The Gifts of the Jews, by Thomas Cahill

 
What is it about a ragtag group of nomads that has both inspired and outraged civilizations for four millenia?  In the second book of his Hinges of History series,  Thomas Cahill digs into the larger themes that separate the Jewish peoples from the people around them, and shows how the evolution of a culture, a [...]

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The Ghost Map, by Steven Johnson

“Reports had surfaced of some customers discovering live eels in their drinking water, which suggested that the filters were not perhaps working optimally.”

CSI: 1850. A deadly epidemic of cholera sweeps through a London neighborhood, claiming its victims in a pattern with a deadly epicenter: the Broad Street water pump. OK, it’s tough writing a medical [...]

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Queen of Fashion: What Marie Antoinette Wore To the Revolution, by Caroline Weber

If you need something to fill up the empty space where Project Runway used to be… if you pause the DVD of Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette on the close-ups of Marie’s satiny, beribboned heels… do I have a book for you!
Weber looks at the reign and downfall of Marie Antoinette, eighteenth-century fashionista, with a focus [...]

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The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl, by Timothy Egan

What if we misused and overextended our natural resources so badly that we ruined the environment? What if years of mistreatment led to a day when the land, depleted, suddenly went into a dangerous and rapid decline that we couldn’t fix? These are questions that many of us worry about today as pollution worsens, carbon [...]

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Wild Trees, by Richard Preston

What is it about coastal redwoods that would inspire people to risk their lives to be near them? For starters, this type of redwood is located in only a few areas, but those are nearly inaccessible to all but the most dedicated bushwhackers. It is impossible to see the trees in their entirety, [...]

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They Call Me Naughty Lola, edited by David Rose

If you’ve ever closely read, or even scanned, the pages of a typical personals ad, you’d recognized the usual format – gender preference, age, something about the advertiser’s looks and interests.  Specialty and ‘elite’ publications might have more information tailored toward the expected demographic – second home location, brand of Scotch, favorite theorist – that [...]

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The Terror Dream, by Susan Faludi

In the months and years after the attacks on September 11, 2001, contrarian women were silenced, according to Faludi’s focused cultural critique.  She especially targets the mainstream media, for which she blames the creation and perpetuation of a ‘storyline’ – that it was time for men to be men and women to be helpless.  Major [...]

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Songbook, by Nick Hornby

Although Nick Hornby may be best known for his clever and witty fiction (try High Fidelity, Hornby’s look at a record store owner, his quirky staff, and his dysfunctional social life), he writes equally well about music in the nonfiction realm.
In Songbook, Hornby writes with insight and passion about 31 of his favorite songs from [...]

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Glass: From the First Mirror to Fiber Optics, the Story of the Substance That Changed the World by William S. Ellis

One of the most interesting of the subgenres of narrative nonfiction is the microhistory. You can often tell these books their one-word titles — Cod, Absinthe, etc. These books take a specific item and use that as a jumping off point to explore the broader world, including history, technology, science, language, and sometimes memoir. [...]

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