Most of us are clueless when it comes to the physics that makes our modern world so convenient. What's the simple science behind motion sensors, touch screens, and toasters? How do we glide through tolls using an E-ZPass or find our way to new places using GPS? In The Physics of Everyday Things, James Kakalios takes us on an amazing journey into the subatomic marvels that underlie so much of what we use and take for granted.

Over the course of five combat patrols during the Pacific War, Commander Fluckey reinvented submarine warfare, pioneering audacious strategies to hunt and sink Japanese warships and merchant vessels. At the helm of the USS Barb, he directed his boat to attack warship convoys - never mind the lop-sided odds - and to slip into heavily defended enemy harbors to launch torpedoes at unsuspecting targets.

Nina Sankovitch’s American Rebels explores, for the first time, the intertwined lives of the Hancock, Quincy, and Adams families, and the role each person played in sparking the American Revolution. American Rebels explores how the desire for independence cut across class lines, binding people together as well as dividing them -rebels versus loyalists - as they pursued commonly held goals of opportunity, liberty, and stability. Nina Sankovitch's new audiobook is a fresh history of our revolution that makes listeners look more closely at Massachusetts.

In November 1943, the men of the 2d Marine Division were instructed to clear out Japanese resistance on the Pacific island of Betio, a speck at the end of the Tarawa Atoll. When the Marines landed, the Japanese poured out of their underground bunkers — and launched one of the most brutal and bloody battles of World War II.

Margaret MacMillan looks at the ways in which war has influenced human society and how, in turn, changes in political organization, technology, or ideologies have affected how and why we fight. War: How Conflict Shaped Us explores such much-debated and controversial questions as: When did war first start? Does human nature doom us to fight one another? Why has war been described as the most organized of all human activities? Why are warriors almost always men? Is war ever within our control?

In March 1836, the Mexican army led by General Santa Anna massacred more than 200 Texians who had been trapped in the Alamo. After 13 days of fighting, American legends Jim Bowie and Davey Crockett died there, along with other Americans who had moved to Texas looking for a fresh start. It was a crushing blow to Texas' fight for freedom. But the story doesn’t end there. The defeat galvanized the Texian settlers, and under General Sam Houston’s leadership, they rallied. Six weeks after the Alamo, Houston and his band of settlers defeated Santa Anna’s army in a shocking victory.

Before Greg Gutfeld was a Fox News star and a New York Times best-selling author, he was a self-help writer for health magazines who had no idea what he was talking about. But now, after years of experience, he finally feels qualified to guide people on the journey of life - call this book punishment for his sins and a huge reward for you! In The Plus, Greg teaches you how to brainwash yourself into better behavior, retaining the pluses in your life and eliminating the minuses.

From the duo behind the massively successful and award-winning podcast Stuff You Should Know comes an unexpected look at things you thought you knew. Josh Clark and Chuck Bryant started the podcast Stuff You Should Know back in 2008 because they were curious - curious about the world around them, curious about what they might have missed in their formal educations, and curious to dig deeper on stuff they thought they understood.

Both historically and in the present, the Supreme Court has largely been a failure. In this devastating book, Erwin Chemerinsky—“one of the shining lights of legal academia” (The New York Times)—shows how, case by case, for over two centuries, the hallowed Court has been far more likely to uphold government abuses of power than to stop them.

This audiobook explores big questions like these, explaining the breakthroughs and discoveries that have shaped our modern-day understanding of medicine and helped us protect and promote our health. Written in plain English, The Medicine Book cuts through the jargon and is packed with pithy explanations of the most important milestones in medical history to untangle knotty concepts.

The American Revolution is often portrayed as an orderly, restrained rebellion, with brave patriots defending their noble ideals against an oppressive empire. It's a stirring narrative, and one the founders did their best to encourage after the war. But as historian Holger Hoock shows in this deeply researched and elegantly written account of America’s founding, the Revolution was not only a high-minded battle over principles, but also a profoundly violent civil war—one that shaped the nation, and the British Empire, in ways we have only begun to understand.

A riveting narrative about the biggest earthquake in North American recorded history - the 1964 Alaska earthquake that demolished the city of Valdez and swept away the island village of Chenega - and the geologist who hunted for clues to explain how and why it took place.

A groundbreaking account of how Britain became the base of operations for the exiled leaders of Europe in their desperate struggle to reclaim their continent from Hitler, from the New York Times best-selling author of Citizens of London and Those Angry Days.

Lafayette Pool provided inspiration for Brad Pitt’s character “War Daddy” Collier in the movie Fury, but his true story is less known. Here, acclaimed author Stephen L. Moore writes the first full-length narrative to honor the valiant Texan tanker. A champion Golden Gloves boxer turned U.S. Army legend, Pool was known as the “ace of tankers” for destroying more than five enemy tanks in head-to-head combat.

Europe has fallen. Pearl Harbor is in flames. Enter: the Eighth. In 1941 the RAF fought a desperate battle of survival against the Luftwaffe over Britain. Then, from across the Atlantic, came a new generation of American pilots, gunners, and bombardiers, a new generation of flying machines called the B-17 Flying Fortress, the B-24 Liberator, the P-47 Thunderbolt, and the P-51 Mustang fighter.

The 13 chapters of The Art of War, each devoted to one aspect of warfare, were compiled by the high-ranking Chinese military general, strategist, and philosopher Sun-Tzu. In spite of its battlefield specificity, The Art of War has found new life in the modern age, with leaders in fields as wide and far-reaching as world politics, human psychology, and corporate strategy finding valuable insight in its timeworn words.

The Mongol army led by Genghis Khan subjugated more lands and people in 25 years than the Romans did in 400. In nearly every country the Mongols conquered, they brought an unprecedented rise in cultural communication, expanded trade, and a blossoming of civilization.

The Roman gladiator has long been a figure of fascination. Portrayed frequently in fine art and popular culture alike, the gladiator is both a real part of history and a legend of a romanticized past. We know that these men entertained Roman audiences by fighting in dangerous and often deadly games. But who were the gladiators? What were their lives like? And why do they continue to have such a strong hold on our imagination, centuries after the fall of the Roman Empire?

In 1992, the deadliest year in Chicago’s history, seven-year-old Dantrell Davis was shot and killed in front of his elementary school inside the public housing complex Cabrini-Green. What happened to Dantrell led to a truce among Chicago’s gangs, but it also ignited a national panic about poverty and violence in America’s cities. Dantrell’s name would soon be used to demolish all of Chicago’s high-rise public housing, displacing tens of thousands of low-income families.

Experience a bold take on this classic autobiography as it’s performed by Oscar-nominated Laurence Fishburne. In this searing classic autobiography, originally published in 1965, Malcolm X, the Muslim leader, firebrand, and Black empowerment activist, tells the extraordinary story of his life and the growth of the Human Rights movement. His fascinating perspective on the lies and limitations of the American dream and the inherent racism in a society that denies its non-White citizens the opportunity to dream, gives extraordinary insight into the most urgent issues of our own time.