In the 1630s, visitors to the prosperous trading cities of the Netherlands noticed that normally sober, hardworking Dutch citizens were caught up in a frenzy of buying and selling. The object of this speculation was the tulip, an import that had bewitched horticulturists, noblemen, and tavern owners alike. Rare bulbs changed hands for ever-increasing sums,…
The dust storms that terrorized the High Plains in the darkest years of the Depression were like nothing ever seen before or since. Timothy Egan’s critically acclaimed account rescues this iconic chapter of American history from the shadows in a tour de force of historical reportage. Author Timothy Egan is a Pulitzer Prize winning author…
Howards End is a novel by E. M. Forster about social conventions, codes of conduct and relationships in turn-of-the-century England. A strong-willed and intelligent woman refuses to allow the pretensions of her husband’s smug English family to ruin her life. Howards End is considered by some to be Forster’s masterpiece. Author E.M. Forster, was an…
The struggle to perform well is universal: each one of us faces fatigue, limited resources, and imperfect abilities in whatever we do. But nowhere is this drive to do better more important than in medicine, where lives are on the line with every decision. Author Atul Gawande is author of three bestselling books: Complications, a…
Balram Halwai is a complicated man. Servant. Philosopher. Entrepreneur. Murderer. Over the course of seven nights, by the scattered light of a preposterous chandelier, Balram tells us the terrible and transfixing story of how he came to be a success in life—having nothing but his own wits to help him along.
Scholar A. Roger Ekirch illuminates the aspects of life most often overlooked by other historiansthose that unfold at night. Author A. Roger Ekirch (1950) is University Distinguished Professor of history at Virginia Tech in the United States. He was a Guggenheim fellow in 1998. He is internationally known for his pioneering research into pre-industrial sleeping…
The Yacoubian Building, a once-elegant temple of Art Deco splendor in downtown Cairo, Egypt. Disparate lives converge, careening toward an explosive conclusion. Tragicomic, passionate, frank in its sexuality, and brimming with human compassion. Author Alaa Al-Aswany (1957) is an Egyptian writer, and a founding member of the political movement Kefaya. Aswany attended Le Lycée Français…
Frances Perkins was named Secretary of Labor by Franklin Roosevelt in 1933. As the first female cabinet secretary, she spearheaded the fight to improve the lives of America’s working people while juggling her own complex family responsibilities. Perkins’s ideas became the cornerstones of the most important social welfare and legislation in the nation’s history, including…
Benjamin Weaver, a Jew and an ex-boxer, is an outsider in eighteenth-century London, tracking down debtors and felons for aristocratic clients. An enthralling historical thriller, A Conspiracy of Paper will leave readers wondering just how much has changed in the stock market in the last three hundred years. Author David Liss is the author of…
A young man from a small provincial town moves to London in the late 1580s and, in a remarkably short time, becomes the greatest playwright not of his age alone but of all time. How is an achievement of this magnitude to be explained? Author Stephen Greenblatt (Ph.D. Yale) is Cogan University Professor of English…
