The 1987 publication of Iain M. Banks's Consider Phlebas helped trigger the British renaissance of radical hard science fiction and influenced a generation of New Space Opera masters. The thirteen SF novels that followed inspired an avid fandom and intense intellectual engagement while Banks's mains[...]

In a book of unprecedented scope--now available in a larger format--Iain McGilchrist presents a fascinating exploration of the differences between the brain's left and right hemispheres, and how those differences have affected society, history, and culture. McGilchrist draws on a vast body of recent[...]

It begins in the realm of the Real, where matter still matters.
It begins with a murder.And it will not end until the Culture has gone to war with death itself.
Lededje Y'breq is one of the Intagliated, her marked body bearing witness to a family shame, her life belonging to a man whose lust [...]

CONSIDER PHLEBAS.
The war raged across the galaxy. The Idirans fought for their Faith; the Culture for its moral right to exist. Deep within a fabled labyrinth on a barren world, a Planet of the Dead proscribed to mortals, lay a fugitive Mind. Both the Culture and the Idirans sought it. It was th[...]

Eighteen-year-old Kit is weird: big, strange, odd, socially disabled, on a spectrum that stretches from "highly gifted" at one end, to "nutter" at the other. At least Kit knows who his father is; he and Guy live together in a decaying country house on the unstable brink of a vast quarry. His mother'[...]

* How do young children learn science, design and technology? * How can we support young children and help them to develop scientific, design and technology skills? This practical and accessible text answers these questions and provides guidance for adults working with young children in a variety of[...]

Precious wants to be a detective when she grows up. She is always practicing at being a detective by asking questions and finding out about other people's lives. There are two new students in her class, a girl called Teb and a boy called Pontsho. She learns that they are brother and sister, and--eve[...]