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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Apollo to the Moon : A History in 50 Objects
Muir-Harmony, Teasel E.
Paper Book
A celebration of the 50th anniversary of NASA's Apollo missions to the moon, this narrative uses 50 key artifacts from the Smithsonian archives to tell the story of the groundbreaking space exploration program. Bold photographs, fascinating graphics, and engaging stories...
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...
Doctor Who : 365 days of memorable moments and impossible things
Richards, Justin
Paper Book
Do you remember the first time you saw the TARDIS? For more than half a century, Doctor Who has entertained and enthralled fans with the time-traveling adventures of the Doctor. From the first glimpse of a police telephone box in a Totter's Lane junkyard to the fall of the Time Lords' home...
Frostbite : how refrigeration changed our food, our planet, and ourselves
Twilley, Nicola
Paper Book
How often do we open the fridge or peer into the freezer with the expectation that we'll find something fresh and ready to eat? It's an everyday act - but just a century ago, eating food that had been refrigerated was cause for both fear and excitement. The introduction of artificial refrigeration...
The gunslinger
King, Stephen
Paper Book
Eerie, dreamlike, set in a world that is weirdly related to our own, The Gunslinger introduces Roland Deschain of Gilead, of In-World that was, as he pursues his enigmatic antagonist to the mountains that separate the desert from the Western Sea. Roland is a solitary figure, perhaps accursed,...
Half life : a novel
Cantor, Jillian
Paper Book
The USA Today bestselling author of In Another Time reimagines the pioneering, passionate life of Marie Curie using a parallel structure to create two alternative timelines, one that mirrors her real life, one that explores the consequences for Marie and for science if she'd made a different...
Hiroshima : the last witnesses
Sheftall, M. G.
Paper Book
In this vividly rendered historical narrative, M.G. 'Bucky' Sheftall layers the stories of hibakusha - the Japanese word for atomic bomb survivors - in harrowing detail, to give a minute-by-minute report of August 6, 1945, in the leadup and aftermath of the world-changing bombing mission of...
The hobbit, or, There and back again
Tolkien, J. R. R.
Paper Book
The stirring adventure that begins The Lord of the Rings, the greatest fantasy epic of all time When Thorin Oakenshield and his band of dwarves embark upon a dangerous quest to reclaim the hoard of gold stolen from them by the evil dragon Smaug, Gandalf the wizard suggests an...
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 : a novel
Moore, Graham
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * "A world of invention and skulduggery, populated by the likes of Edison, Westinghouse, and Tesla."--Erik Larson   "A model of superior historical fiction . . . an exciting, sometimes astonishing story."--The Washington Post<...
The librarian spy : a novel of World War II
Martin, Madeline
Paper Book
The lion, the witch and the wardrobe
Lewis, C. S.
Paper Book
There are a thousand stories in the land of Narnia, and the first is about to be told in an extraordinary motion picture, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, from Walt Disney Pictures and Walden Media. This is the companion book to that movie. Here is a bold and striking...
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...
Star Wars : the lightsaber collection
Wallace, Daniel
Paper Book
"Wallace's strong grasp of the mythos of this universe will satisfy the die-hard Star Wars fan and serve as a fine introduction to those taking a first-time dive into one of pop culture's most important creations." -The Washington Post Star Wars: The...
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 Allies to...
The time machine
Wells, H. G.
Paper Book
“I’ve had a most amazing time....”   So begins the Time Traveller’s astonishing firsthand account of his journey 800,000 years beyond his own era—and the story that launched H.G. Wells’s successful career and earned him his reputation as the...
Toy time! : from hula hoops to he-man to hungry hungry hippos : a look back at the most-beloved toys of decades past
Byrne, Christopher.
Paper Book
What was your favorite childhood toy? Do you have fond memories of fighting unseen enemies with your G.I. Joe action figures, demolishing fleets of vehicles with your Tonka Toy Trucks, or Karate-chopping imaginary street thugs with your Teenage Mutant Ninja...

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