The only way to understand art is to go to a museum & look at it, French painter Renoir suggests. But once inside, this is easier said than done. What do you do when the label simply reads Untitled, 1973? Where to look when a painting offers you a picturesque but undisguised view of a giant vagina? & how to react when the museum guard stares at you for far too long? How to Visit an Art Museum offers fresh perspectives on how to behave once inside the museum. Whether a first timer or a frequent visitor, it shows you the sense & nonsense of museum etiquette. The typical museum behavior Walk slowly, but keep walking is seldom the most rewarding. Thats why this book encourages you to look outside the box & tackle the challenges that art presents to us by taking matters into your own hands. You can find out how you can use museum guards to your advantage. You can learn the rules of thumb for distinguishing good art from bad art. You can explore how kids are able to offer you glimpses of the world hidden behind an artwork. How to Visit an Art Museum shows you how a little courage & creativity can go a long way for making your museum visit truly worthwhile. Because, ultimately, the art museum is what you make it. ...

MORE THRILLING ADVENTURES WITH THE WORLD`S FAVOURITE SAFARI GUIDE Plans are usually only good for one thing
- laughing at in hindsight.
...

The Olympic Games can dazzle us with the sheer scale & variety of its sporting contests. Yet many of the games are unfamiliar to even the most avid sports fan. Which is where this witty, insightful book comes in. How to Watch the Olympics offers each sport`s backstory & culture, & explains the finer points of strategy, skulduggery & skill. Once you`ve read the book, you`ll be on tenterhooks to see whether the Danes triumph at handball, what the Italian fencers are up to & why Greco-Roman wrestling is so crucial to Kasakhstan. You`ll know who invented the butterfly stroke, where water polo serves as the closest expression of warfare & how shuttlecocks travel faster than tennis balls. This edition has been freshly updated for the 2016 Games in Rio, including fresh material from London 2012 & chapters on the new Olympic sports of rugby sevens & golf. Seventeen days, 10, 500 athletes, 28 sports, 302 gold medals up for grabs: the Rio 2016 Olympic Games will soon be upon us. How to Watch the Olympics is your invaluable personal trainer. ...

Who first thought of atoms? How much can you learn about archaeology from an oil lamp? Who came up with the theory of the `wandering womb`? Oxford Classicist Jane Hood delves into the history, culture, literature, mythology & philosophy of ancient Greece, Rome & Egypt, using her expert eye to unearth unexpected gems, glittering fragments "able nuggets from a lost world. From ancient cosmetics to the earliest known computer, from the deciphering of ancient languages to the amazing things the Romans did with concrete, this is the essential miscellany for all curious minds, whether you learned the Classics at school or not. ...

Our relationship with money is one that lasts a lifetime. It can be as important as family life, as competitive as work, & as exciting & secretive as love. Yet books about money tend to take one of two routes: a) how to get more, or b) how to deal with less. This book turns these questions upside down, & looks not at money itself, but at the way we view it. How does money drive us? How does it frighten us? & how can it help us make sense of who we are? Money is too important a part of life for us not to worry about, but by approaching it differently, we can change the way we perceive its worth. With surprising & enlightening new insights, How to Worry Less About Money will help you realise what material wealth really means. ...

This is the story of Britain told through its buildings & the people who built them. Join David Dimbleby on his colourful chronological journey through the nation's architectural landscape: to towering fortresses, timber-framed barns, magnificent palaces, railway viaducts, music halls, suburban homes & tower blocks. He climbs to the top of the light-flooded Ely Cathedral, a looming vision of Norman conquest & domination; he explores Harvington Hall in Worcestershire, riddled with hidden passages to conceal Catholic priests; he delves into Manchester's network of sewers, constructed to flush away the polluted waters of disease; & he takes a quizzical look at the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh, the symbol of devolution. Tying in with the hit BBC1 series & generously illustrated with specially commissioned colour photography & over 100 historic images, this book reveals how these structures originated in the experiences & beliefs of the British people, & how they hold the key to who we are. ...

Although nearly 90% of the population of Great Britain remained civilians throughout the war, or for a large part of it, their story has so far largely gone untold. In contrast with the thousands of books on military operations, barely any have concerned themselves with the individual`s experience. The problems of the ordinary family are barely ever mentioned
- food rationing, clothes rationing, the black-out & air raids get little space, & everyday shortages almost none at all. This book is an attempt to redress the balance; to tell the civilian`s story largely through their own recollections & in their own words.
...

Where do our clothes come from? What`s the link between gorillas & mobile phones? Does chocolate grow on trees? Answering these questions & many more, How We Make Stuff is an engaging exploration of the way we use Earth`s natural resources. Featuring pop-ups, pull-tabs & booklets, it is an interactive extravaganza! The first title in the series, How The World Works, won the prestigious Royal Society Young People`s Book Prize. ...

Part of the TED series: How We`ll Live on Mars It sounds like science fiction, but award-winning journalist Stephen Petranek considers it fact: within 20 years, humans will live on Mars. We`ll need to. In this sweeping, provocative book that mixes business, science & human reporting, Petranek makes the case that living on Mars is an essential back-up plan for humanity, & explains in fascinating detail just how it will happen. It`s clear that the race is on. Private companies (driven by iconoclastic entrepreneurs like Elon Musk & Sir Richard Branson); Dutch reality show/space mission Mars One; NASA & the Chinese government are among the many groups competing to plant the first stake on Mars & open the door for human habitation. For Elon Musk, it`s the ”ultimate awesome thing.” For other entrepreneurs, it`s about competition & opportunity. For NASA, the Chinese government & the leagues of other private companies & foreign nationals racing to get to Mars, there are more urgent reasons as well: life on Mars has potential life-saving possibilities for us on earth. Depleting water supplies, overwhelming climate change & a host of other disasters
- from terrorist attacks to meteor strikes
- all loom large. We must become a space-faring species to survive. In this close-up narrative chronicle, Petranek introduces the circus of lively characters all engaged in a big-money, big-drama effort to expand the limits of human knowledge
- & life
- by being the first to settle on the Red Planet. How We`ll Live on Mars brings first-hand reporting, interviews with key players & extensive research to bear on the question of how we can best, & most plausibly, expect to see life on Mars
- within the next 20 years. Petranek can also be seen discussing his fascinating ideas in his TEDTalk 10 Ways The World Could End.




...

In November 1922, a momentous discovery
- unlike any other before or since
- was to change our understanding of the ancient

...