The long-awaited memoir of a trailblazer and role model who is telling her story for the first time. Eileen Collins was an aviation pioneer her entire career, from her crowning achievements as the first woman to command an American space mission as well as the first to pilot the space shuttle to her early years as one of the Air Force’s first female pilots. She was in the first class of women to earn pilot’s wings at Vance Air Force Base and was their first female instructor pilot. She was only the second woman pilot admitted to the Air Force’s elite Test Pilot Program at Edwards Air Force Base. NASA had such confidence in her skills as a leader and pilot that she was entrusted to command the first shuttle mission after the Columbia disaster, returning the US to spaceflight after a two-year hiatus. Since retiring from the Air Force and NASA, she has served on numerous corporate boards and is an inspirational speaker about space exploration and leadership. Eileen Collins is among the most recognized and admired women in the world, yet this is the first time she has told her story in a book. It is a story not only of achievement and overcoming obstacles but of profound personal transformation. The shy, quiet child of an alcoholic father and struggling single mother, who grew up in modest circumstances and was an unremarkable student, she had few prospects when she graduated from high school, but she changed her life to pursue her secret dream of becoming an astronaut. She shares her leadership and life lessons throughout the book with the aim of inspiring and passing on her legacy to a new generation.

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Dava Sobel, the "inspiring" (People), little-known true story of women's landmark contributions to astronomy A New York Times Book Review Notable Book of 2017 Named one of the best books of the year by NPR, The Economist, Smithsonian, Nature, and NPR's Science Friday Nominated for the PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award "A joy to read.” —The Wall Street Journal In the mid-nineteenth century, the Harvard College Observatory began employing women as calculators, or “human computers,” to interpret the observations their male counterparts made via telescope each night. At the outset this group included the wives, sisters, and daughters of the resident astronomers, but soon the female corps included graduates of the new women's colleges—Vassar, Wellesley, and Smith. As photography transformed the practice of astronomy, the ladies turned from computation to studying the stars captured nightly on glass photographic plates. The “glass universe” of half a million plates that Harvard amassed over the ensuing decades—through the generous support of Mrs. Anna Palmer Draper, the widow of a pioneer in stellar photography—enabled the women to make extraordinary discoveries that attracted worldwide acclaim. They helped discern what stars were made of, divided the stars into meaningful categories for further research, and found a way to measure distances across space by starlight. Their ranks included Williamina Fleming, a Scottish woman originally hired as a maid who went on to identify ten novae and more than three hundred variable stars; Annie Jump Cannon, who designed a stellar classification system that was adopted by astronomers the world over and is still in use; and Dr. Cecilia Helena Payne, who in 1956 became the first ever woman professor of astronomy at Harvard—and Harvard’s first female department chair. Elegantly written and enriched by excerpts from letters, diaries, and memoirs, The Glass Universe is the hidden history of the women whose contributions to the burgeoning field of astronomy forever changed our understanding of the stars and our place in the universe.

Around the world Champagne or Sparkling Wine remains a magical and ethereal beverage. Once the drink of kings, royalty and czars it is now the beverage of choice for celebrations of all kinds. And to many, it is their preferred drink for any occasion.The production methods have been closely guarded by the champagne houses and sparkling wine producers and add to the mystique. But now, an easy to understand guide to making high-quality sparkling wine is available.This book is a detailed production manual for making Méthode Champenoise sparkling wine. It is loaded with time saving details and how-to knowledge that will show you how to make high quality sparkling wine. You will learn what equipment is needed, how to configure it and how to quickly start making your very own sparkling wine. Written in an easy to understand style by professional winemaker Pedro Vargas, the book is chock full of practical information.

What if Cinderella’s prince didn't throw the ball to meet his true love? What if he had already found her? What if he was trying to save her life instead? Since the murder of her magically-gifted mother, Elaina has been raised and sheltered on her father’s ship. But when Elaina’s secret is compromised, she must return to land and live under the king’s protection...much to her objection. Ashland's crown prince, Nicholas, has never been without. Handsome, clever, and popular, he’s everything a prince should be and more. He is also, however, facing a possible civil war and a deadly foe who preys on his magic-gifted citizens. So when he meets Elaina, Nicholas delights in insisting that she share the military expertise gained on her father’s ship. He gets more than he bargained for, though, when he finds that he might have fallen for the one girl who refuses to fall for his charms. Elaina can see right through Prince Nicholas, and she is unimpressed. At least…she thinks she is. But just as she begins to admit that there may be more to the charming prince than meets the eye, a dark turn of events finds her exiled and forced into servitude, a civil war declared, and the murderer bloodthirstier than ever. Can Nicholas and Elaina defeat the dark forces that have poisoned their kingdom…and find their own happy ending as well? If you want the magic of Narnia and the romance of fairy tales, read this clean fantasy retelling of Cinderella today to escape into the Classical Kingdoms Collection, a series of clean fantasy fairy tale retellings with magical mystery, clean, passionate romance, and heroic happily-ever-afters. Author’s Note: Cinders, Stars, and Glass Slippers is the sixth book in the Classical Kingdoms Collection but can be read as a stand-alone novel as well.

Picture, if you can, a world without glass. There would be no microscopes or telescopes, no sciences of microbiology or astronomy. People with poor vision would grope in the shadows, and planes, cars, and even electricity probably wouldn't exist. Artists would draw without the benefit of three-dimensional perspective, and ships would still be steered by what stars navigators could see through the naked eye. In Glass: A World History, Alan Macfarlane and Gerry Martin tell the fascinating story of how glass has revolutionized the way we see ourselves and the world around us. Starting ten thousand years ago with its invention in the Near East, Macfarlane and Martin trace the history of glass and its uses from the ancient civilizations of India, China, and Rome through western Europe during the Renaissance, Enlightenment, and Industrial Revolution, and finally up to the present day. The authors argue that glass played a key role not just in transforming humanity's relationship with the natural world, but also in the divergent courses of Eastern and Western civilizations. While all the societies that used glass first focused on its beauty in jewelry and other ornaments, and some later made it into bottles and other containers, only western Europeans further developed the use of glass for precise optics, mirrors, and windows. These technological innovations in glass, in turn, provided the foundations for European domination of the world in the several centuries following the Scientific Revolution. Clear, compelling, and quite provocative, Glass is an amazing biography of an equally amazing subject, a subject that has been central to every aspect of human history, from art and science to technology and medicine.

Pioneers in fused studio and production glass since the 1940s, Michael and Frances Higgins continue to create some of today's most collectible glass objects. Higgins: Adventures in Glass chronicles their careers and accomplishments in the studio, at Dearborn Glass Company and at Haeger Potteries. A must-have for glass collectors and 1950s/1960s fans alike, this new book features 645 full-color photos, company catalog, vintage advertising, interviews with the artists and price guide. The Higgins' "modern miracles with everyday glass" will appeal to all with an interest in mid-20th century design and collectibles.

"The text provides a history of the Indian Glass company, shape and pattern definitions, identification and color guides. Prices are found in the captions and in tables within the text."--Cover.