Our world has been transformed beyond recognition, particularly in the twentieth century, and so were our lives and our aspirations. Throughout JAMES MAY'S MAGNIFICENT MACHINES James May, co-presenter of The Grand Tour, explores the iconic themes of the past hundred years: flight, space travel, television, mechanised war, medicine, computers, electronic music, skyscrapers, electronic espionage and much more. But he also reveals the hidden story behind why some inventions like the Zeppelin, the hovercraft or the Theremin struggled to make their mark. He examines the tipping points - when technologies such as the car or the internet became unstoppable - and gets up close to the nuts and bolt of remarkable inventions. Packed with surprising statistics and intriguing facts, this is the ideal book for anyone who wants to know how stuff works and why some stuff didn't make it.
Published to tie in with the BBC TV series, this is James May's idiosyncratic look at the great inventions of our time. He explores the iconic themes of the 20th century, including flight, space travel, television, mechanised war, medicine, video games, skyscrapers, electronic music, and more.
Take a truly technicolour tour of one of the most remarkable construction projects of 2009 in all its architectural glory. British broadcaster, writer and toy 'nut-case' James May lived a childhood dream by designing, building and sleeping in a quite stunning full-size house inspired by and completely made from LEGO, one of the world's most favourite toys and a design icon in its own right. James May's Lego House provides a complete photographic record of this stunning creation which now proudly holds the Guinness World Record for the largest free-standing LEGO structure. However, this is not a simple recreation of a childhood vision of a house but is fully informed by the 'simple complexity' of LEGO's design philosophy centring around the basic 'eighter' brick. Indeed, 3.3 million LEGO elements were used exclusively to create the two-storey house and its incredible fittings that range from a washing machine, furniture, cat and mouse, bed and bedding and fully functioning shower and toilet.
For at least two decades now modern man has been on the brink of a crisis. Persuaded by both the post-feminist political landscape and his representation in the popular media to remodel himself as an endearingly hopeless halfwit, he now exists only as an object of pity. James May, co-presenter of The Grand Tour, and his happy band of brothers (plus a few women, but we try to edit them out) are engaged on a quest to lead maledom to a broad sunlit upland strewn with slim books of English verse and neatly stacked with correctly sharpened tools arranged in descending size order. From here they confront the mysteries of romance and fashion, the cult of men's cooking and the daunting underworld of hardcore DIY. Read it and remember that, as a chap, your first duty is to be dependable. And then you can have a pint.
Top Gear's James May is back with his hilarious and controversial opinions on . . . just about everything. As well as writing about his first love, cars, James has a go at political correctness, the endless rules and regulations of daily life, the internal combustion engine and traffic wardens. He discusses gastropubs, Jeremy Clarkson and other trials of modern life. His highly entertaining observations from behind the wheel will have you laughing out loud, whether you share his opinions, or not. Car Fever is an indispensable guide to life for the modern driver.
His tongue-in-cheek technical explanations here will have you howling with laughter ...-Daily Telegraph After being given yet another pointless man manual that told him fifty ways to tie a bow tie in under thirty seconds, James May, star of the international TV phenomenon Top Gear, was certain guys needed a different kind of book. This book, in fact. He reckons there are nine vital things that a true man should be able to do. Not stuff you can download from the Internet, but really important things, like: HOW TO LAND AN A330 AIRBUS IN AN EMERGENCY* HOW TO PREPARE AND EAT YOUR BEST FRIEND HOW TO DRIVE THE PEPPERCORN CLASS A 1 4-6-2 PACIFIC LOCOMOTIVE TORNADO HOW TO DELIVER TWINS HOW TO DEFUSE AN UNEXPLODED WORLD WAR II BOMB The chances that you will ever meet with the circumstances outlined here are, frankly, very remote. But you're still better off knowing this stuff than not knowing it. Life is a lottery, and maybe, just maybe, it could be you who can do this stuff. But only if you've read this book. *Authors Note: This guide has been prepared for use in an absolute dire, buttock-clenching emergancy. None of the advice inside has been sanctioned by Airbus, any of its associates, or anyone else really. Do not attempt to fly the A330 Airbus on a recreational basis, or use one for joyriding. The A330 is not a toy.
The longest ship ever built, the heaviest digger and the largest aeroplane, the world's first working motorcar, and its most expensive one. What machines like these have in common is that they all say a lot about the inventiveness and imagination of the people who conceived and created them. Some of them are useful, others are just a bit of fun, but the best ones are truly magnificent, and fascinating to discover. Designed to drive faster, fly higher, carry more cargo or - in the case of space rockets - travel hundreds of thousands of miles to places no-one has ever been before, not every idea has worked but the best have been inspired and inspirational, and in a few cases they have gone on to change the world. It is the human stories and atmospheric art that make this a book to actually read and delight in.
At long last, Sarah Britton, called the “queen bee of the health blogs” by Bon Appétit, reveals 100 gorgeous, all-new plant-based recipes in her debut cookbook, inspired by her wildly popular blog. Every month, half a million readers—vegetarians, vegans, paleo followers, and gluten-free gourmets alike—flock to Sarah’s adaptable and accessible recipes that make powerfully healthy ingredients simply irresistible. My New Roots is the ultimate guide to revitalizing one’s health and palate, one delicious recipe at a time: no fad diets or gimmicks here. Whether readers are newcomers to natural foods or are already devotees, they will discover how easy it is to eat healthfully and happily when whole foods and plants are at the center of every plate.
* 2020 Nomo Awards Shortlist for "Best Novel" * A Best Book of 2019 —LitReactor, Entropy Triangulum is an ambitious, often philosophical and genre-bending novel that covers a period of over 40 years in South Africa’s recent past and near future—starting from the collapse of the apartheid homeland system in the early 1990s, to the economic corrosion of the 2010s, and on to the looming, large-scale ecological disasters of the 2040s. In 2040, the South African National Space Agency receives a mysterious package containing a memoir and a set of digital recordings from an unnamed woman who claims the world will end in ten years. Assigned to the case, Dr. Naomi Buthelezi, a retired professor and science-fiction writer, is hired to investigate the veracity of the materials, and whether or not the woman's claim to have heard from a “force more powerful than humankind” is genuine. Thus begins TRIANGULUM, a found manuscript composed of the mysterious woman’s memoir and her recordings. Haunted by visions of a mysterious machine, the narrator is a seemingly adrift 17-year-old girl, whose sick father never recovered from the shock of losing his wife. She struggles to navigate school, sexual experimentation, and friendship across racial barriers in post-apartheid South Africa. When three girls go missing from their town, on her mother's birthday, the narrator is convinced that it has something to do with "the machine" and how her mother also went missing in the '90s. Along with her friends, Litha and Part, she discovers a puzzling book on UFOs at the library, the references and similarities in which lead the friends to believe that the text holds clues to the narrators’s mother's abduction. Drawing upon suggestions in the text, she and her friends set out on an epic journey that takes them from their small town to an underground lab, a criminal network, and finally, a mysterious, dense forest, in search of clues as to what happened to the narrator's mother. With extraordinary aplomb and breathtaking prose, Ntshanga has crafted an inventive and marvelous artistic accomplishment.
From a New York Times bestselling and Hugo award-winning author comes a modern masterwork of science fiction, introducing a captain, his crew, and a detective as they unravel a horrifying solar system wide conspiracy that begins with a single missing girl. Now a Prime Original series. Humanity has colonized the solar system—Mars, the Moon, the Asteroid Belt and beyond—but the stars are still out of our reach. Jim Holden is XO of an ice miner making runs from the rings of Saturn to the mining stations of the Belt. When he and his crew stumble upon a derelict ship, the Scopuli, they find themselves in possession of a secret they never wanted. A secret that someone is willing to kill for—and kill on a scale unfathomable to Jim and his crew. War is brewing in the system unless he can find out who left the ship and why. Detective Miller is looking for a girl. One girl in a system of billions, but her parents have money and money talks. When the trail leads him to the Scopuli and rebel sympathizer Holden, he realizes that this girl may be the key to everything. Holden and Miller must thread the needle between the Earth government, the Outer Planet revolutionaries, and secretive corporations—and the odds are against them. But out in the Belt, the rules are different, and one small ship can change the fate of the universe. "Interplanetary adventure the way it ought to be written." —George R. R. Martin The Expanse Leviathan Wakes Caliban's War Abaddon's Gate Cibola Burn Nemesis Games Babylon's Ashes Persepolis Rising Tiamat's Wrath Leviathan Falls Memory's Legion The Expanse Short Fiction Drive The Butcher of Anderson Station Gods of Risk The Churn The Vital Abyss Strange Dogs Auberon The Sins of Our Fathers
