Up Close and Personal - Microhistories

Ever been so interested in a topic that you wished you could put it under a microscope and see it in splendid detail? Microhistories let you do just that. They're adventures through every aspect of a subject letting you understand it from the inside out. History buffs and curious readers alike will relish these technicolour portraits.

Updated July 8, 2026
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The Book-Makers : A History of the Book in Eighteen Lives
Smyth, Adam.
Paper Book
The five-hundred-year history of printed books, told through the people who created them. "Smyth breathes both books-as-objects and their creators back into life." --Financial Times An Economist Book of the Year Books...
Eager : the surprising, secret life of beavers and why they matter
Goldfarb, Ben (Environmental journalist)
Paper Book
WINNER of the 2019 PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award Washington Post "50 Notable Works of Nonfiction" Science News "Favorite Science Books of 2018" Booklist "Top Ten Science/Technology Book of 2018" "A marvelously humor-laced page-turner about the...
Frostbite : How Refrigeration Changed Our Food, Our Planet, and Ourselves
Twilley, Nicola.
Paper Book
Winner of the James Beard Award for Literary Writing "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....
The LEGO Story : How a Little Toy Sparked the World's Imagination
Andersen, Jens.
Ebook
An International Bestseller "Absolutely essential reading for every LEGO fan." --Blocks The definitive history of LEGO, based on unprecedented access to the company's archives and rare interviews with the founding family who still owns the company "This book tells...
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...
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...
The professor and the madman : a tale of murder, insanity, and the making of the Oxford dictionary
Winchester, Simon
Ebook
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...
The rise and fall of the dinosaurs : a new history of a lost world
Brusatte, Stephen
Paper Book
"THE ULTIMATE DINOSAUR BIOGRAPHY," hails Scientific American: A thrilling new history of the age of dinosaurs, from one of our finest young scientists. "A masterpiece of science writing." --Washington Post A New York Times Bestseller * Goodreads Choice Awards ...
Salt : a world history
Kurlansky, Mark
Paper Book
Homer called salt a divine substance. Plato described it as especially dear to the gods. Today we take salt for granted, a common, inexpensive substance that seasons food or clears ice from roads, a word used casually in expressions ("salt of the earth," take it with a grain of salt") without...

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