Bücher veröffentlicht von ICON BOOKS

Protect Yourself, Read People, Influence Situations, and Live Fearlessly.

'Queer: A Graphic History Could Totally Change the Way You Think About Sex and Gender' ViceActivist-academic Meg-John Barker and cartoonist Jules Scheele illuminate the histories of queer thought and LGBTQ+ action in this groundbreaking non-fiction graphic novel.From identity politics and gender roles to privilege and exclusion, Queer explores how we came to view sex, gender and sexuality in the ways that we do; how these ideas get tangled up with our culture and our understanding of biology, psychology and sexology; and how these views have been disputed and challenged.Along the way we look at key landmarks which shift our perspective of what's 'normal' - Alfred Kinsey's view of sexuality as a spectrum, Judith Butler's view of gendered behaviour as a performance, the play Wicked, or moments in Casino Royale when we're invited to view James Bond with the kind of desiring gaze usually directed at female bodies in mainstream media. Presented in a brilliantly engaging and witty style, this is a unique portrait of the universe of queer thinking.

The first English-language biography of Formula 1's hottest new talent, Dutchman Max Verstappen.

'An original, wide-ranging and carefully researched book ... contains important lessons for humanity.' Mark Cocker, The SpectatorA fascinating insight into climate change biology around the globe, as well as in our own backyards.Hurricane Lizards and Plastic Squid is the first major book by a biologist to focus on the fascinating story of how the natural world is adjusting, adapting, and sometimes measurably evolving in response to climate change. Lyrical and thought-provoking, this book broadens the climate focus from humans to the wider lattice of life.Bestselling nature writer Thor Hanson - author of Buzz (a Radio 4 'Book of the Week') - shows us how Caribbean lizards have grown larger toe pads to grip trees more tightly during frequent hurricanes; and how the 'plasticity' of squid has allowed them to change their body size and breeding habits to cope with altered sea temperatures.Plants and animals have a great deal to teach us about the nature of what comes next, because for many of them, and also for many of us, that world is already here.

The mysterious phenomena that could unlock the secrets of the universe.

An exciting new exploration of gender from the creators of the groundbreaking Queer: A Graphic History

A completely revised and updated edition of the bestselling productivity guide

From acclaimed journalist Adam Hay-Nicholls, the very first biography of rising star Charles Leclerc, published to mark the start of the 2023 Formula One season. Few of the drivers on the F1 grid have the racing pedigree of Charles Leclerc. Widely regarded as one of the sport's hottest prospects, he was crowned F3 and then F2 champion in back-to-back seasons before he made his F1 debut with Sauber in 2018. Now firmly established as Ferrari's great hope, following in the footsteps of legends Alberto Ascari, Niki Lauda and Michael Schumacher, Leclerc has his eyes set on becoming world champion. Born in Monaco to a family of comparatively modest means, Leclerc remembers playing with toy cars on a friend's balcony as the best drivers in the world whizzed around the Monte Carlo circuit on the streets below. This early experience inspired him to get behind the wheel, encouraged by his father Hervé, and so began his meteoric rise in the sport. Along the way, he lost his father, his godfather and his best friend - all racing drivers - and this gave Leclerc the inner steel to become a winner. Writer Adam Hay-Nicholls, who has spent much of his career in the Formula One paddock, provides the inside track on this rising star, recounting how he has taken the racing world by storm. And as Leclerc's Ferrari is beginning to fire on all cylinders, will he beat his old rival and adversary Max Verstappen to the world title?

Brian Clegg was always fascinated by Isaac Asimov's classic Foundation series of books, in which the future is predicted using sophisticated mathematical modelling of human psychology and behaviour.Only much later did he realise that Asimov's 'psychohistory' had a real-world equivalent: game theory.Originating in the study of probabilistic gambling games that depend on a random source - the throw of a dice or the toss of a coin - game theory soon came to be applied to human interactions: essentially, what was the best strategy to win, whatever you were doing? Its mathematical techniques have been applied, with varying degrees of wisdom, to fields such as economics, evolution, and questions such as how to win a nuclear war.Clegg delves into game theory's colourful history and significant findings, and shows what we can all learn from this oft-misunderstood field of study.

After over a decade of Bitcoin, which has now moved beyond lore and hype into an increasingly robust star in the firmament of global assets, a new and more important question has arisen. What happens beyond Bitcoin? The answer is decentralised finance - 'DeFi'.Tech and finance experts Steven Boykey Sidley and Simon Dingle argue that DeFi - which enables all manner of financial transactions to take place directly, person to person, without the involvement of financial institutions - will redesign the cogs and wheels in the engines of trust, and make the remarkable rise of Bitcoin look quaint by comparison. It will disrupt and displace fine and respectable companies, if not entire industries.Sidley and Dingle explain how DeFi works, introduce the organisations and individuals that comprise the new industry, and identify the likely winners and losers in the coming revolution.

An explosive, revisionist history of the dark past, and darker present of the internet.

James Riley, author of the cult hit The Bad Trip: Dark Omens, New Worlds and the End of the Sixties, returns with another incisive and thought-provoking cultural history, turning his trenchant eye to the wellness industry that emerged in the 1970s. Concepts such as wellness and self-care may feel like distinctly twenty-first century ideas, but they first gained traction as part of the New Age health movements that began to flourish in the wake of the 1960s. Riley dives into this strange and hypnotic world of panoramic coastal retreats and darkened floatation tanks, blending a page-turning narrative with illuminating explorations of the era's music, film, art and literature. Well Beings delves deep into the mind of the seventies - its popular culture, its radical philosophies, its approach to health and its sense of social crisis. It tells the story of what was sought, what was found and how these explorations helped the 'Me Decade' find itself. In so doing, it questions what good health means today and reveals what the seventies can teach us about the strange art of being well.

Over 50 years ago, astronomers launched the world's first orbiting telescope. This allowed them to gaze further into outer space and examine anything that appears in the sky above our heads, from comets and planets to galaxy clusters and stars. Since then, almost 100 space telescopes have been launched from Earth and are orbiting our planet, with 26 still active and relaying information back to us.As a result of these space-based instruments, such as NASA's iconic Hubble Space Telescope, we know much more about the universe than we did half a century ago. But why is Hubble, orbiting just 540 kilometres above the Earth, so much more effective than a ground-based telescope? How can a glorified camera tell us not only what distant objects look like, but their detailed chemical composition and three-dimensional structure as well?

The jagged mountains dividing China and Burma belong to the Wa, an indigenous group who have outwitted the CIA to create the world's mightiest narco-state, controlling more territory than Israel and with more troops than Sweden. Are they crime lords? Or visionaries?Wa State has become a real nation with its own highways, anthems, schools and flags. Its leaders promise a utopia, using profits from trafficking heroin and meth to attain what China's other frontier peoples, Tibetans and Uighurs, can only dream of: a state of their own. Patrick Winn (author of Hello, Shadowlands) embarks on a risky journey of discovery, chasing clues about the forbidden republic from Thailand to Burma to the secretive Wa State itself.

A stag leaps on an ancient brooch. A doe and a fawn step across a field at first light. A pair of antlers is silhouetted by the side of a busy road.From the earliest cave paintings to the present day, humans and deer have a long and complex history. Royal harts were the coveted quarry of European kings, while the first Americans relied on deer for everything from buckskins to arrow heads. Once hunted to the point of extinction in some parts of the world, deer numbers have exploded in recent years, causing tension between scientists and conservationists. And yet, this is our own story, as the fortune of deer is inextricably bound up with the actions that we humans take on the world around us.

'Gribbin has inspired generations with his popular science writing' Jim Al-KhaliliA scintillating collection of short essays that really does cover 'life, the Universe, and everything'.From the mysteries of the subatomic world to the curious property of water that makes our planet inhabitable, master of popular science John Gribbin delves into the astonishing facts that underlie our existence.Some aspects of the quantum world really do seem impossible to 'common sense', but have been proved correct by experiments. Other features of the Universe appear obvious, such as the fact that atoms are mostly empty space. But this familiarity hides the truly amazing truths underpinning these observations. And some things merely seem improbable but are also hiding a Deep Truth, such as the fact that the Moon and Sun look the same size as viewed from Earth.This book will change forever the way you view the world.

From James Gray, author of the bestselling Max Verstappen, comes the very first biography of Lewis Hamilton's designated successor George Russell, published to mark the British Grand Prix. From dominating the karting tracks of East Anglia to the top of the podium in Formula 3 and Formula 2, George Russell has now fully established himself as a rising Formula 1 star. After cutting his teeth as a driver with Williams, in 2022 he signed a lucrative contract with Mercedes, highlighting the extent of his raw talent. Driving for Mercedes, Russell has been confirmed as the designated successor to none other than Lewis Hamilton. As Hamilton's heir-apparent, will this protégé manage to follow in the footsteps of the greatest F1 driver of all time? Sports journalist and author of Max Verstappen James Gray traces how George Russell has been setting the racing track alight since the age of seven and how he is now destined to become the successor to the crown of British motor racing.

** TO BE READ ON BBC RADIO 4 BOOK OF THE WEEK FROM 5 DEC 2022 **'Curious, lively, humble, utterly genuine ... a remarkable debut.' SUNDAY TIMESAlice Vernon often wakes up to find strangers in her bedroom.Ever since she was a child, her nights have been haunted by nightmares of a figure from her adolescence, sinister hallucinations and episodes of sleepwalking. These are known as 'parasomnias' - and they're surprisingly common. Now a lecturer in Creative Writing, Vernon set out to understand the history, science and culture of these strange and haunting experiences. Night Terrors, her startling and vivid debut, examines the history of our relationship with bad dreams: how we've tried to make sense of and treat them, from some decidedly odd 'cures' like magical 'mare-stones', to research on how video games might help people rewrite their dreams. Along the way she explores the Salem Witch Trials and sleep paralysis, Victorian ghost stories, and soldiers' experiences of PTSD. By directly confronting her own strange and frightening nights for the first time, Vernon encourages us to think about the way troubled sleep has impacted our imaginations.Night Terrors aims to shine a light on the darkest parts of our sleeping lives, and to reassure sufferers from bad dreams that they are not alone.