Is it possible to be passionate about politics, football or R&B and still be a creative scientist? In this entertaining and inspiring account, Nobel Prize winner Peter Doherty offers readers an insider's guide into discovery science and the individuals who work in it.

Starting with the story of his own career and its improbable origins in the outer suburbs of Brisbane, and its progression to a breakthrough discovery about how human immunity works. Doherty explores the realities of a life in science. How research projects are selected; how discovery science is resourced and organised; the big problems it is trying to solve; and the rewards and pitfalls of a career in scientific research: all these are explored in The Beginner's Guide to Winning the Nobel Prize.

Doherty gives readers an insight into the issues that make him tick including his belief that the mission of science is to help make the world a better place to live in. He also essays answers to some of the great questions of our age. Are Nobel Prize winners exceptional human beings or just lucky? Are GMO crops really dangerous? And why can't scientists and born-again Christians get along?

Dorothy Wordsworth's journals are a unique record of her life with her brother William, at the time when he was at the height of his poetic powers. Invaluable for the insight they give into the daily life of the poet and his friendship with Coleridge, they are also remarkable for their spontaneity and immediacy, and for the vivid descriptions of people, places, and incidents that inspired some of Wordsworth's best-loved poems. The Grasmere Journal was begun at Dove Cottage in May 1800 and kept for three years. Dorothy notes the walks and the weather, the friends, country neighbors and beggars on the roads; she sets down accounts of the garden, of Wordsworth's marriage, their concern for Coleridge, the composition of poetry. The earlier Alfoxden Journal was written during 1797-8, when the Wordsworths lived near Coleridge in Somerset. Not intended for publication, but to "give Wm Pleasure by it," both journals have a quality recognized by Wordsworth when he wrote of Dorothy that "she gave me eyes, she gave me ears."

The never-before-told story of how the Beatles nearly reunited.

Although it wasn't made official until an announcement from Paul McCartney in 1970, The Beatles–the most influential rock band of the 20th century–spent most of the late 1960s breaking up. The split was marked my animosity and acrimony, with pointed conflict, in particular, between the groups two most prolific songwriters, John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Lennon left the band in 1969, and the '70s were marked by public feuding as the band members embarked on solo careers.

Beatles fans know the '70s as a bitter time, with Lennon and McCartney making pointed and hurtful comments about each other, both in recorded songs (Lennon's "How Do You Sleep," is particularly nasty) and public comments. Lawsuits proliferated, as did an explosive correspondence between McCartney and his wife Linda, and Lennon and his wife Yoko Ono.

But most fans don't know that McCartney and Lennon nearly renewed their creative alliance in the aftermath of the Beatles breakup, and were close to putting aside their difference and reuniting. Come Together is a compelling account of a crucial period in post-'60s Beatles history, providing a new look at the Lennon-McCartney relationship from an entirely new perspective, emphasizing the efforts these larger-than-life rock stars made to overcome their enmity. It also offers fresh insight on the musical ambitions and personal motivations for renewing a creative alliance that so nearly happened but was thwarted by circumstances beyond their control.