Called "spellbinding" (Scientific American) and "thrilling...a future classic of popular science" (PW), the up close, inside story of the greatest space exploration project of our time, New Horizons’ mission to Pluto, as shared with David Grinspoon by mission leader Alan Stern and other key players. On July 14, 2015, something amazing happened. More than 3 billion miles from Earth, a small NASA spacecraft called New Horizons screamed past Pluto at more than 32,000 miles per hour, focusing its instruments on the long mysterious icy worlds of the Pluto system, and then, just as quickly, continued on its journey out into the beyond. Nothing like this has occurred in a generation—a raw exploration of new worlds unparalleled since NASA’s Voyager missions to Uranus and Neptune—and nothing quite like it is planned to happen ever again. The photos that New Horizons sent back to Earth graced the front pages of newspapers on all 7 continents, and NASA’s website for the mission received more than 2 billion hits in the days surrounding the flyby. At a time when so many think that our most historic achievements are in the past, the most distant planetary exploration ever attempted not only succeeded in 2015 but made history and captured the world’s imagination. How did this happen? Chasing New Horizons is the story of the men and women behind this amazing mission: of their decades-long commitment and persistence; of the political fights within and outside of NASA; of the sheer human ingenuity it took to design, build, and fly the mission; and of the plans for New Horizons’ next encounter, 1 billion miles past Pluto in 2019. Told from the insider’s perspective of mission leader Dr. Alan Stern and others on New Horizons, and including two stunning 16-page full-color inserts of images, Chasing New Horizons is a riveting account of scientific discovery, and of how much we humans can achieve when people focused on a dream work together toward their incredible goal.

In 1756 Calcutta is a city on the brink of Empire. The grandiose buildings of White Town, settled about Fort William, stand in stark contrast to the bustle of Black Town across the Maratha Ditch. In White Town Chief Magistrate Holwell and his arch-rival Governor Drake must unite to outwit the dangerous schemes of the nawab of Murshidabad. In Black Town the half-cast girl Sati, believed possessed by the Goddess Kali, finds herself the centre of a religious cult. But in Murshidabad the nawab wishes only to rid India of the British - an obsession that will lead to the notorious incident of 'The Black Hole of Calcutta.' 'Chand tells the story in a direct and compelling manner. The prose sweeps forward, and she evokes the period beautifully.' Telegraph 'Gripping... This rich and powerful novel is a wonderful historical epic and a poignant account of human suffering.' Good Book Guide

“I have always chased my father, chased after his love, chased him through his many changes. I chased him even when I thought I was running in the other direction. Today, even though he is gone, I chase him still. I know he is the key to my freedom.” To runners around the world, Dr. George Sheehan, author of the landmark New York Times bestseller Running and Being, was nothing short of a guru — the country’s “greatest philosopher of sport.” But to his son Andrew, who had spent his entire boyhood longing for the attention and approval of an emotionally distant father, he was an incomprehensible paradox: a lifelong loner, who was now sunning himself in the spotlight of the nation’s press; a hero to millions, who seemed to have no time for his own son. The events that transformed George Sheehan from doctor to family man to bestselling author and media magnet began at the depths of what we would now call a midlife crisis, when he rediscovered an old love — running. Twenty-five years after his days on a high school cross-country team, he remembered how running made him feel free, and began beating a solitary path down his suburban streets. With running as his new religion, the formerly quiet, withdrawn man became an unlikely evangelist, converting a sedentary nation to the theology of fitness, and in the process becoming an internationally known figure. But the freedom he found in running was not enough, and one day he left his family, having decided that life was “an experiment of one,” and it was time for him to start living it. Angry and disillusioned after years of enduring his father’s self-absorption, and hurt by his apparent indifference, Andrew had long since begun the search for his own version of freedom, looking first to drugs and later to alcohol. By his twenties he was a confirmed alcoholic. By his thirties his marriage had fallen apart and he was drinking more heavily than ever. It was at that moment that his father threw him a lifeline. Although he was struggling with the cancer that would eventually end his life, Dr. Sheehan was the first to notice his son’s pain, and to reach out to him. In this stunningly candid book, Andrew Sheehan describes the process through which these two men carefully and lovingly rebuilt their relationship. And in the effort to understand and forgive the dark side of his father’s psyche, Andrew shows how he came to understand, and to transcend, his own. A gracefully written paean to the healing power of forgiveness, a memoir that will resonate with any “fallible” parent or child, Chasing the Hawk traces the arduous steps that carry father and son down the hard road to resolution, healing, and love.

Pursued by Government agents, Troy Eastman and a group of dedicated scientists are in a race against time to unravel the mysteries of an alien species and save the planet.

Stalked by a black bear, encountering a close shave with a bull buffalo, having his tent eaten by an elk and being mugged by a gang of racoons; these are just a few of the adventures the author experiences as he attempts to circumnavigate North America by motorcycle in 2009. In doing so he discovers a land and two countries that feature a number of different divides – political, national, cultural and geographical. The early chapters describe the minimal planning that took place and the doubts that hit him when he begins his journey, finding his motorcycle impounded by US Customs, but then gradually transform with the release of the bike into a classic road trip as he delves down the Appalachians into Alabama, meeting kindred spirits from the biking world on the way and warming mile by mile into a deep appreciation of the splendour of the landscape and the warmth of the inhabitants. Later into the journey he travels through the First Nation reservations and looks into the history surrounding the demise of the Great Plains culture, describing the victory of the Sioux and their allies at Little Bighorn then the massacre at Wounded Knee, meeting descendants of those involved. The book is light-hearted and written in the spirit of gentle adventure by someone who admits to being a ‘pretty slow rider’ and a navigational incompetent to boot. If he manages to get back to Baltimore it will be a small miracle and hopefully, by the time he gets there, he will have finally found out what the ‘Great Divide’ really is.