When it comes to understanding the connection between our mental and physical health, we should be looking at the exceptions, not the rules.Dr Jeff Rediger, a world-leading Harvard psychiatrist, has spent the last fifteen years studying thousands of individuals from around the world, examining the stories behind extraordinary cases of recovery from...

When we use chemical fertilizers, we injure the microbial life that sustains plants and then become increasingly dependent on an arsenal of toxic substances. Teaming with Microbes offers an alternative to this vicious circle and details how to garden in a way that strengthens, rather than destroys, the soil food web. You'll discover that...

This is a story about you. It is the history of who you are and how you came to be. It is unique to you, as it is for every one of the 100 billion modern humans who has ever drawn breath. But it is also our collective story, because in each of our genomes we carry the history of the whole of our species. Since scientists first read the human genome...

Neither plant nor animal, they are found throughout the earth, the air and our bodies. They can be microscopic, yet also account for the largest organisms ever recorded. They enabled the first life on land, can survive unprotected in space and thrive amidst nuclear radiation. In fact, nearly all life relies in some way on fungi. These endlessly su...

Penguin presents the unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of Landmarks by Robert Macfarlane, read by Roy McMillan SHORTLISTED FOR THE SAMUEL JOHNSON PRIZE SHORTLISTED FOR THE WAINWRIGHT PRIZE From the bestselling author of UNDERLAND, THE OLD WAYS and THE LOST WORDS 'Few books give such a sense of enchantment; it is a book to give to many, and...

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Stuff Matters by Mark Miodownik, read by Daniel Weyman. A unique and inspiring exploration of human creativity from one of the UK's best-known scientists Everything is made of something... From the everyday objects in our homes to the most extraordinary new materials that will shape our future, Stuff Matter...

How can a blind person learn to see with her tongue or a deaf person learn to hear with his skin? What does a baby born without a nose tell us about our sensory machinery? Might we someday control a robot with our thoughts? And what does any of this have to do with why we dream? The answers to these questions are not right in front of our eyes; the...

The highly anticipated new book from Malcolm Gladwell, host of Revisionist History and No.1 international bestselling author of The Tipping Point, Blink, Outliers, What the Dog Saw and David and Goliath. The routine traffic stop that ends in tragedy. The spy who spends years undetected at the highest levels of the Pentagon. The false conviction of...

Adam Hart-Davis explores spectacular years in the long history of science.

For 5000 years and more, elephants have served humanity, as a living tractor, pile driver, fork lift truck, tank and 4WD. But the working elephant is now at the end of its economic usefulness. Adam Fowler explores the plight of thousands of captive elephants in Asia and their historic and changing relationship with man.

Recorded on location in the Somerset Levels, in the garden of keen birdwatcher, writer and broadcaster Stephen Moss, A Guide to Garden Birds is a helpful, practical guide to help you sort out your Blue tits from your Great Tits and your hedge sparrows from your tree sparrows. Joining Brett and Stephen is wildlife sound recordist, Chris Watson armed...

Join presenter Brett Westwood and Stephen Moss in this fascinating guide to the songs of our most popular woodland birds, as heard on BBC Radio 4. Woods and forests are full of birds, and although you might not immediately see them you will certainly hear them. This practical and informative audio guide, recorded in springtime in the Forest of Dean...

The complete cBBC Radio 4 series written and presented by Sir David Attenborough featuring all twenty episodes about some of the strangest plants and creatures from around the world. One of the nation's most popular presenters examines twenty marvels of the natural world from his extraordinary and pioneering experiences. What was Sir David's first...

Voyage of the Beagle foreshadows Darwin's world-changing On The Origin of Species (also a CSA Word audiobook read by Richard Dawkins), in its constant intellectual quest. Darwin - still only in his early twenties - never just accepts what he sees, but wants to understand it; he shares his thinking in clear, entertaining, witty, even lyrical writing...

Nature writer Richard Mabey reflects on his lifelong relationship with science and the natural world, in this collection of episodes originally broadcast on Radio 4 in September 2009 and repeated as part of The Essay series on Radio 3 in April 2010.

The complete second BBC Radio 4 series written and presented by Sir David Attenborough featuring all 20 episodes about some of the strangest insects and creatures from around the world. One of the nation's most popular presenters examines twenty marvels of the natural world from his extraordinary and pioneering experiences. How did Sir David track...

The story of David Attenborough's joint animal-collecting and film-making trip to New Guinea. The quest demanded hazardous treks across treacherous terrain in the Jimi Valley to find exotic Birds of Paradise.

The story of a joint animal-collecting and film-making trip to Indonesia. Attenborough tells of danger on the crew's hazardous boat trip with a gun smuggling captain and the terror of erupting volcanoes. Experience the incredible sights he witnessed - breathtaking butterflies, taking tea with Charlie the Orangutan and the capture of a Komodo dragon...

For the 1960s BBC series 'Zoo Quest', David Attenborough visited the Northern Territory of Australia. Specially recorded for radio, the quest follows the intrepid BBC film crew on their adventures through both jungle and arid desert. David Attenborough meets aborigines, goes walkabout in the bush, and paints a compelling and fascinating picture of...

In the last thirty years of his life Albert Einstein searched for a unified theory - a theory which could describe all the forces of nature in a single framework. But the time was not right for such a discovery in Einstein's day. Neither was the time right when, in 1988, Professor Stephen Hawking wrote A Brief History of Time in which he took us o...

In January 2006, a month or two after my father died, I thought I saw him again - a momentary impression of an old man, a little stooped, setting off for a walk in his characteristic fawn corduroys and shabby quilted jacket. After teenage rifts it was walking that brought us closer as father and son; and this 'ghost' of Dad has been walking at my e...