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
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 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...
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...
The hobbit or : there and back again
Tolkien, J. R. R.
Paper Book
This definitive paperback edition features nine illustrations and two maps drawn by J.R.R. Tolkien, and a preface by Christopher Tolkien. Bilbo Baggins is a hobbit who enjoys a comfortable, unambitious life, rarely travelling further than the pantry of his hobbit-hole in Bag...
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
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...
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. 1866-1946
Paper Book
I drew a breath, set my teeth, gripped the starting lever with both hands, and went off with a thud. The time traveler is on his way to a different world-his world 800,000 years in the future. He returns and recounts his journey to his friends at a dinner party.

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