Peter Macinnis: 8 books

Poisons permeate our world. They are in the environment, the workplace, the home. They are in food, our favorite whiskey, medicine, and well water. They have been used to cure diseases as well as incapacitate and kill. They smooth wrinkles, block pain, stimulate and enhance athletic ability. In this...

Forty years after first chewing on sugar cane in New Guinea, the home of sugar, the author underwent some complex dental work as a direct result of his sweet tooth. This led him to explore sugar cane's journey from New Guinea to Shakespeare's England. In the days before dentistry, people paid dearly...

Throughout history, momentous, enabling discoveries have led to a giant leap in our understanding of the workings of the universe and fast-tracked human progress. 100 Discoveries presents the greatest 100 breakthroughs in science and technology, medicine, and the major areas of human endeavour of...

In 1859 Charles Darwin's revolutionary The Origin of Species was first published but the book was as much a symptom of change as a cause. In that year scientists peered through microscopes and discovered the workings of tiny organisms; technology made huge leaps and bounds as machines took on tasks...

Did you know that, in 1934, the ABC developed synthetic cricket, in which radio broadcasters gave a ball-by-ball description of the game, using sound effects to simulate the sound of bat on ball and the applause of the crowd? The Big Book of Australian History features stunning images from the collections...

Have you ever wondered why sometimes after you have washed your socks, one of them mysteriously disappears? Or why your shoelaces always seem to get tangled into tricky knots? The answer is, you probably have a monster problem or, more specifically, two monster problems with a gobblesock living behind...

Our story starts around 700 BC when the Chinese used a form of gunpowder to fumigate their houses. The first real rockets were gunpowder filled sections of bamboo thrown under horses to scare them; the next development was to tie these to arrows. The Mongols took rockets from China to Europe...

Psst! It's true! This is the best book on POISONS you'll ever read! There's poison in pips, harm in herbs and definitely death in dyes. Poison is everywhere! Read about toxic wallpaper that killed even bedbugs. Find out why buns were bad for bun-buyers and how a poison might cure cancer....