The challenge of scaling the highest mountain, exploring the deepest ocean, crossing the hottest desert, or swimming in near-freezing water is irresistible to many people. Life at the Extremes is an engrossing exploration of what happens to our bodies in these seemingly uninhabitable environments. Frances Ashcroft weaves stories of extraordinary feats of endurance with historical material and the latest scientific findings as she investigates the limits of human survival and the remarkable adaptations that enable us to withstand extreme conditions.What causes mountain sickness? How is it possible to reach the top of Everest without supplementary oxygen, when passengers in an airplane that depressurized at the same altitude would lose consciousness in seconds? Why do divers get the bends but sperm whales do not? How long you can survive immersion in freezing water? Why don't penguins get frostbite? Will men always be faster runners than women? How far into deep space can a body travel?As she considers these questions, Ashcroft introduces a cast of extraordinary scientific personalities—inventors and explorers who have charted the limits of human survival. She describes many intriguing experiments and shows how scientific knowledge has enabled us to venture toward and beyond ever greater limits. Life at the Extremes also considers what happens when athletes push their bodies to the edge, and tells of the remarkable adaptations that enable some organisms to live in boiling water, in highly acidic lakes, or deep in the middle of rocks.Anyone who flies in an airplane, sails the high seas, goes skiing or walking in the mountains, or simply weathers subzero winters or sweltering summers will be captivated by this book. Full of scientific information, beautifully written, and packed with many fascinating digressions, Life at the Extremes lures us to the very edge of human survival.

Life at the Extremes

Science & Math

Ashcroft, Frances

Biological Sciences

University of California Pre

Thomas Mann, fascinated with the concept of genius and with the richness of German culture, found in Johann Wolfgang von Goethe the embodiment of the German culture hero. Mann's novelistic biography of Goethe was first published in English in 1940. Lotte in Weimar is a vivid dual portrait-a complex study of Goethe and of Lotte, the still-vivacious woman who in her youth was the model for Charlotte in Goethe's widely-read The Sorrows of Young Werther. Lotte's thoughts, as she anticipates meeting Goethe again after forty years, and her conversations with those in Weimar who knew the great man, allow Mann to assess Goethe's genius from many points of view. Hayden White's fresh appraisal of the novel reveals its consonances with our own concerns.

Lotte in Weimar: The Beloved Returns

Literature & Fiction

MANN, THOMAS

British & Irish

Speak Low (When You Speak Love): The Letters of Kurt Weill and Lotte Lenya

Weill, Kurt & Lotte Lenya

pp. 224, b/w and color illustrations, "The graphics are superb, and the layout of the book, where text, text boxes, the words of specialists, and graphics, are used to drive home the message, is remarkably creative. The information presented is very up-to-date, and there is so much to learn that the book lends itself to…

Mapping the Mind

Health, Fitness & Dieting

Carter, Rita.

Psychology & Counseling

Grands Vins: The Finest Chateaux of Bordeaux and Their Wines

Cookbooks, Food & Wine

Coates, Clive

Beverages & Wine

First edition. Biography of this California printer and designer. Loosely inserted is an article on Nash by Norman Strouse. Bookplate. Spotting along inner hinges. xii, 167 pages. cloth.. 8vo..

John Henry Nash : The Biography of a Career (University of California Publications. Librarianship, 7)

Biographies & Memoirs

Harlan, Robert D.

Regional U.S.

<p>This book comprises material on colour which was written by Wittgenstein in the last eighteen months of his life. It is one of the few documents which shows him concentratedly at work on a single philosophical issue. The principal theme is the features of different colours, of different kinds of colour (metallic colour, the colours of flames, etc.) and of luminosity—a theme which Wittgenstein treats in such a way as to destroy the traditional idea that colour is a simple and logically uniform kind of thing.</p>

Remarks on colour

Politics & Social Sciences

Wittgenstein, Ludwig

Philosophy

<p>TALES OF TIMES NOW PAST is a translation of 62 outstanding tales freshly selected from “Konjaku monogatari shu”, a Japanese anthology dating from the early twelfth century. The original work, unique in world literature, contains more than one thousand systematically arranged tales from India, China, and Japan. It is the most important example of a genre of collections of brief tales which, because of their informality and unpretentious style, were neglected by Japanese critics until recent years but which now acknowledged to be among the most significant prose literature of premodern Japan. “Konjaku” in particular has aroused the enthusiasm of such leading 20th-century writers as Akutagawa Ryunosuke and Tanizaki Jun’ichiro. The stories, with sources in both traditional lore and contemporary gossip, cover an astonishing range - homiletic, sentimental, terrifying, practical-minded, humorous, ribald. Their topics include the life of the Buddha, descriptions of Heaven and Hell, f</p>

Tales of Times Now Past: Sixty-two Stories from a Medieval Japanese Collection

Ury, Marian

Redefining Black Film

Humor & Entertainment

Reid, Mark A.

Movies

By following the trail of clues through each masterpiece this book explores the life of the artist and the masterpiece from its conception through to its unveiling and afterlife. The focus is mainly on "David" by Michelangelo and "The Scream" by Edvard Munch. The book covers a broad range of themes: the process by which a work was made - who commissioned it, the people involved in making it; the historic context; the reception of the work when unveiled; the theft of artworks; and the restoration of damaged works; dramatic discoveries, such as some of Rembrandt's works, which were painted over when out of fashion in previous centuries.

The Private Life of a Masterpiece

Bohm-Duchen, Monica

Arts & Photography

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