I became fascinated with history when I moved to Gloucester in the nineties. The city is hugely historical from the early Roman settlers through to the industrial age of the nineteenth century. What is more fascinating is that many of the streets and buildings I write about still exist in the city today. I carried out extensive research when writing my first historical fiction novel to immerse myself in the medieval city as it would have been in 1497. When I came to write my second novel, listed below, the first book in the Hebraica Trilogy, I already had a good idea of the layout of the city.
I loved this book because the story and characters in it were so fascinating, and I learned a lot about the history of the time and how ordinary people lived.
Although the book is a hefty tome, I really didn’t want it to end. I couldn’t put it down and read the whole book in a couple of days. I was so delighted when Ken Follett wrote a sequel.
I loved how Follett weaved the stories of ordinary people around what was happening with the kings and queens of the day.
I also loved how he created strong female characters in an era where you would not expect to find such characters.
Pillars of the Earth inspired me to write historical fiction and lit a passion for history within me.
The "extraordinary . . . monumental masterpiece" (Booklist) that changed the course of Ken Follett's already phenomenal career-and begins where its prequel, The Evening and the Morning, ended.
"Follett risks all and comes out a clear winner," extolled Publishers Weekly on the release of The Pillars of the Earth. A departure for the bestselling thriller writer, the historical epic stunned readers and critics alike with its ambitious scope and gripping humanity. Today, it stands as a testament to Follett's unassailable command of the written word and to his universal appeal.
I’ve been an explorer since I was young. My first short trip was to Cahokia Mounds, a site so little is known about that researchers have yet to discover the name of the people who built the famous city of mounds. As I grew into an adult, I was drawn to visit the Pyramid of Chichen Itza in Mexico and Stonehenge in England. As a writer, I decided the one thing missing from the mysterious places field was a fun way to learn about them. So I wrote a mysterious places book in a trivia game format, as learning something new is always more fun when presented as a game.
Christopher Dunn's research is impressive, as he shares over 30 years of study and nine trips to Egypt in Lost Technologies of Ancient Egypt.
He explains the unique marks left by skilled craftsmen that today, with modern technology, we would have great difficulty reproducing. Dunn writes about the precision found in the monuments of Egypt. He uses digital photography and computer-aided design software to give the reader an appreciation for the ancient Egyptians' remarkable achievements.
He includes over 280 photographs of Egyptian monuments to support his theories, and his examination of the underground tunnels of the Serapeum is worth the price of the book alone. His explanation of the precision engineering achieved by our ancient ancestors leads the reader to question long-held beliefs about ancient people.
From the pyramids in the north to the temples in the south, ancient artisans left their marks all over Egypt, unique marks that reveal craftsmanship we would be hard pressed to duplicate today. Drawing together the results of more than 30 years of research and nine field study journeys to Egypt, Christopher Dunn presents a stunning stone-by-stone analysis of key Egyptian monuments, including the statue of Ramses II at Luxor and the fallen crowns that lay at its feet. His modern-day engineering expertise provides a unique view into the sophisticated technology used to create these famous monuments in prehistoric times.…
Welive in suburbs, high-density downtown cities,
exurbs, rural areas – but most of us don’t really think about the way that
things around us have been designed.
Especially for those of us with children,
whole schools of thought have been created, designed a variety of chairs,
tools, blocks, and play spaces, and then been replaced by other ways of doing
the same materials. This book tackles jungle gyms, school classrooms, EPCOT,
and a variety of other places that are all too familiar to us, but in new and
creative ways.
It is easy to read with lots of images – highly recommended.
"Nothing short of spectacular . . . A secret guidebook to a landscape in which we all dwell, but so often fail to see." --Tom Vanderbilt, bestselling author of Traffic
From building blocks to city blocks, an eye-opening exploration of how children's playthings and physical surroundings affect their development.
Parents obsess over their children's playdates, kindergarten curriculum, and every bump and bruise, but the toys, classrooms, playgrounds, and neighborhoods little ones engage with are just as important. These objects and spaces encode decades, even centuries of changing ideas about what makes for good child-rearing--and what does not. Do you choose…
I never thought much about what makes our cities habitable until I started doing research for The Great Stink. But learning about sewers and wastewater treatment (They’re surprisingly interesting!) turned out to be the beginning of a fascination with other types of city infrastructure that I had previously ignored. Kids have a natural fascination for infrastructure of all kinds, but I was surprised when I couldn’t find any lists of picture books that group different types of city infrastructure together. So, I made one. I hope you and your little ones like these books as much as I did, and I hope you find many similar books to enjoy!
What I love about this book is that instead of focusing on the engineers, architects, artists, and other high-profile designers who tend to get the credit for creating so much of what we see in our cities–it focuses on the laborers who take their plans and make them a reality. Someone Builds the Dream will get kids (and their parents) thinking more about the building process and the people who spend their days putting together the parts of the many buildings, bridges, fountains, and other structures that come together to create a city. Young children will love the rhyming text and older ones will find much to wonder about as they scan the vibrant illustrations.
All across this great big world, jobs are getting done
by many hands in many lands. It takes much more than ONE.
Gorgeously written and illustrated, this is an eye-opening exploration of the many types of work that go into building our world - from the making of a bridge to a wind farm, an amusement park, and even the very picture book that you are reading. An architect may dream up the plans for a house, but someone has to actually work the saws and pound the nails. This book is a thank-you to the skilled women and men…
Rajendra B. Aklekar (born 1974) is an Indian journalist with over 25 years of experience and author of best-selling books on India’s railway history and heritage. He is also the biographer of India’s legendary railway engineer Dr. E Sreedharan. With museology from Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharasj Vastu Sangrahalaya (formerly the Prince of Wales Museum, Mumbai, Aklekar is also a Google-certified Digital Marketer. Aklekar, associated with the Indian Railway Fans’ Club Association, Indian Steam Railway Society, Rail Enthusiasts Society, has contributed significantly while setting up the Rail Heritage Gallery at the UNESCO-listed Mumbai Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus station, formerly Victoria Terminus building, Bombay, and documentation of heritage relics of India’s first railway.
This is a key book on the mountain railways of India. While all other history books look at the overall context of Indian Railways, this one, in particular, focuses on the “Ghat sections” of Indian Railways that were built as early as the 1860s with primitive technology, labour and sheer hard work. I personally recommend this work because it explores a not-so-popular yet very important part of the construction of the first railway lines in India. The book has minute details of the labour numbers, the various communities involved, and how work went ahead in the difficult most terrain and tropical weather. I am also proud to be associated with late Kerr during his research visits to India and assist him in his work.
25,000 miles of rail were constructed in India from 1850 to 1900, involving a considerable investment of British capital, railway technology, engineers, skilled workmen and millions of Indian labourers. This is a detailed history of the development of the Indian railroad.
In 1997, I was hired by the Northwest Youth Corps as a trail crew leader. That season, and across five more seasons, I built trails across the Pacific Northwest and Desert Southwest, including in many national parks. Since then, I have been in love with backpacking trails (including hiking the Long Trail and Colorado Trail), building trails, and writing about trails (Crosscut: Poems). I now live in Vermont with my wife and daughter. We have a trail we built that weaves through our woods.
Dirt Work: An Education in the Woodsis a memoir about Byl’s experience as a trail builder in Glacier National Park and Cordova and Denali, Alaska. All too often, books about physical labor highlight a male perspective. It is wonderful to have Byl’s perspective on her life as a trail builder. Byl so stunningly weaves vignettes about a life working in the woods. Her stories teach us about physical and intellectual labor and do so beautifully.
A lively and lyrical account of one woman’s unlikely apprenticeship on a national park trail crew—and what she discovers about nature, gender, and the value of hard work
Christine Byl first encountered the national parks the way most of us do: on vacation. But after she graduated from college, broke and ready for a new challenge, she joined a Glacier National Park trail crew as a seasonal “traildog” maintaining mountain trails for the millions of visitors Glacier draws every year. Byl first thought of the job as a paycheck, a summer diversion, a welcome break from “the real world” before…
I’m a children’s book author, illustrator, and map illustrator, as well as an armchair traveler and history buff. I adore books that explain how the world works through the ideas and inventions of curious human beings, narratives of travel and change, and how past and present history are connected. Nonfiction picture books are a fantastic way to distill these true stories for readers of allages!
New York City is all about iconic landmarks! When her husband falls ill from “caisson sickness” during the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge, Emily Roebling takes on the task of overseeing the massive project. She studies the latest technology of the time in an era when many thought that women couldn’t possibly understand advanced math, engineering, and physics. With illustrations that show step-by-step how the Brooklyn Bridge was built, this book is for anyone who is fascinated by bridges, infrastructure, and true stories about women who get the job done.
On a warm spring day in 1883, a woman rode across the Brooklyn Bridge with a rooster on her lap.
It was the first trip across an engineering marvel that had taken nearly fourteen years to construct. The woman's husband was the chief engineer, and he knew all about the dangerous new technique involved. The woman insisted she learn as well.
When he fell ill mid-construction, her knowledge came in handy. She supervised every aspect of the project while he was bedridden, and she continued to learn about things only men were supposed to know:
I grew up near the coasts of New York and Connecticut, and since an early age I was fascinated by the natural world, especially the ocean. I have held a variety of jobs, including stints as a fisheries policy analyst at the National Marine Fisheries Service, a program manager at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and an environmental consultant stateside and in London. Throughout my career, one thing remained constant: I enjoyed writing and telling stories. I am the author of 14 non-fiction books on American history, including Black Flags, Blue Waters: The Epic History of America’s Most Notorious Pirates, and Leviathan: The History of American Whaling.
St. George Reef Lighthouse is located about six miles off Point St. George on the coast of Northern California, not far from the Oregon border. It is built atop, and partly chiseled into, a massive wave-swept rock. Finished in 1892, St. George Reef took roughly a decade to build, at a cost of $752,000, making it far and away the most expensive lighthouse ever built in the United States. The dramatic history of this iconic lighthouse—replete with engineering feats and tragic deaths—is well-told by Powers, who provides one of the best profiles of a single lighthouse ever written.
Miles off the coast of northern California lies a mariner's nightmare. Concealed by roiling sea and thick fog, the jagged edges of a submerged volcanic mountain chain await approaching vessels like predators in the mist. This is one of the most hazardous reefs off the West Coast. And for over a century, it has been home to the most remote, most expensive, and most dangerous lighthouse ever built in America.
Called "Dragon Rocks" in 1792 by British explorer George Vancouver, the area became known as St. George Reef in the hope that its namesake might slay the dragon. But the…
I’ve been fascinated with the natural world and our relationship with it since I was young. In my first career, as an environmental attorney, I worked to protect oceans and endangered species. Now, as a children’s author, I enjoy exploring environmental themes, as well as the unique bonds people have with animals, in my stories. The books I am recommending are recently published middle-grade novels that capture the magical connection between humans and animals, or animals with each other, whether in contemporary or fantasy settings. I grew up in Caracas, Venezuela, and live in Virginia with my family and our adorable hypoallergenic cat.
In this sweet and poignant story, Elvis is a shelter kitten adopted into a home with a girl whose parents recently separated, an eager hamster, a watchdog goldfish, and an older, ornery shelter cat. Elvis just wants to reunite with his sister Etta who was left behind at the shelter, and he must also adapt to his new home and friends. Even though Elvis can’t communicate with humans, he never stops trying. The story explores memory, family, and rebuilding things that are broken, and includes a light discussion of Sept. 11.
A poignant middle-grade story about loss and finding family from the point of view of a newly adopted kitten
Most shelter animals dream of going home with a forever family. But for Elvis, being chosen by Mrs. Pemberton is a nightmare. He's been separated from his sister, Etta, and is determined to get back to the shelter to find her. In spite of himself, Elvis becomes curious about ten-year-old Georgina Pemberton, who builds LEGO skyscrapers in her bedroom while navigating her parents' separation. The longer he's in his new home, the more he starts recognizing new feelings: admiration for Georgina's…
As a NASA Flight Controller and crewman on the high-altitude research aircraft, I met many pilots, including those who flew X-planes. I became passionate about extreme and experimental flying. I have experienced supersonic flight and have flown to 70,000 feet. These experiences motivated me to write three books about X-planes: Stratonauts, X-59: Lowering the Sonic Boom, and X-66A: Bracing for the Future.
The concept for this aircraft was born from General Curtis LeMay’s desire for a heavy bomber with the weapon load and range of the subsonic B-52 and a top speed in excess of the supersonic medium bomber, the B-58 Hustler. I once met General LeMay in the Mercury Control Center in 1962.
However, in April 1961, Defense Secretary McNamara stopped the production of the XB-70 due to rapid cost escalation and the USSR’s newfound ability to destroy aircraft at extremely high altitudes with missiles or the new Mig-25 fighter. The XB-70 became famous for its breakthrough technology and the spectacular images captured when an observing Starfighter collided with the Valkyrie, which crashed into the Mojave Desert.
During the 1950s, at the time Elvis Presley was rocking the world with Hound Dog and the USA was aiming to become the world's only superpower, plans were being drawn at North American Aviation in Southern California for an incredible Mach-3 strategic bomber. The concept was born as a result of General Curtis LeMay's desire for a heavy bomber with the weapon load and range of the subsonic B-52 and a top speed in excess of the supersonic medium bomber, the B-58 Hustler. If LeMay's plans came to fruition there would be 250 Valkyries in the air; it would be…
