Birth Science

It's Hiccup's birthday, but that's not going to keep him from getting into trouble. To save his dragon, Toothless, from being banished, Hiccup must sneak into the Meathead Public Library and steal the Viking's most sacred book. But the Vikings see books as a dangerous influence, and keep them locked up and under heavy guard. To save his friend, Hiccup must brave the Hairy Scary Librarian and his dreadful army of Meathead Warriors and face off against the formidable Driller-Dragons.

There is a group engaging four new mercenaries, prepping them with simulated operations in the Zoo. How come? Courtney has approved a new member of her team in California, and Sal isn't sure it was a good idea. This time, there is another group learning what it takes to plunder the Zoo. Can they live through it? Salinger Jacobs is working to build his company as fast as possible. Will he make mistakes he can't think his way out of?

Journalist Rebecca Grant provides us with a never-before-seen look at the changing landscape of pregnancy and childbirth in America—and the rise of midwifery—told through the eyes of three women who all pass through the doors of the same birth center in Portland, Oregon. In remarkable detail and with great compassion, Grant recounts the ups downs, fears, joys, and everyday moments of each woman’s pregnancy and postpartum journey, offering a rare look into their inner lives, perspectives, and choices in real time.

Jim McCloskey was at a midlife crossroads when he met the man who would change his life. A former management consultant, McCloskey had grown disenchanted with the business world; he enrolled at Princeton Theological Seminary at the age of 37. His first assignment, in 1980, was as a chaplain at Trenton State Prison. Among the inmates was Jorge de los Santos, a heroin addict who'd been convicted of murder years earlier. He swore to McCloskey that he was innocent - and, over time, McCloskey came to believe him.

Before John Deere, Ford, and International Harvester became icons of American business, they were competitors in a forgotten battle for the farm. By the turn of the 20th century, four million people had left rural America and moved to cities. With the tractor, a shrinking farm population could still feed a growing world. Tractor Wars is the untold story of industry stalwarts and disruptors, inventors, and administrators racing to invent modern agriculture - a power farming revolution that would usher in a whole new world.

Join Stevie, Win, and gang for another new adventure!

For many Americans, the birth certificate is a mundane piece of paper, unearthed from deep storage when applying for a driver's license, verifying information for employers, or claiming state and federal benefits. Yet as Donald Trump and his fellow "birthers" reminded us when they claimed that Barack Obama wasn't an American citizen, it plays a central role in determining identity and citizenship. The Birth Certificate: An American History traces the document's two-hundred-year history to explain when, how, and why birth certificates came to matter so much in the United States.

"The Birth of Tragedy" stands alongside Aristotle’s "Poetics" as essential works for all who seek to understand poetry and its relationship to human life. In this, his first book, Nietzsche developed a way of thinking about the arts that unites the Greek gods Apollo and Dionysus as the central symbol of human existence. Although tragedy serves as the focus of this work, music, visual art, dance, and the other arts can also be viewed using Nietzsche’s analysis and integration of the Apollonian and the Dionysian.

Mankind can rule itself without the force of top-down authority, and freedom is more than just choosing how to meet the needs and demands of capital. Inequality is structural and intentional, not inevitable and necessary. It does not have to be this way. In solidarity, we are better. Think for yourself, and question authority. This is the essence of anarchism, which has a bad name and reputation because it attacks the necessity of centralised power and authority.

Over eight years of war, ordinary Americans accomplished something extraordinary. Far from the actions of the Continental Congress and the Continental Army, they took responsibility for the course of the revolution. They policed their neighbors, sent troops and weapons to distant strangers committed to the same cause, and identified friends and traitors. By taking up the reins of power but also setting its limits, they ensured America's success. Without their participation there would have been no victory over Great Britain, no independence.

The award-winning author of The Battle of Bretton Woods reveals the gripping history behind the Marshall Plan—told with verve, insight, and resonance for today.

In the wake of World War II, with Britain’s empire collapsing and Stalin's on the rise, US officials under new secretary of state George C. Marshall set out to reconstruct western Europe as a bulwark against communist authoritarianism. Their massive, costly, and ambitious undertaking would confront Europeans and Americans alike with a vision at odds with their history and self-conceptions. In the process, they would drive the creation of NATO, the European Union, and a Western identity that continues to shape world events.

Focusing on the critical years 1947 to 1949, Benn Steil’s thrilling account brings to life the seminal episodes marking the collapse of postwar US-Soviet relations—the Prague coup, the Berlin blockade, and the division of Germany. In each case, we see and understand like never before Stalin’s determination to crush the Marshall Plan and undermine American power in Europe.

Given current echoes of the Cold War, as Putin’s Russia rattles the world order, the tenuous balance of power and uncertain order of the late 1940s is as relevant as ever. The Marshall Plan provides critical context into understanding today’s international landscape. Bringing to bear fascinating new material from American, Russian, German, and other European archives, Steil’s account will forever change how we see the Marshall Plan and the birth of the Cold War. A polished and masterly work of historical narrative, this is an instant classic of Cold War literature.

When Rudolf Steiner gave these lectures 80 years ago, industrial farming was on the rise and organic methods were being replaced in the name of science, efficiency, and technology. With the widespread alarm over the quality of food in recent years, and the growth of the organic movement and its mainstream acceptance, perceptions are changing. The qualitative aspect of food is once again on the agenda, and in this context Rudolf Steiner's only course of lectures on agriculture is critical to the current debate.

On a sunny Friday morning in August 1945, a handful of tired people raised a homemade cotton flag and on behalf of 68 million compatriots announced the birth of a new nation. With the fourth largest population in the world, inhabiting islands that span an eighth of the globe, Indonesia became the first colonised country to declare its independence after the Second World War.

The Actual Star takes listeners on a journey over thousands of years and six continents—collapsing three separate timelines into one cave in the Belizean jungle. An epic saga of three reincarnated souls, this novel demonstrates the entanglements of tradition and progress, sister and stranger, love and hate. The book jumps forward and backward in time among a pair of twins who ruled a Maya kingdom, a young American on a trip of self-discovery, and two dangerous charismatics in a conflict that will determine the fate of the few humans left on Earth after massive climate change.

Kate and her younger brother, Tom, lead dull, uninteresting lives. And if their dull, uninteresting parents are anything to go by, they don't have much to look forward to. Why can't Kate have thrilling adventures and save the world the way people do in books? Even her 11th birthday is shaping up to be mundane - that is, until her mysterious and highly irresponsible Uncle Herbert, whom she's never even met before, surprises her with the most unexpected, exhilarating, inappropriate birthday present of all time: a colossal steam locomotive called the Silver Arrow.

In December 1906, two scientists, the Italian Camillo Golgi and the Spaniard Santiago Ramón y Cajal, arrived in Stockholm to jointly receive the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Golgi had discovered a breakthrough method of visualizing neurons under the microscope in 1873. He also believed that the nervous system was different from the rest of the body: instead of being composed of a multitude of individual cells, he thought it was one vast ‘reticulum’ of cells which were anatomically fused together, making ‘unity of action’ possible. Cajal, a decade younger, had improved on ...

Evan Wright had her life mapped out: college, science, success. But when she discovers she can slip into the past just by immersing herself in a single moment of history, everything she believed is shaken. With each journey, Evan uncovers hidden truths about her family, her friends, and herself, forcing her to question the life she's always wanted. Alongside a magnetic young History professor, she finds herself drawn into mysteries of the past that are as thrilling as they are dangerous. Now, Evan must decide: will she let the past shape her, or forge her own future?

Enrico Fermi is unquestionably among the greats of the world's physicists, the most famous Italian scientist since Galileo. Called "the Pope" by his peers, he was regarded as infallible in his instincts and research. His discoveries changed our world; they led to weapons of mass destruction and conversely to life-saving medical interventions. This unassuming man struggled with issues relevant today, such as the threat of nuclear annihilation and the relationship of science to politics.

Between February 24, 1912, when TR came out of political retirement to challenge William Howard Taft for the Republican Party's nomination for president, and June 23 of that year, Roosevelt and his supporters created and benefited from 13 new presidential primaries, the first in the nation's history. Stressing the importance of primaries, TR's campaign theme became "the right of the people to rule".

It's been a decade since the first ultra-enhanced human beings were forced to abandon covert military operations. Advancing public technology and new government legislation made continuing to operate in secrecy untenable, and so they mainstreamed, becoming the world's first superhero group - the Order of Champions. They are the ten mightiest individuals on the planet - beloved by the masses and feared by their enemies. And their world is falling apart. The superheroes have become complacent - secure in their own sense of invincibility. They are arrogant and alone and increasingly rocked by ...