Some are excerpted below. The settings in these selections range from the sidewalks of New York, to Thomas Edison's labs, to the mind of a writer. The scholarship embraces a broad arc of sources, and even direct participation. The results are richly researched, thoughtfully considered accounts that show not only how much we can learn from the past, but also how much we can learn from paying attention in the present. Los Angeles Times Book Prize in current interest category.
Language is an efficient ordering of the world's enigmatic abundance.
Or, in other words, we invent nouns to fit reality. We touch a sphere, see a small heap of dawn-colored light, our mouths enjoy a tingling sensation, and we lie to ourselves that those three disparate things are only one thing called an orange. National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism. Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations prize for best book by a first-time author.