A journey into the mind, showing the reader exactly how our minds work and how we can use this information to comprehend our behaviour. The author undertakes a variety of weird experiments to discover the reasons behind his own habits - such as making inappropriate jokes at the wrong time.

It is fast becoming clear that our lives revolve around the powers of emergence. Order arrives from the bottom-up, not top-down. This work looks at the cities we inhabit, the media frenzies we suffer and the games we play, showing how individual actions without central planning often create a wonderfully adaptive communal intelligence.

The making of the Oxford English Dictionary was a monumental 50 year task requiring thousands of volunteers. One of the keenest volunteers was a W C Minor who astonished everyone by refusing to come to Oxford to receive his congratulations. In the end, James Murray, the OED's editor, went to Crowthorne in Berkshire to meet him.

Tells what happens when the unthinkable becomes reality: when a deadly virus, from the rain forests of Africa, crosses continents and infects a monkey house ten miles from the White House. Ebola is that reality. It has the power to decimate the world's population. Try not to panic. It will be back. There is nothing you can do.

Putting forward an alternative to the endless complaints about reality TV, throwaway movies and violent video games, this book shows that mass culture is actually more sophisticated and challenging than ever before.

Chronicles the destruction of Indonesian island of Krakatoa in 1883. This book describes how one island and its inhabitants were blasted out of existence and how colonial society was turned upside-down in a cataclysm.