A book about an object that changed the world

Between the Lines 2025 Reading Challenge Book Prompt #10

Updated December 13, 2024
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Cryptonomicon
Stephenson, Neal
Paper Book
With this extraordinary first volume in an epoch-making masterpiece, Neal Stephenson hacks into the secret histories of nations and the private obsessions of men, decrypting with dazzling virtuosity the forces that shaped this century. In 1942, Lawrence Pritchard Waterhouse--mathematical...
Frostbite : how refrigeration changed our food, our planet, and ourselves
Twilley, Nicola
Paper Book
"Engrossing...hard to put down." - The New York Times Book Review "Frostbite is a perfectly executed cold fusion of science, history, and literary verve . . . as a fellow nonfiction writer, I bow down. This is how it's done." - Mary Roach, author of Fuzz and...
The gunslinger
King, Stephen
Paper Book
Now a major motion picture starring Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey Master storyteller Stephen King presents the classic first novel in The Dark Tower series... "The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed." In a...
Half life : a novel
Cantor, Jillian
Paper Book
A brilliant sliding-doors reimagining of the passionate life of the first woman to win a Nobel Prize - and the life Marie Curie might have led if she had chosen love over science.   Poland, 1891. Marie Curie (then Marya Sklodowska) was engaged to a budding...
Hiroshima : the last witnesses
Sheftall, M. G.
Paper Book
The first volume in a two-book series about each of the atomic bomb drops that ended the Pacific War based on years of irreplicable personal interviews with survivors to tell a story of devastation and resilience In this vividly rendered historical narrative, M. G. Sheftall layers...
The hobbit, or, There and back again
Tolkien, J. R. R.
Paper Book
This deluxe hardcover edition of J.R.R. Tolkien's classic prelude to his Lord of the Rings trilogy contains a short introduction by Christopher Tolkien, a reset text incorporating the most up-to-date corrections, and all of Tolkien's own drawings and full-color illustrations, including the rare...
Kill chain : the rise of the high-tech assassins
Cockburn, Andrew
Paper Book
An essential and page-turning narrative on the history of drone warfare by the acclaimed author of Rumsfeld, exploring how this practice emerged, who made it happen, and the real consequences of targeted killing Assassination by drone is a subject of deep and enduring fascination....
The last days of night
Moore, Graham
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * A thrilling novel based on actual events, about the nature of genius, the cost of ambition, and the battle to electrify America--from the Oscar-winning screenwriter of The Imitation Game and author of The Sherlockian
The librarian spy : a novel of World War II
Martin, Madeline
Paper Book
A NATIONAL BESTSELLER--for fans of All the Light We Cannot See and The Tattooist of Auschwitz! "Readers will be on the edge of their seats....  A brilliant tale of resistance, courage and ultimately hope."  -Kelly Rimmer, New York Times bestselling author of The...
The lion, the witch and the wardrobe
Lewis, C. S.
Paper Book
A beautiful paperback edition of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, book two in the classic fantasy series, The Chronicles of Narnia. This edition is complete with cover and interior art by the original illustrator, Pauline Baynes. Four adventurous siblings--Peter, Susan, Edmund, and...
Moonbound : Apollo 11 and the dream of spaceflight
Fetter-Vorm, Jonathan
Paper Book
On a summer night in 1969, two men climbed down a ladder onto a sea of dust at the edge of an ancient dream. When Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin first set foot on lunar soil, the moon ceased to be a place of mystery and myth. It became a destination. Now, on the fiftieth anniversary...
Radio girls
Stratford, Sarah Jane
Paper Book
The Great War is over, and change is in the air, in this novel that brings to life the exciting days of early British radio...and one woman who finds her voice while working alongside the brilliant women and men of the BBC.   London, 1926. American-raised Maisie...
Switchboard soldiers : a novel
Chiaverini, Jennifer
Paper Book
From New York Times bestselling author Jennifer Chiaverini, a bold, revelatory novel about one of the great untold stories of World War I--the women of the U.S. Army Signal Corps, who broke down gender barriers in the military and battled a pandemic as they helped lead the...
The time machine
Wells, H. G.
Paper Book
When a Victorian scientist propels himself into the year 802,701 AD, he is initially delighted to find that suffering has been replaced by beauty, contentment and peace. Entranced at first by the Eloi, an elfin species descended from man, he soon realises that these beautiful people are simply...
Vinyl freak : love letters to a dying medium
Corbett, John
Paper Book
From scouring flea markets and eBay to maxing out their credit cards, record collectors will do just about anything to score a long-sought-after album. In Vinyl Freak, music writer, curator, and collector John Corbett burrows deep inside the record fiend's mind, documenting and...

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