"Not only does Joel Achenbach ask some great questions, but he actually answers them--and with a rigor that puts him somewhere between Socrates and Miss Manners. Plus he's funnier than either of them.: Judy Jones and William Wilson Authors of AN INCOMPLETE EDUCATION From the dawn of time to yesterday's headlines, from baseball to the atom bomb,fromant farms to Peperidge Farm, syndicated columnist Joel Achenbach answers the perennial question, WHY? Why do foreign languages sound so fast? Why do fools fall in love? Why don't people talk in elevators? And much more.

Why Things Are: Answers to Every Essential Question in Life

Humor & Entertainment

Achenbach, Joel

Humor

Ballantine Books

... Because Joel Achenbach, the intrepid syndicated columnist for The Washington Post, did not rest after answering the great questions of the day in Why Things Are. Here comes Volume II -- a book that provides not only astonishing facts about the worlds of science, politics, history, art, love and sex, but also the Big Picture as well. You'll be stunned, amazed, and hey, even smarter when you read the answers to these timeless questions: -- Why does time speed up as we get older? -- Why is Citizen Kane considered the best film of all time? -- Why do horrible songs like "The Candy Man" and "Kung Fu Fighting" get stuck in your head, until finally you want to throw yourself off a bridge (over troubled water)? -- Why is it better to slice a sandwich diagonally, rather than straight across? -- Why is love so difficult? -- Why are politicians always getting into sex scandals? -- Why doesn't a black hole somewhere get so big and powerful that it eventually goes sklurrp! and sucks the entire galaxy, including planet earth, into its dreadful maw?

Why Things Are, Volume II

WHAT IS REALITY, ANYWAY? FUNNY YOU SHOULD ASK. Washington Post columnist Joel Achenbach refuses to take "I don't know" for an answer. In Why Things Are, he gave you a world of answers in a nutshell. Well, once again it's time to get cracking. Just ask Achenbach, who's out to crack every mystery in the book. After all, why stop asking why when there's no end of questions left to be asked? * Why is the Oval Office oval? * Why is it so darn hard to lose weight? * Why did Napoleon keep his hand tucked in his vest? * Why is Muzak everywhere even though people claim they dislike "elevator music"? * Since we're mostly made of water, why don't we slosh around more? * Why are people so obsessed with talking, thinking, and hearing about sex? * Why is the interior of the Earth still hot after 4.6 billion years of letting off steam (and lava)? Why doesn't this thing ever cool off? Truly outrageous and outrageously true. That's the name of Joel Achenbach's game in this wildly original collection of questions and answers. If you have a taste for the unusual, here's a book that's just as fun as a box of assorted chocolates--but far less fattening.

Why Things Are & Why Things Aren't

A witty analysis of the search for extraterrestrial life reflects on larger issues of science, superstition, and spirituality to examine the elusive question of aliens' existence and discusses Carl Sagan, alien abduction, and other related topics. By the author of Why Things Are. Tour.

Captured By Aliens: The Search for Life and Truth in a Very Large Universe

Religion & Spirituality

Occult & Paranormal

Simon&Schuster

Chronicles retired general George Washington's adventurous 680-mile trek down the Potomac River, a journey during which he endeavored to prevent disunion, collected key frontier and real-estate data, tangled with squatters and the natural elements, and inspired engineering achievements. 40,000 first printing.

The Grand Idea: George Washington's Potomac and the Race to the West

History

Americas

Provides a humorous look at the 2000 presidential election campaign, from the primaries in New Hampshire to the recount debacle in Florida.

It Looks Like a President Only Smaller: Trailing Campaign 2000

The Grand Idea follows George Washington in the critical period immediately after the War of Independence. The general had great hopes for his young nation, but also grave fears. He worried that the United States was so fragmented politically and culturally that it would fall apart, and that the "West," beyond the Appalachian mountains, would become a breakaway republic. So he came up with an ambitious scheme: He would transform the Potomac River into the nation's premier commercial artery, binding East and West, bolstering domestic trade, and staving off disunion. This was no armchair notion. Washington saddled up and rode west on a 680-mile trek to the raucous frontier of America. Achenbach captures a Washington rarely seen: rugged frontiersman, real estate speculator, shrewd businessman. Even after his death, Washington's grand ambition inspired heroic engineering feats, including an audacious attempt to build a canal across the mountains to the Ohio River. But the country needed more than commercial arteries to hold together, and in the Civil War, the general's beloved river became a battlefield between North and South. Like such classics as Undaunted Courage and Founding Brothers, Achenbach's riveting portrait of a great man and his grand plan captures the imagination of the new country, the passions of an ambitious people, and the seemingly endless beauty of the American landscape.

An examination of both sides of the extraterrestrial debate places it into the context of the space program, discoveries in astronomy, and the human quest for meaning, discussing the contributions of numerous scientists, ufologists, and spiritualists. Reprint.

Captured by Aliens: The Search for Life and Truth in a Very Large Universe

New Age & Spirituality

Citadel Pr

It was a technological crisis in an alien realm: a blown-out oil well in mile-deep water in the Gulf of Mexico. For the engineers who had to kill the well, this was like Apollo 13, a crisis no one saw coming, and one of untold danger and challenge. A suspense story, a mystery, a technological thriller: This is Joel Achenbach’s groundbreaking account of the Deepwater Horizon disaster and what came after. The tragic explosion on the huge drilling rig in April 2010 killed eleven men and triggered an environmental disaster. As a gusher of crude surged into the Gulf’s waters, BP engineers and government scientists—awkwardly teamed in Houston—raced to devise ways to plug the Macondo well. Achenbach, a veteran reporter for The Washington Post and acclaimed science writer for National Geographic, moves beyond the blame game to tell the gripping story of what it was like, behind the scenes, moment by moment, in the struggle to kill Macondo. Here are the controversies, the miscalculations, the frustrations, and ultimately the technical triumphs of men and women who worked out of sight and around the clock for months to find a way to plug the well. The Deepwater Horizon disaster was an environmental 9/11. The government did not have the means to solve the problem; only the private sector had the tools, and it didn’t have the right ones as the country became haunted by Macondo’s black plume, which was omnipresent on TV and the Internet. Remotely operated vehicles, the spaceships of the deep, had to perform the challenging technical ma-neuvers on the seafloor. Engineers choreographed this robotic ballet and crammed years of innovation into a single summer. As he describes the drama in Houston, Achenbach probes the government investigation into what went wrong in the deep sea. This was a confounding mystery, an engineering whodunit. The lessons of this tragedy can be applied broadly to all complex enterprises and should make us look more closely at the highly engineered society that surrounds us. Achenbach has written a cautionary tale that doubles as a technological thriller.

A Hole at the Bottom of the Sea: The Race to Kill the BP Oil Gusher

The struggle to kill the BP Macondo gusher in the Gulf of Mexico is the Apollo 13 of our time. This is the story of the nightmare well and of the men who conquered it in dangerous waters. It is a technological thriller for the ages. It was a technological crisis in an alien realm: a blown-out oil well in mile-deep water in the Gulf of Mexico. For the engineers who had to kill the well, this was like Apollo 13, a crisis of untold danger and an unprecedented challenge. A suspense story, a mystery, a human tragedy: Achenbach has written a cautionary tale that doubles as a technological thriller.

Business & Money

Biography & History

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Achenbach, Joel. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Achenbach, Joel

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Achenbach, Joel. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Why Things Are: Answers to Every Essential Question in Life

Why Things Are, Volume II

Why Things Are & Why Things Aren't

Captured By Aliens: The Search for Life and Truth in a Very Large Universe

The Grand Idea: George Washington's Potomac and the Race to the West

It Looks Like a President Only Smaller: Trailing Campaign 2000

The Grand Idea: George Washington's Potomac and the Race to the West

Captured by Aliens: The Search for Life and Truth in a Very Large Universe

A Hole at the Bottom of the Sea: The Race to Kill the BP Oil Gusher

A Hole at the Bottom of the Sea: The Race to Kill the BP Oil Gusher