365: Your Date with History

W.B. Marsh

365: Your Date with History is a lovingly written encyclopedia of stories from history for every day of the year. What happened today? What happened on your birthday, 400 years ago?

Every day of the year has a story to tell. Who was assassinated, acceded to the throne, fled from their country? Who was born, began an affair, was impeached, disgraced or knighted? What nation was born, what army defeated in the face of great odds, what era-defining book published?

Whether it is major political events like the Boston Tea Party (16 December), or incredible discoveries like that of Tutankhamun’s tomb (26 November), every event in history happened – of course – on one of 365 days.

365: Your Date with History is a fantastically browsable historical encyclopedia, mapping the highs and lows of human existence throughout the year. W.B. Marsh and Bruce Carrick have often deliberately picked stories to. Each day is packed with historical facts and sometimes brief, often more lengthy, stories from a dizzying array of subjects.

Wander back and forth through history day-by-day with 365 and become engrossed in this lovingly constructed wealth of historical anecdotes, written accessibly and with plenty of quirky humor. It will be a favorite to have around the house for years.

W.B. Marshwas born and has lived inNew York, as well as Paris, Milan, Helsinki, Madrid, London, Tokyo, Vienna and Brussels. A Princeton graduate, he served in the US Marine Corps for two years and worked in advertising, including at Saatchi & Saatchi, for 35 years. He has also worked at the V&A museum in London. He has been collecting stories for days of the year for 23 years. On his birthday - 26 October - the legendary 'Gunfight at the OK Corral' took place at Tombstone, Arizona, in 1881.

Bruce Carrick has worked in book publishing for many years inNew York andLondon, at Scribners, Doubleday, Macmillan and elsewhere. He and his wife live outside New York City in Somers, NY. He has known W.B. Marsh since they went to school together in New York, and they were friends too at Princeton. On his birthday in 1897 Marcel Proust had a duel with fellow writer Jean Lorrain.

Beyond Coincidence

Brian King

Laura Buxton, aged ten, releases a balloon from her garden in Staffordshire. It lands 140 miles away in Wiltshire, in the garden of another Laura Buxton, aged ten.

Coincidence? Or something beyond coincidence?

Two sisters inAlabama decide, independently, to visit the other. En route, their identical jeeps collide and both are killed.

Is someone playing snap with our lives? Could it be the hand of God? Or magic? Or are we, as some scientists have suggested, being granted an insight into a hyper-connected universe whose ubiquitous web-like workings we can only dimly discern?

Skeptics see only the laws of probability at work. But what are the odds against mathematician Ian Stewart being struck by a meteorite moments after discussing the odds of such a thing happening?

Beyond Coincidence is a celebration of the Universe’s most beguiling phenomenon, containing more than 200 amazing stories of coincidence and many intriguing insights into its workings. From sympathetic magic to the science of probability, from the vicissitudes of gamblers to the mysterious communions of sub-atomic particles, this book chases coincidence in all its many guises, analyzing how it affects every aspect of our lives and why it means so much to even the most skeptical of us.

Martin Plimmer is a journalist and broadcaster and author of the fictionalized memoir King of the Castle. Once, while in the waiting room of a hospital after banging his head, Martin found a two-year-old magazine open at an article he had written on the subject of headaches.

Brian King is an award-winning pioneer of radio fly-on-the-wall documentaries; the producer of hundreds of programs for BBC Radio 4, including the long-running series On the Ropes and also, coincidentally, a series about coincidence, presented by Martin Plimmer.

Einstein's Heroes

‘Robyn Arianrhod’s passion for mathematics is so infectious; you’ll scream “Eureka!” when you read her book.’ Herald-Sun

Blending science, history and biography, Einstein’s Heroes takes you on a journey of discovery about the phenomenon of mathematics – humanity’s universal language and one of our most amazing accomplishments.

At the book’s centre are the brilliant scientists who inspired Einstein, particularly James Clark Maxwell, Michael Faraday and Isaac Newton.

Together Maxwell and Faraday settled a centuries-old physical dispute, whichNewton had left in his wake, establishing mathematics as the ultimate arbiter of physical reality.

With the talent of a great storyteller Arianrhod weaves warmly observed biographies into a passionate argument for the beauty and universality of the language of maths. A huge success in the author’s nativeAustralia, Einstein’s Heroes is an enthralling exploration of the special magic of science, and the lives of some of its most brilliant exemplars.

Robin Arianrhod is an Australian writer, journalist and academic who has taught mathematics for over ten years to university and college students. She also works in arts-based community projects and lives in the hills outside her home town ofMelbourne. This is her first book.