A delicious journey into the surprising science behind our flavor senses.Can you describe how the flavor of halibut differs from red snapper? How Brie differs from cheddar? For most of us, unfortunately, the answer is: badly. Flavor remains a vague, undeveloped concept we don't know enough about to describe—or to appreciate—fully.In Flavor, Bob Holmes shows us just how much we're missing. He tackles questions like why cake tastes sweetest on white plates, how wine experts' eyes fool their noses, and how language affects flavor. He peers over the shoulders of fascinating food professionals engineering the perfect snack, chefs seeking surprising new flavor combinations, and even mathematicians pursuing the perfect pizza topping. He reveals how we can all sharpen our senses using professional techniques to name and describe flavors articulately.Whether you're someone who likes to cook creatively, delve into cutting-edge science, explore...

In the space of a single decade, three leaders liberated tens of millions of souls, remade their own vast countries, and altered forever the forms of national power: Abraham Lincoln freed a subjugated race and transformed the American Republic.Tsar Alexander II broke the chains of the serfs and brought the rule of law to Russia.Otto von Bismarck threw over the petty Teutonic princes, defeated the House of Austria and the last of the imperial Napoleons, and united the German nation.The three statesmen forged the empires that would dominate the twentieth century through two world wars, the Cold War, and beyond. Each of the three was a revolutionary, yet each consolidated a nation that differed profoundly from the others in its conceptions of liberty, power, and human destiny. Michael Knox Beran's Forge of Empires brilliantly entwines the stories of the three epochal transformations and their fateful legacies. Telling the stories from the...

"There are families, which, through a combination of genetics, culture, and inclination, produce a startling number of professional athletes, such as tennis players or hockey stars. Then there are families like the Baldwins, which produce a high percentage of actors. My family seems to specialize in people who enjoy drinking. And taking drugs. In such families, there is usually one person who stands out as particularly gifted in the field. When I was a teenager, that person was me. I was the star, the Alec Baldwin, if you will. I started drinking seriously when I was thirteen, smoking pot with a vengeance at fourteen, and getting into cocaine at sixteen. By the time I was twenty I was done. Nice Recovery is the story of how I slipped so far off course, how I got back on track, and, most importantly, what it's like to come of age as a sober young person."

If you’ve been frightened by the monsters in the great horror films, you’ll be terrified by the original stories.Whether its the old, classic black-and-white pictures such as Frankenstein or Dracula that you relish, or the modern special effects spectaqulars likethe Thing or Gremlins that haunt your wildest nightmares, you’ll find plenty more heart-thumpers in this unique dramatically anthology of short stories which have inspired some of the most famous cinema chillers of the century.Together with introductions by editor Peter Haining, in which he describes their background, here is a selection of the finest  short stories by master writers in the superntural genre.

In the second Camilla MacPhee mystery, it's now forty below in Canada's capital, but victims' advocate Camilla is feeling the heat. When a savage serial batterer goes on the rampage looking for revenge against his former girlfriend, the terrified woman turns to Camilla and Justice for Victims for help. But a sudden change of fortune causes her client to really feel the chill. Camilla wades into the investigation, now one of murder, and gets a frosty reception from the police. Soon everyone connected with the case is either cooling their heels behind bars or trying to avoid cold storage in the morgue. Camilla's really skating on thin ice looking for this killer - literally.

An original history of the most enduring colonial creation, the city, explored through ten portraits of powerful urban centers the British Empire left in its wakeAt its peak, the British Empire was an urban civilization of epic proportions, leaving behind a network of cities which now stand as the economic and cultural powerhouses of the twenty-first century. In a series of ten vibrant urban biographies that stretch from the shores of Puritan Boston to Dublin, Hong Kong, New Delhi, Liverpool, and beyond, acclaimed historian Tristram Hunt demonstrates that urbanism is in fact the most lasting of Britain's imperial legacies.Combining historical scholarship, cultural criticism, and personal reportage, Hunt offers a new history of empire, excavated from architecture and infrastructure, from housing and hospitals, sewers and statues, prisons and palaces. Avoiding the binary verdict of empire as "good" or "bad," he traces the collaboration of cultures and...

The Wizard of Oz meets Monsters Inc in this MONSTROUSLY funny stand-alone story from bestselling author phenomenon, Steve Cole.I'm Bob, a human boy stuck in a land of MONSTERS. I'm trying to get out with the help of three - count them, three - incredible creatures.There's Verity, who looks like a giant hamster. Alfie, who's about as scary as a bag of crisps. And Zola, a gorgon who can't turn people to stone (though she can manage cardboard at a push). We're on a crazy, death-defying quest to escape with our lives. And all around us, the cry goes up: STOP THOSE MONSTERS!!!