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Updated May 15, 2023
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Henrico County Public Library
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The ghost map : the story of London's most terrifying epidemic--and how it changed science, cities, and the modern world
Johnson, Steven
Paper Book
A thrilling account of the worst cholera outbreak in Victorian London and a brilliant exploration of how Dr John Snow's solution revolutionised the way people think about disease, cities, science and the modern world. This is an endlessly fascinating and compelling account of the summer of 1854,...
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Why We Swim
Tsui, Bonnie
Paper Book
A Time Magazine Must-Read Book of 2020 A Best Book of the Season: BuzzFeed * Bustle * San Francisco Chronicle A Best Book of the Year: NPR's Book Concierge * Washington Independent Review of Books...
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Drunk: How We Sipped, Danced, and Stumbled Our Way to Civilization
Slingerland, Edward
Paper Book
An "entertaining and enlightening" deep dive into the alcohol-soaked origins of civilization--and the evolutionary roots of humanity's appetite for intoxication (Daniel E. Lieberman, author of Exercised). While plenty of entertaining books have been written about the history...
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Quackery : a brief history of the worst ways to cure everything
Kang, Lydia
Paper Book
What won't we try in our quest for perfect health, beauty, and the fountain of youth? Well, just imagine a time when doctors prescribed morphine for crying infants. When liquefied gold was touted as immortality in a glass. And when strychnine--yes, that...
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Cod : a biography of the fish that changed the world
Kurlansky, Mark
Ebook
"A charming fish tale and a pretty gift for your favorite seafood cook or fishing monomaniac. But in the last analysis, it's a bitter ecological fable for our time." -Los Angeles Times An unexpected, energetic look at world history via the humble cod fish from the...
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Salt : a world history
Kurlansky, Mark.
Audiobook
The author of Cod and The Basque History of the World takes an extraordinary look at an ordinary substance--salt, the only rock humans eat--and how it has shaped civilization from the very beginning. Mark Kurlansky has produced a kaleidoscope of history, a multi-layered masterpiece...
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Paper : paging through history
Kurlansky, Mark
Paper Book
From the New York Times best-selling author of Cod and Salt, a definitive history of paper and the astonishing ways it has shaped today's world. Paper is one of the simplest and most essential pieces of human technology. For the past two millennia, the ability to...
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Milk! : a 10,000-year food fracas
Kurlansky, Mark
Paper Book
Mark Kurlansky's first global food history since the bestselling Cod and Salt; the fascinating cultural, economic, and culinary story of milk and all things dairy--with recipes throughout. According to the Greek creation myth, we are so much spilt milk; a...
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The big oyster : history on the half shell
Kurlansky, Mark
Ebook
Before New York City was the Big Apple, it could have been called the Big Oyster. Now award-winning author Mark Kurlansky tells the remarkable story of New York by following the trajectory of one of its most fascinating inhabitants-the oyster, whose influence on the great metropolis remains...
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Stiff : the curious lives of human cadavers
Roach, Mary
Paper Book
Stiff is an oddly compelling, often hilarious exploration of the strange lives of our bodies postmortem. For two thousand years, cadavers--some willingly, some unwittingly--have been involved in science's boldest strides and weirdest undertakings. They've tested France's first guillotines,...
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The professor and the madman : a tale of murder, insanity, and the making of the Oxford English dictionary
Winchester, Simon
Paper Book
A New York Times Notable Book The Professor and the Madman is an extraordinary tale of madness, genius, and the incredible obsessions of two remarkable men that led to the making of the Oxford English Dictionary--and literary history. The making of the OED was one of the...
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Wonderland : how play made the modern world
Johnson, Steven
Paper Book
"A house of wonders itself. . . . Wonderland inspires grins and well-what-d'ya-knows" --The New York Times Book Review From the New York Times-bestselling author of How We Got to Now and Extra Life, a look at...
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The emperor of all maladies : a biography of cancer
Mukherjee, Siddhartha
Paper Book
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, adapted as a documentary from Ken Burns on PBS, this New York Times bestseller is "an extraordinary achievement" (The New Yorker)--a magnificent, profoundly humane "biography" of cancer. Physician, researcher, and award-winning science...
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At home : a short history of private life
Bryson, Bill.
Paper Book
From one of the most beloved authors of our time--more than six million copies of his books have been sold in this country alone--a fascinating excursion into the history behind the place we call home. "Houses aren't refuges from history. They are where history ends up." ...
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The grandest stage : a history of the World Series
Kepner, Tyler
Ebook
From the New York Times bestselling author of K: A History of Baseball in Ten Pitches comes the ultimate history of the World Series--a vivid portrait of baseball at its finest and most intense, filled with humor, lore, analysis, and fascinating behind-the-scenes stories from 117...
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Beyond measure : the hidden history of measurement from cubits to quantum constants
Vincent, James (Journalist)
Ebook
Finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Science & Technology One of The New Yorker and Economist's Best Books of the Year "Quietly thrilling.... The story of humans measuring things is no less than the story of civilization." --Jennifer Szalai,...
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A history of the world in 6 glasses
Standage, Tom.
Paper Book
From beer to Coca-Cola, the six drinks that have helped shape human history. Throughout human history. certain drinks have done much more than just quench thirst. As Tom Standage relates with authority and charm, six of them have had a surprisingly pervasive influence on the course...
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The address book : what street addresses reveal about identity, race, wealth, and power
Mask, Deirdre
Paper Book
Finalist for the 2020 Kirkus Prize for Nonfiction | One of Time Magazines's 100 Must-Read Books of 2020 | Longlisted for the 2020 Porchlight Business Book Awards "An entertaining quest to trace the origins and implications of the names of the roads on...
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Semicolon : the past, present, and future of a misunderstood mark
Watson, Cecelia
Paper Book
"Delightful." --Mary Norris, The New Yorker A page-turning, existential romp through the life and times of the world's most polarizing punctuation mark The semicolon. Stephen King, Hemingway, Vonnegut, and Orwell detest it. Herman Melville, Henry James, and...
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Index, a history of the : a bookish adventure from medieval manuscripts to the digital age
Duncan, Dennis
Audiobook
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The age of wood : our most useful material and the construction of civilization
Ennos, Roland
Paper Book
A groundbreaking examination of the role that wood and trees have played in our global ecosystem--including human evolution and the rise and fall of empires--in the bestselling tradition of Yuval Harari's Sapiens and Mark Kurlansky's Salt. As the dominant species on...
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