Why am I passionate about this?

Considered one of the foremost explanatory writers and literary stylists in American journalism, Margalit Fox retired in June 2018 from a 24-year-career at the New York Times, where she was most recently a senior writer. As a member of the newspaper’s celebrated Obituary News Department, she wrote the front-page sendoffs of some of the leading public figures of our age. The author of three previous books, Conan Doyle for the DefenseThe Riddle of the Labyrinth, and Talking Hands, she lives in Manhattan.


I wrote

The Confidence Men: How Two Prisoners of War Engineered the Most Remarkable Escape in History

By Margalit Fox,

Book cover of The Confidence Men: How Two Prisoners of War Engineered the Most Remarkable Escape in History

What is my book about?

The astonishing true story of two WW1 prisoners who pulled off one of the most ingenious escapes of all time. …

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The books I picked & why

Book cover of The Soul of a New Machine

Margalit Fox Why did I love this book?

Originally published in 1981 and a winner of the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award, Kidder’s book takes readers on a journey into what was, for most of us, terra incognita: the race to design a new, cutting-edge minicomputer known as the Eclipse MV/8000. Given sustained access to the engineering and marketing teams at Data General, a now-defunct Massachusetts company, Kidder chronicles the challenges, rivalries, setbacks and triumphs that their formidable task entailed, in a lyrical narrative that makes the art of creating a small(ish) computer from scratch compulsively readable and propulsively accessible.

By Tracy Kidder,

Why should I read it?

5 authors picked The Soul of a New Machine as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Tracy Kidder's "riveting" story of one company's efforts to bring a new microcomputer to market won both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award and has become essential reading for understanding the history of the American tech industry.

Computers have changed since 1981 when The Soul of a New Machine first examined the culture of the computer revolution. What has not changed is the feverish pace of the high-tech industry, the go-for-broke approach to business that has caused so many computer companies to win big (or go belly up), and the cult of pursuing mind-bending technological innovations.

The Soul…


Book cover of House

Margalit Fox Why did I love this book?

Kidder is—high praise—a process freak, and his books are the gold standard for nonfiction procedurals. In House (1985), the follow-up to The Soul of a New Machine, he documents one of the most fundamental processes of all: the building of a home. At the center of the narrative is a young professional couple, Judith and Jonathan Souweine, who have commissioned the design and building of a house in Amherst, Mass. Kidder follows their odyssey from groundbreaking to moving in, giving readers a behind-the-scenes look not only at his protagonists’ family life but also at the craft challenges that architects and builders face in conjuring a functional, beautiful and habitable building. The book is at the bottom a contrapuntal dance—at times dissonant, ultimately harmonious—as the Souweines, their brilliant young architect and a team of local builders learn to reconcile their sometimes competing visions.

By Tracy Kidder,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked House as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In the New York Times bestseller House, Pulitzer Prize–winning author Tracy Kidder takes readers to the heart of the American Dream: the building of a family's first house with all its day-to-day frustrations, crises, tensions, challenges, and triumphs.

In Kidder's "remarkable piece of craftsmanship in itself" (Chicago Tribune), constructing a staircase or applying a coat of paint becomes a riveting tale of conflicting wills, the strength and strain of relationships, and pride in skills. With drama, sensitivity, and insight, he takes us from blueprints to moving day, shedding light on objects usually taken for granted and creating a vivid cast…


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Book cover of Who Is a Worthy Mother?: An Intimate History of Adoption

Who Is a Worthy Mother? By Rebecca Wellington,

I grew up thinking that being adopted didn’t matter. I was wrong. This book is my journey uncovering the significance and true history of adoption practices in America. Now, in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade, the renewed debate over women’s reproductive rights places…

Book cover of The Medical Detectives: The Classic Collection of Award-Winning Medical Investigative Reporting

Margalit Fox Why did I love this book?

Long before Dr. Gregory House, there were the real-life doctors and scientists who were Berton Roueché’s perennial subjects. Roueché, a writer for the New Yorker for many years, reported on their dazzling detective work in the magazine’s “Annals of Medicine” columns. This volume collects two dozen of his most elegant pieces, which follow step by step the unraveling of a spate of medical mysteries: identifying the bewildering illness that affected residents of a small South Dakota town, discovering why a patient suddenly lost his sense of taste, fingering the ordinary but unlikely culprit that made a man turn orange, and much else.

By Berton Roueché,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked The Medical Detectives as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The classic collection of award-winning medical investigative reporting.

What do Lyme's disease in Long Island, a pig from New Jersey, and am amateur pianist have in common? All are subjects in three of 24 utterly fascinating tales of strange illnesses, rare diseases, poisons, and parasites-each tale a thriller of medical suspense by the incomparable Berton Roueche. The best of his New Yorker articles are collected here to astound readers with intriguing tales of epidemics in America's small towns, threats of contagion in our biggest cities, even bubonic plague in a peaceful urban park.

In each true story, local health authorities…


Book cover of Survive the Savage Sea

Margalit Fox Why did I love this book?

In January 1971, the Scotsman Dougal Robertson embarked with his wife and children on what was to be the dream of a lifetime: an extended sea voyage aboard their 43-foot wooden schooner, the Lucette. Eighteen months later, as she plied the Pacific some 200 miles west of the Galapagos, the Lucette was rammed by a pod of killer whales; the Robertsons had barely enough time to flee the ship before it sank. They spent the next 37 days adrift, first in the ship’s inflatable raft and later, after the raft gave out, in its tiny dinghy. They braved storms, sharks, and the perpetual lack of food and fresh water before they were rescued by a passing ship. First published in 1973, Robertson’s gripping, day-by-day account of their ingenious survival tactics is a classic of the castaway-narrative genre.

By Dougal Robertson,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Survive the Savage Sea as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In June 1972, the 43-foor schooner Lucette was attacked by killer whales and sank in 60 seconds. What happened next is almost incredible. In an inflatable rubber raft, with a 9 foot fiberglass dinghy to tow it, Dougal Robertson and his family were miles from any shipping lanes. They had emergency rations for only three days and no maps, compass, or instruments of any kind. After their raft sank under them, they crammed themselves into their tiny dinghy.

For 37 days-using every technique of survival-they battled against 20-foot waves, marauding sharks, thirst, starvation, and exhaustion, adrift in the vast reaches…


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Book cover of After Me

After Me By J. Shep,

"an intense narrative of family and intangible inheritance. . .this novel unfolds like a fragrant, steeped tea." -Chanticleer Book Reviews, 5 Stars

"like a glorious sunrise, we are gifted the 'après,' the hope and goodness of 'after me.'" -Maria Giuseppa, author of R&R:  A Feast of Words

A man in…

Book cover of The Wooden Horse: The Classic World War II Story of Escape

Margalit Fox Why did I love this book?

In 1942, Williams, a pilot in Britain’s Royal Air Force, was shot down on a bombing mission over Germany. Taken prisoner, he was eventually sent to Stalag-Luft III, a high-security prison camp—considered escape-proof—in what is now Poland. Though The Wooden Horse, published in 1949, is sometimes described as a novel, it is a true-life account of his escape from the camp, with some names changed and some details lightly fictionalized. Working in secret and under constant surveillance, Williams and two fellow POWs constructed a 20th-century Trojan Horse that allowed them to tunnel out of camp under the noses of their formidable German captors. Williams’s book, and the 1950 film of the same name, are what first drew me to the crystalline procedural rigor of POW escape narratives. My love of the genre propelled me to write The Confidence Men, the story of the most unusual POW escape in history—involving no tunneling, no weapons, and no violence of any kind.

By Eric Williams,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked The Wooden Horse as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Eric Williams, Royal Air Force bomber captain, was shot down over Germany in 1942 and imprisoned in Stalag Luft III, the infamous German POW camp. Digging an underground tunnel hidden beneath a wooden vaulting horse, he managed to escape after ten months and, accompanied by a fellow officer, made his way back to England. In this thinly fictionalized retelling, Williams relates his story in three distinct phases: the construction of a tunnel (its entrance camouflaged by the wooden vaulting horse in the exercise yard) and hiding the large quantities of sand he dug; the escape; and the journey on foot…


Explore my book 😀

The Confidence Men: How Two Prisoners of War Engineered the Most Remarkable Escape in History

By Margalit Fox,

Book cover of The Confidence Men: How Two Prisoners of War Engineered the Most Remarkable Escape in History

What is my book about?

The astonishing true story of two WW1 prisoners who pulled off one of the most ingenious escapes of all time. Two British officers, Harry Jones and Cedric Hill, are imprisoned in a remote Turkish POW camp. To stave off despair and boredom, Jones takes a handmade Ouija board and fakes elaborate séances for his fellow prisoners. Word gets around camp, and one day an Ottoman official approaches Jones with a query: Could Jones contact the spirit world to find a vast treasure rumored to be buried nearby? Jones, a trained lawyer, and Hill, a brilliant magician, use the Ouija board—and their keen understanding of the psychology of deception—to build a trap for their captors that will ultimately lead them to freedom.

Book cover of The Soul of a New Machine
Book cover of House
Book cover of The Medical Detectives: The Classic Collection of Award-Winning Medical Investigative Reporting

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