Curious Minds

"Janet Evanovich, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Stephanie Plum series, teams up with Emmy-winning writer Phoef Sutton for a brand-new series of thrillers featuring charmingly eccentric Emerson Knight and professional go-getter Riley Moon"--

Academy Award–winning producer Brian Grazer and an acclaimed business journalist examine the weekly “curiosity conversations” that have inspired Grazer to create some of America's favorite and iconic movies and television shows—from 24 to A Beautiful Mind.

Which nations have North Korean embassies? What percentage of young people live with their families? Which country lists volleyball as its national sport? How much does it cost to get a pint around the world? And where can you find lions in the wild? Revelatory, thought-provoking and fun, Brilliant Maps is a unique atlas of culture, history, politics and miscellanea, compiled by the editor of the iconic Brilliant Maps website. As visually arresting as Information is Beautiful and as full of surprising facts and figures as any encyclopaedia, Brilliant Maps is a stunning piece of cartography that maps our curious and varied planet. For graphic design enthusiasts, compulsive Wikipedia readers and those looking for the sort of gift they buy for someone else and wind up keeping for themselves, this book will change the way you see the world and your place in it.

In a collection of incisive essays, twenty-seven of the world's leading scientists--including Robert Sapolsky, Lee Smolin, Mary Catherine Bateson, Janna Levin, Nicholas Humphrey, Freeman Dyson, and others--reflect on the key moments, experiences, and events in their childhoods that first set them on the course of pursuing a scientific career. Reprint. 20,000 f irst printing.

From the creators of the What If…? Conference comes a quirky book that encourages kids to explore and engage with the world around them by asking more than eighty wild, absurd, and thought provoking questions. What if a book didn’t just tell you how to think or what to know, but rather encouraged you to think for yourself? What if there was a book that focused on asking questions instead of just answering them? The Book of What If…? does just that! What if you lived on a floating city? What if politicians were kids? What if broccoli tasted like chocolate? What if you could explore outer space? By asking these fun, open-ended questions, this book fosters greater critical thinking skills and gives kids a space to interact by breaking out a notebook to draw or write out their personal reactions, or engage in entertaining exercises with family and friends. Plus, sidebars deepen the investigation with peer-to-peer insights, historical and current profiles, real-life examples, and more, making for unlimited learning opportunities! Divided into sections—history, people, stuff, and nature—along with four introductory texts to open up a dialogue about why it’s important to be inquisitive and to always ask questions, The Book of What If…? is sure to be a hit with kids, teachers, and parents alike. So ask a question and let the answers lead you on an exciting journey filled with endless opportunities to learn!

Explains questioning strategies and teaching behaviors designed to encourage students to think, investigate, and draw their own conclusions.

Curious Minds: The Discoveries of Australian Naturalists looks at the long line of naturalists who have traversed Australia in search of new plants and animals. Identifying and classifying the unfamiliar plants and animals was their biggest challenge - the early ones were frequently wrong but later naturalists were able to build on and learn from previous mistakes. In time, a new breed of homegrown naturalists emerged. This succession of curious minds would help to foster pride in a developing nation, as well an interest in the preservation of natural history. Curious Minds brings to life the stories of the naturalists and settlers who made the unfamiliar familiar and who contributed to developments in natural science. Among the names are Joseph Banks, Charles Darwin, Amalie Dietrich, Ludwig Leichhardt, Ferdinand von Mueller, Ellis Rowan, John Lewin and John and Elizabeth Gould. Beautifully illustrated with images from the collection of the National Library of Australia, the publication is a loving tribute to the courageous and inquisitive men and women who led by example.

These 100 full-color infographic maps—from purely geographical to highly political—reveal remarkable new ways to understand the culture and history of North America Did you know that if “Did Not Vote” had been a candidate in the 2016 US election, it would’ve won all but nine states? From where in the contiguous states can you head south into Canada, or north into Mexico? Which states have had the most female governors? Learn the answers to these questions and more in North American Maps for Curious Minds—a one-of-a-kind atlas packed with eye-opening maps for the geographically curious and travel obsessed. Featuring surprising facts (What are the highest-paid public employees in each state? Hint: Most are football coaches), whimsical data (Which US latitudes are home to the most Waffle Houses?), and insightful connections (Who knew the Midwest self-identifies as the most extroverted region of the country?), this book illuminates the unexpected contours of geography, history, politics, and many more fascinating facets of the continent and culture. Each of these 100 graphics will change the way you see North America—and your place on the map.

Explains questioning strategies and teaching behaviors designed to encourage students to think, investigate, and draw their own conclusions.

Addressing the nature of free will and humanity itself, the authors argue that the mind, consciousness, and culture have evolved interdependently to create the human species and show how the mind is constantly adjusting to its environment. UP.

A singular atlas of 100 infographic maps from thought-provoking to flat-out fun Publisher's note: Brilliant Maps for Curious Minds was published in the UK under the title Brilliant Maps. Which countries don’t have rivers? Which ones have North Korean embassies? Who drives on the “wrong” side of the road? How many national economies are bigger than California’s? And where can you still find lions in the wild? You’ll learn answers to these questions and many more in Brilliant Maps for Curious Minds. This one-of-a-kind atlas is packed with eye-opening analysis (Which nations have had female leaders?), whimsical insight (Where can’t you find a McDonald’s?), and surprising connections that illuminate the contours of culture, history, and politics. Each of these 100 maps will change the way you see the world—and your place in it.

A multidisciplinary activity book from four core academic areas—math, science, language arts, and social studiesUnlike the many activity books devoted solely to one type of activity—science experiments, art activities, math games, brain teasers, and the like—Curious Minds takes a multidisciplinary approach, incorporating science, social studies, math, language arts, world languages, and more in 40 hands-on activities that promote kids' critical thinking and engaged interest in the world they live in. Designed for teachers, parents, or homeschoolers searching for new ways to motivate students aged 9–12, this illustrated resource provides a short mini-lesson for each activity, giving educational background information, related lingo, a materials list, step-by-step directions, and guidance for extending the activity. The wide range of activities—from exploring the physics of parachute flight to making homemade ink to testing how pollutants affect plants—ensures every learner's interest will be piqued.

This definitive best-of collection of one of the web's best young writers is packed with big ideas and fun, guaranteed to make you think and smile. You'll learn to find passion, think free, manage time, pay attention and more. Scott Berkun is the bestselling author of Making Things Happen, The Myths of Innovation and Confessions of a Public Speaker. His work has appeared on CNBC, MSNBC, NPR and in The New York Times, Forbes, The Economist, The Washington Post, Wired, and other media. His famous lectures and popular blog can be found for free online at www.scottberkun.com.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The irrepressibly charming duo of Emerson Knight and Riley Moon returns in another gripping mystery by #1 New York Times bestselling author Janet Evanovich. Buddhist monk Wayan Bagus lost his island of solitude and wants to get it back. The island was about two hundred miles northeast of Samoa. It had a mountain, beaches, a rain forest, and a volcano. And now it’s gone. Poof! Vanished without a trace. Brilliant and boyishly charming Emerson Knight likes nothing better than solving an unsolvable, improbable mystery. And finding a missing island is better than Christmas morning in the Knight household. When clues lead to a dark and sinister secret that is being guarded by the National Park Service, Emerson will need to assemble a crack team for help. Since a crack team isn’t available, he enlists Riley Moon and his cousin Vernon. Riley Moon has a Harvard business degree and can shoot the eyes out of a grasshopper at fifty feet, but she can’t figure out how to escape the vortex of Emerson Knight’s odd life. Vernon has been Emerson’s loyal and enthusiastic partner in crime since childhood. He now lives in an RV behind Emerson’s house. Together, this ragtag, mismatched trio will embark on a worldwide investigation that will expose a conspiracy one hundred years in the making.

A singular atlas of 100 infographic maps from thought-provoking to flat-out fun Publisher's note: Brilliant Maps for Curious Minds was published in the UK under the title Brilliant Maps. Which countries don’t have rivers? Which ones have North Korean embassies? Who drives on the “wrong” side of the road? How many national economies are bigger than California’s? And where can you still find lions in the wild? You’ll learn answers to these questions and many more in Brilliant Maps for Curious Minds. This one-of-a-kind atlas is packed with eye-opening analysis (Which nations have had female leaders?), whimsical insight (Where can’t you find a McDonald’s?), and surprising connections that illuminate the contours of culture, history, and politics. Each of these 100 maps will change the way you see the world—and your place in it.

Offers a series of diverse types of picture puzzles intended to strengthen visual skills, cognitive skills, and memory.

Winner of the 2017 JPBM Communications Award for Expository and Popular Books. “A delightful meta-biography--playful indeed--of a brilliant iconoclast.” --James Gleick, author of The Information John Horton Conway is a singular mathematician with a lovely loopy brain. He is Archimedes, Mick Jagger, Salvador Dali, and Richard Feynman all rolled into one--he boasts a rock star's charisma, a slyly bent sense of humor, a polymath's promiscuous curiosity, and an insatiable compulsion to explain everything about the world to everyone in it. At Cambridge, Conway wrestled with "Monstrous Moonshine," discovered the aptly named surreal numbers, and invented the cult classic Game of Life--more than just a cool fad, Life demonstrates how simplicity generates complexity and provides an analogy for mathematics and the entire universe. As a "mathemagician" at Princeton, he used ropes, dice, pennies, coat hangers, even the occasional Slinky, as props to extend his winning imagination and share his many nerdish delights. He granted Roberts full access to his idiosyncrasies and intellect both, though not without the occasional grumble: "Oh hell," he'd say. "You're not going to put that in the book. Are you?!?"

The latest from Ian Leslie, the author of Born Liars, a Globe and Mail Top 100 Book, is a fascinating look at the human characteristic of curiosity — our extraordinary capacity to take pleasure in discovering, learning, and understanding. Curious shows how the practice of “deep curiosity” — persistent, self-reflective seeking of knowledge and insight — is key to the success of our careers, the happiness of our children, the strength of our relationships, and the progress of societies. But it also argues that it is a fragile quality, which wanes and waxes over time, and that we take it for granted at our peril. Ian Leslie proposes that the Internet is opening up a “curiosity gap,” by exacerbating the divide between those with a large cognitive appetite, and those happy knowing no more than they have to know; between the curious and the incurious. He draws on many sources and stories to illustrate his points: Benjamin Franklin at Portsmouth Harbour studying the effect of oil on choppy waters; a bored Galileo distracting himself in a Pisa cathedral by observing the swinging of a recently lit lamp; Leonardo da Vinci doodling ideas in his notebook; Google co-founder Larry Page’s thoughts on the perfect search engine; the invention of the microwave oven; the advantages of your local bookseller over Amazon’s algorithms; a reassessment of Donald Rumsfeld’s defense strategy, and many more. Rich, textured, and exciting, Curious is a new take on the most absorbing human trait of all.

The Alchemy of Things explores interior spaces at the edges of the decoratively possible. The book details a series of eighteen fascinating homes that come from a truly creative place, transcending conventional notions of collection and display.This new beauty taps into a craving for a personal space with rich layers, a little bit of oddity and an irrepressible joie de vivre. A mix of artists, interior designers, architects, collectors, gallerists, stylists, furniture designers and vintage retailers open the doors to their own homes - many for the first time.