Most Popular Books by Ian MacDonald

Assessment of the Beatles artistic achievement providing biographical, musical, and historical detail through a chronology of their songs.

''The masterpiece The Beatles deserved'' Vox ''The finest piece of Fabs scholarship ever published'' MOJO

Leven en werk van de Russische componist (1906-1975).

Here, the author examines gossip as a form of ''verbal grooming'', and as a means of strengthening relationships. He challenges the idea that language developed during male activities such as hunting, and that it was actually amongst women that it evolved.

This book grew from small beginnings as I began to find unexpected patterns emerging from the data in the literature. The more I thought about the way in which primate social systems worked, the more interesting things turned out to be. I am conscious that, at times, this has introduced a certain amount of complexity into the text. I make no apologies for that: what we are dealing with is a complex subject, the product of evolutionary forces interacting with very sophisticated minds. None the less, I have done my best to explain every thing as clearly as I can in order to make the book accessible to as wide an audience as possible. I have laid a heavy emphasis in this book on the use of simple graphical and mathematical models. Their sophistication, however, is not great and does not assume more than a knowledge of elementary probability theory. Since their role will inevitably be misunderstood, I take this opportunity to stress that their function is essentially heuristic rather than explanatory: they are designed to focus our attention on the key issues so as to point out the directions for further research. A model is only as good as the questions it prompts us to ask. For those whose natural inclination is to dismiss modelling out of hand, I can only point to the precision that their use can offer us in terms of hypothesis-testing.

Robin Dunbar asks whether science really is unique to Western culture, even to humankind. He suggests that our "trouble with science" may lie in the fact that evolution has left our minds better able to cope with day-to-day social interaction than with the complexities of the external world.

Wild mercury: a tale of two Dylans - Marvellous Marvin reconsidered - John and Paul: the start of a partnership - The Stones in the sixties - Chic: elegance and alienation - Cream: Those Were the Days - Retire the fences: The Beach Boys from gimmick to gospel - Jimi Hendrix: transcending the blues - The Band''s Music from the Big Pink - The psychedelic Beatles: love and drugs - Bob Marley and the message of Rastafarianism - Lenny Bruce: timebound topicality - America''s John: the radical Lennon - Love''s Forever Changes - Decadent diversions: Steally Dan''s Gaucho - The artistry of Laura Nyro - Tropic of Gemini: Miles Davis''s Filles de Kilimanjaro - White lines, black magic: Bowie''s dark doings - Pulse of the Machine - Simon and Garfunkel: polite rebellion - Not a revolution: Jefferson Airplane from play-power to power-play - The elusive Spirit - John Fahey: minstrel of the mysterious - Randy Newman''s debut album - Minimalism and the corporate age - Homage to the Supremes - Pink Floyd''s Echoes - The people''s music - Exiled from heaven: the unheard message of Nick Drake.

Controversial and captivating, this uniquely accessible guide explores what happens when evolutionary theory is applied to human behaviour.

"e;I hate having no breakfast!"e; cried Baby Bear. "e;I hate making the beds every day!"e; added Mama Bear. "e;And I hate mending broken chairs!"e; said Papa Bear. "e;ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!"e; This series is based around famous fairy tales, but not in the form the reader might expect. These tales have been tweaked to enchant and amuse a modern audience, including a princess who prefers frogs to princes, an intergalactic Red Riding Hood, Goldilocks the vandal, a ragtag band of characters forming a superhero league and more. The balanced combination of low word count with imaginative plots ensures that reluctant readers are stimulated and drawn in to stories that they can realistically comprehend, providing much needed confidence going forwards.

Starting in July 1955 and carrying through to the spring of 1956, the Tupper Inquiry, which was investigating the activities of Chief Constable Walter Mulligan and the Vancouver Police Department, was front-page news. Every evening at 6:10 p.m. precisely, virtually every radio that could pick up the signal turned the dial to Jack Webster on CJOR. Could Mulligan really be in cahoots with local bookies? Could Vancouver''s chief constable be a ''top cop on the take?" The Mulligan affair had everything it takes to make headlines: death, graft, bootleggers, bookies, corruption, hookers, gambling, cops and politicians with memory loss and a veiled mystery lady.

"This book was devised and produced by Multimedia Productions" Includes index.

"For as long as history has been with us, religion has been a feature of human life. There is no known culture for which we have an ethnographic or an archaeological record that does not have some form of religion. Even in the secular societies that have become more common in the past few centuries, there are people who consider themselves religious and aspire to practise the rituals of their religion. These religions vary in form, style and size from small cults numbering a few hundred people centred around a charismatic leader to worldwide organizations numbering tens, or even hundreds, of millions of adherents with representations in every country. Some, like Buddhism, take an individualistic stance (your salvation is entirely in your own hands), some like the older Abrahamic religions view salvation as more of a collective activity through the performance of appropriate rituals, and a few (Judaism is one) have no formal concept of an afterlife. Some like Christianity and Islam believe in a single all- powerful God,