A book about an object that changed the world

Between the Lines 2025 Reading Challenge Book Prompt #10

Updated January 9, 2025
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Countdown 1945 : the extraordinary story of the atomic bomb and the 116 days that changed the world
Wallace, Chris
Paper Book
The #1 national bestselling "riveting" (The New York Times), "propulsive" (Time) behind-the-scenes account "that reads like a tense thriller" (The Washington Post) of the 116 days leading up to the American attack on Hiroshima, by Chris Wallace, veteran journalist and...
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
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
In 1978 Stephen King introduced the world to the last Gunslinger, Roland of Gilead.  Nothing has been the same since. Over twenty years later the quest for the Dark Tower continues to take readers on a wildly epic ride. Through parallel worlds and across time, Roland must brave desolate wastelands...
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
A great modern classic and the prelude to The Lord of the Rings This charming pocket-sized edition contains the complete unabridged text and features the original cover illustration, painted by J.R.R. Tolkien himself.  The perfect gift for little Hobbits everywhere! Bilbo...
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 lion, the witch, and the wardrobe
Lewis, C. S.
Paper Book
Don't miss one of America's top 100 most-loved novels, selected by PBS's The Great American Read. A mass-market paperback edition of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, book two in the classic fantasy series The Chronicles of Narnia. This edition features cover art by Cliff Nielsen 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
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
Late in the nineteenth century, a Victorian scientist shows his disbelieving dinner guests a device he claims is a Time Machine. Respectable London scarcely has the imagination to cope with him. A week later they reconvene to find him ragged, exhausted and garrolous. The tale he tells is of the year...

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