A razor-sharp analysis of how record-breaking exploits in extreme sport are redefining the limits of being human Right now more people are risking their lives for their sports then ever before in history As Thomas Pynchon once put it in Gravity's Rainbow 'it is not often that Death is told so clearly to f off' Over the past three decades the bounds of the possible in action & adventure sports
- from sky-diving to motocross to surfing & beyond
- have been pushed farther & faster A generation's worth of iconoclastic misfits have rewritten the rules of the feasible; not just raising the bar but obliterating it altogether Along the way they have become a force pushing evolution relentlessly onward In a thrilling narrative that draws on biology psychology & philosophy Steven Kotler asks why at the tail end of the 20th century & the early portion of the 21st are we seeing such a multi-sport assault on reality? Did we somehow slip through a wormhole to another universe where gravity is optional & common sense obsolete? & where
- if anywhere
- do our actual limits lie?



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This book is the first to offer an accessible & uncompromising look at the English Defence League (EDL) It aims to alter thinking about working-class politics & the rise of right-wing nationalism in the de-industrialised & decaying towns & cities of England The rise of the right among the working class the authors claim is inextricably connected to the withdrawal of the political left from traditional working-class communities & the left's refusal to advance the economic interests of those who have suffered most from neoliberal economic restructuring Incisive contentious & boundary-breaking it uses the voices of men & women who now support far-right political groups to address the total failure of mainstream parliamentary politics & the rising tide of frustration resentment & anger ...

If a robot' could do your job quicker than you & better than you for no pay would you still be employed? Today it's travel agents data-analyst & paralegals whose jobs are under threat Soon it will be doctors taxi-drivers & ironically even computer programmers Without a radical reassessment of our economic & political structures we risk the implosion of the capitalist economy itself In a frightening tour of artificial intelligence's rapid advances technology expert Martin Ford draws on a wealth of economic data from both the US & the UK to outline the terrifying societal implications of the robots' rise From health & education to finance & technology his warning is stark any job that is on some level routine is likely to be automated & if we are to see a future of prosperity rather than catastrophe we must act now ...

The Greek statesman Polybius (c 200-118 BC) wrote his account of the relentless growth of the Roman Empire in order to help his fellow countrymen understand how their world came to be dominated by Rome Opening with the Punic War in 264 BC he vividly records the critical stages of Roman expansion its campaigns throughout the Mediterranean the temporary setbacks inflicted by Hannibal & the final destruction of Carthage An active participant of the politics of his time as well as a friend of many prominent Roman citizens Polybius drew on many eyewitness accounts in writing this cornerstone work of history ...

Legend says that a spirit sleeps within each of usand that a childhood trauma can awaken it such is the awakening of the Zelphire Young Sylvan Khelmann is one such host doing his best to hide the strange tree-like features that start growing on his body This mysterious condition comes with strange abilities which he doesn&t understand until meeting Professor Wernes who invites him to join an expedition of discovery But they find themselves pursued by the evil Dreghans who possess supernatural abilities of their own tracking down all known Zelphires to serve their secret nefarious purpose The first book in the globally popular middle-grade fantasy series by writerillustrator Karim Friha this supernatural tale is steeped in Victorian steampunk & is a delightfully dark adventure like Charles Dickens by way of Tim Burton ...

From breakfast toast to evening wine yeast is the microscopic thing that we cannot live without We knew what yeast did as an invisible brewer & baker long before we had a clue about the existence of microorganisms Ten thousand years ago our ancestors abandoned bush meat & wild fruit in favor of farming animals & cultivating grain Leaving the forests & grasslands our desire for beer & wine produced by the fungus was a major stimulus for agricultural settlement It takes a village to run a brewery or tend a vineyard We domesticated wild yeast & yeast domesticated us With the inevitable escape of the fungus from beer vats into bread dough our marriage with yeast was secured by an appetite for fresh loaves of leavened bread Over the millennia we have adapted the technologies of brewing winemaking & baking & have come to rely on yeast more & more Yeast produces corn ethanol & other biofuels & has become the genetically-modified darling of the pharmaceutical business as a source of human insulin & a range of life-saving medicines These practical uses of yeast have been made possible by advances in our understanding of its biology & the power of genetic engineering has been used to modify the fungus to do just about anything we wish We know more about yeast than any other organism built from complex cells like our own To understand yeast is to understand life In this book Nicholas P Money offers a celebration of our favorite microorganism ...

The Rise The Fall & The Rise is the extraordinary story in her own words of Brix Smith Start Best known for her work in The Fall at the time when they were perhaps the most powerful & influential anti-authoritarian postpunk band in the world -- This Nation's Saving Grace The Wonderful & Frightening World Of -- Brix spent ten years in the band before a violent disintegration led to her exit & the end of her marriage with Mark E Smith But Brix's story is much more than rock 'n' roll highs & lows in one of the most radically dysfunctional bands around Growing up in the Hollywood Hills in the '60s in a dilapidated pink mansion her life has taken her from luxury to destitution from the cover of the NME to waitressing in California via the industrial wasteland of Manchester in the 1980s What emerges is a story of constant reinvention jubilant highs & depressive ebbs; a singular journey of a teenage American girl on a collision course with English radicalism on her way to mid-life success on TV & in fashion Too bizarre extreme & unlikely to exist in the pages of fiction The Rise The Fall & The Rise could only exist in the pages of a memoir ...

The Easter Rising of 1916 not only destroyed much of the centre of Dublin
- it changed the course of Irish history But why did
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The pulse-pounding sequel to DEPARTMENT 19
- The best action horror story I have ever read according to Bookzoneforboys 91 days
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Float fishing with a waggler has fascinated Jim Baxter for over 40 years & is the central theme of this book Jim & his contributors from the world of match angling explain how to get the best out of the method on river or lake ...