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Recommendations based on Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeareby Stephen Greenblatt
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The Swerve: How the World Became Modern
by Stephen Greenblatt
Uncovering the history of an ancient philosophical poem, and its impact on the modern world.
One of the world's most celebrated scholars, Stephen Greenblatt has crafted both an innovative work of history and a thrilling story of discovery, in which one manuscript, plucked from a thousand ... (Goodreads)
Shakespeare: The World as Stage
by Bill Bryson
An exploration of Shakespeare's life, works, and enduring cultural impact.
At first glance, Bill Bryson seems an odd choice to write this addition to the Eminent Lives series. The author of 'The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid' isn't, after all, a Shakespeare scholar, ... (Goodreads)
The Mother Tongue: English and How It Got That Way
by Bill Bryson
Fascinating exploration of the history and evolution of English language.
With dazzling wit and astonishing insight, Bill Bryson—the acclaimed author of The Lost Continent —brilliantly explores the remarkable history, eccentricities, resilience and sheer fun of the English ... (Goodreads)
Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation
by Lynne Truss
A humorous look at the importance of punctuation and its effect on language.
In Eats, Shoots & Leaves , former editor Lynne Truss, gravely concerned about our current grammatical state, boldly defends proper punctuation. She proclaims, in her delightfully urbane, witty, and ... (Goodreads)
Assassination Vacation
by Sarah Vowell
A comedic travelogue exploring the history of presidential assassinations in the United States.
Sarah Vowell exposes the glorious conundrums of American history and culture with wit, probity, and an irreverent sense of humor. With Assassination Vacation, she takes us on a road trip like no ... (Goodreads)
A People's History of the United States
by Howard Zinn
An examination of American history from a perspective of marginalized people.
In the book, Zinn presented a different side of history from the more traditional "fundamental nationalist glorification of country". Zinn portrays a side of American history that can largely be seen ... (Goodreads)
The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid
by Bill Bryson
A humorous recounting of a boy's childhood in the 1950s and his fantastical adventures.
Bryson was born on December 8, 1951. He spent his childhood growing up in Des Moines, Iowa , part of the baby-boom generation born in the post-war years. He describes his early life and his parents, ... (Wikipedia)
The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance
by Ron Chernow
The history of the Morgan banking family and their influence on American finance from the 19th to 20th century.
The winner of the National Book Award and now considered a classic, The House of Morgan is the most ambitious history ever written about an American banking dynasty. Acclaimed by The Wall Street ... (Goodreads)
The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
by Michael Pollan
Exploration of the modern food chain, examining the impact of food choices on our health and the environment.
What should we have for dinner? The question has confronted us since man discovered fire, but according to Michael Pollan, the bestselling author of The Botany of Desire , how we answer it today, at ... (Goodreads)
Let's Pretend This Never Happened: A Mostly True Memoir
by Jenny Lawson
A humorous and candid memoir of a woman's life, incorporating stories from her childhood to adulthood.
The #1, New York Times, bestselling (mostly true) memoir from the hilarious author of, Furiously Happy,.,“Gaspingly funny and wonderfully inappropriate.”—,O, The Oprah Magazine, When Jenny Lawson was ... (Barnes & Noble)
Einstein: His Life and Universe
by Walter Isaacson
A comprehensive biography of Albert Einstein, exploring his personal life, scientific achievements, and impact on the world.
Einstein was a rebel and nonconformist from boyhood days, and these character traits drove both his life and his science. In this narrative, Walter Isaacson explains how his mind worked and the ... (Goodreads)
The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary
by Simon Winchester
True story of a murderer's contribution to the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary.
The book tells the story of the making of the, Oxford English Dictionary, (OED) and one of its most prolific early contributors, William Chester Minor , a retired United States Army surgeon . Minor ... (Wikipedia)
Schindler's List
by Thomas Keneally
Story of a German businessman who saved hundreds of Jews during the Holocaust.
This novel tells the story of Oskar Schindler , self-made entrepreneur and, bon viveur, who almost by default found himself saving Polish Jews from the Nazi death machine. Based on numerous ... (Wikipedia)
Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage
by Alfred Lansing
True story of a remarkable Antarctic expedition, a testament to the power of courage and tenacity.
The harrowing tale of British explorer Ernest Shackleton's 1914 attempt to reach the South Pole, one of the greatest adventure stories of the modern age. In August 1914, polar explorer Ernest ... (Goodreads)
The Letters of Vincent van Gogh
by Vincent van Gogh
Collection of letters written by Vincent van Gogh, revealing his artistic struggles, personal life, and mental health battles.
A new selection of post-impressionist painter Vincent Van Gough's letters, The Letters of Vincent van Gogh put a human face on one of the most haunting figures in modern Western culture. In this ... (Goodreads)
The Architecture of Happiness
by Alain de Botton
A philosophical exploration of how architecture shapes our emotions and how we can create living spaces that are both beautiful and meaningful.
The Achitecture of Happiness is a dazzling and generously illustrated journey through the philosophy and psychology of architecture and the indelible connection between our identities and our ... (Barnes & Noble)
Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War
by Mary Roach
An exploration of the science behind war, and the innovative ways to keep soldiers safe.
Grunt tackles the science behind some of a soldier's most challenging adversaries—panic, exhaustion, heat, noise—and introduces us to the scientists who seek to conquer them. Mary Roach dodges ... (Goodreads)
Blood and Thunder: An Epic of the American West
by Hampton Sides
An exploration of the westward expansion of the United States, recounting the lives of those who lived it.
A Magnificent History of How the West Was Really Won - a Sweeping Tale of Shame and Glory, In the fall of 1846 the venerable Navajo warrior Narbona, greatest of his people’s chieftains, looked down ... (Goodreads)
The Road to Wigan Pier
by George Orwell
Journey of social discovery, examining the struggles of working class life in 1930s England.
A searing account of George Orwell’s experiences of working-class life in the bleak industrial heartlands of Yorkshire and Lancashire, The Road to Wigan Pier is a brilliant and bitter polemic that ... (Goodreads)
Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr.
by Ron Chernow
Biography of the influential business magnate, chronicling his journey from poverty to riches.
John D. Rockefeller, Sr.–history's first billionaire and the patriarch of America's most famous dynasty--is an icon whose true nature has eluded three generations of historians. Now Ron Chernow, the ... (Goodreads)
Blue Highways
by William Least Heat-Moon
A pilgrimage across America, exploring the people, places and stories of small towns.
Hailed as a masterpiece of American travel writing,, Blue Highways, is an unforgettable journey along our nation's backroads. William Least Heat-Moon set out with little more than the need to put ... (Goodreads)
How Proust Can Change Your Life
by Alain de Botton
A journey of self-discovery and personal growth, inspired by the insights of Marcel Proust.
For anyone who ever wondered what Marcel Proust had in mind when he wrote the one-and-a-quarter-million words of, In Search of Lost Time, (while bedridden, no less), Alain de Botton has the answer. ... (Goodreads)
The Death and Life of Great American Cities
by Jane Jacobs
Exposes the flaws of urban planning, advocating for a more organic approach.
A direct and fundamentally optimistic indictment of the short-sightedness and intellectual arrogance that has characterized much of urban planning in this century, The Death and Life of Great ... (Goodreads)
The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
by Edward Gibbon
An in-depth account of the fall of the Roman Empire, tracing its causes and effects.
Length: 126 hrs and 31 mins The History of the Decline & Fall of the Roman Empire was written by English historian Edward Gibbon & originally published in six quarto volumes. Volume 1 was published ... (Goodreads)
The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined
by Steven Pinker
Investigation into the causes of violence and the reasons why it has decreased in modern society.
Believe it or not, today we may be living in the most peaceful moment in our species' existence. In his gripping and controversial new work, New York Times bestselling author Steven Pinker shows that ... (Goodreads)
The Hare With Amber Eyes: A Family's Century of Art and Loss
by Edmund de Waal
A journey through time, tracing the history of a family's collection of art and their struggles with loss.
The Ephrussis were a grand banking family, as rich and respected as the Rothschilds, who “burned like a comet” in nineteenth-century Paris and Vienna society. Yet by the end of World War II, almost ... (Goodreads)
Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
by Jared Diamond
Tracing the origins of human civilizations through the lens of geography, technology, and biology.
"Diamond has written a book of remarkable scope ... one of the most important and readable works on the human past published in recent years." Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and a national bestseller: ... (Goodreads)
The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century
by Thomas L. Friedman
An exploration of the rapid globalization of the world, and the implications of this shift.
When scholars write the history of the world twenty years from now, and they come to the chapter Y2K to March 2004 , what will they say was the most crucial development? The attacks on the World ... (Goodreads)
Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time
by Dava Sobel
Story of a man's determination to solve the complex problem of determining longitude at sea.
Anyone alive in the eighteenth century would have known that "the longitude problem" was the thorniest scientific dilemma of the day—and had been for centuries. Lacking the ability to measure their ... (Goodreads)
Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
by Jared Diamond
Study of past societies' successes and failures in terms of environmental, economic, and political decisions.
Brilliant, illuminating, and immensely absorbing, Collapse is destined to take its place as one of the essential books of our time, raising the urgent question: How can our world best avoid ... (Goodreads)
