pipeline company that later became Enron, the book takes the reader through the rise of one of the greatest house of cards in modern business history. Noting that many of the issues around Enron's house of cards were in somewhat plain sight to anyone looking for them, and the element of unrestrained greed permeated the entire enterprise, the authors bring forth a storyline that would be amazing and incredible, had it not been true. The reader will view the simplicity of structure, the need for honesty and clarity in disclosure, and the abject understanding of the economics (not the financial reporting) of the transaction is absolutely critical."
"Very interesting read, particularly if you're educated/experienced in corporate and investment finance and accounting."
"I didn't expect to be courted by an account where my emotions would hob-nobb from empathy, to skepticism, to amusement, then annoyance, followed by outrage, and finally disbelief... and not always stemming from `the cast of characters', or in this order. More so than this story could have been, and could be any one of ours', McLean and Elkind really weave an interesting personal element into this entangled economic debacle well worth the experience."
Best Energy & Mining Industry
Deemed "the best history of oil ever written" by Business Week and with more than 300,000 copies in print, Daniel Yergin’s Pulitzer Prize–winning account of the global pursuit of oil, money, and power has been extensively updated to address the current energy crisis. The Prize portrays the interweaving of national and corporate interests, the conflicts and stratagems, the miscalculations, the follies, and the ironies." "Impassioned and riveting...only in the great epics of Homer will readers regularly run into a comparable string of larger-than-life swashbucklers and statesmen, heroes and villains."
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"It focuses on the effects of oil on the economies of both consuming and producing nations as well how access to oil affects the political power of nations."
"It makes no sense to export a precious finite resource, and it makes a lot of sense to use our enemy's supply first."
"This is the third copy of this book that I have purchased."
"The sentiments of various people and groups towards oil (good or bad) were negligible in the book which gave it almost a sterile feel. I now have a much stronger understanding of just how oil plays its enormous role in the global society. I can't say enough about how well this book informs its reader in an enjoyable and insightful way. It may at points be dry material, but in no way did i feel like this book was written over my head."
"Although concentrated on the oil industry, this book is really an incredible history of the twentieth century, which makes a lot of sense considering the paramount of oil to that era and now."
"This is a long book, but if you want to write a comprehensive story of oil and its impact on the economy spanning more than a century, it's going to be long."
"This is one of the best histories of the Oil Business."