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Shady Characters

The Secret Life of Punctuation, Symbols, and Other Typographical Marks

by Keith Houston ...

“An absolutely fascinating blend of history, design, sociology, and cultural poetics—highly recommended.”—Maria Popova, Brain PickingsA charming and indispensable tour of two thousand years of the written word, Shady Characters weaves a fascinating trail across the parallel histories of language and typography.Whether investigating the asterisk (*) and dagger (†)—which alternately illuminated and ... Read more

$12.99 USD

Also available as: Audiobook

“An absolutely fascinating blend of history, design, sociology, and cultural poetics—highly recommended.”—Maria Popova, Brain PickingsA charming and indispensable tour of two thousand years of the written word, Shady Characters weaves a fascinating trail across the parallel histories of language and typography.Whether investigating the asterisk (*) and dagger (†)—which alternately illuminated and
... Read more

Also available as: Audiobook
Empire of the Sum

The Rise and Reign of the Pocket Calculator

by Keith Houston ...

**A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice“[A] lively, entertaining history.” —New York Times Book Review, Editors' ChoiceThe hidden history of the pocket calculator—a device that ushered in modern mathematics, helped build the atomic bomb, and went with us to the moon—and the mathematicians, designers, and inventors who brought it to life.**Starting with hands, abacus, and slide rule, humans ... Read more

$15.79 USD

Also available as: Audiobook

**A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice“[A] lively, entertaining history.” —New York Times Book Review, Editors' ChoiceThe hidden history of the pocket calculator—a device that ushered in modern mathematics, helped build the atomic bomb, and went with us to the moon—and the mathematicians, designers, and inventors who brought it to life.**Starting with hands, abacus, and slide rule, humans
... Read more

Also available as: Audiobook
The Book

A Cover-to-Cover Exploration of the Most Powerful Object of Our Time

by Keith Houston ...

"A masterful and overwhelmingly entertaining volume." —Clea Simon, Boston GlobeIn The Book, Keith Houston reveals that the paper, ink, thread, glue, and board from which a book is made tell as rich a story as the words on its pages. In an invitingly tactile history of this 2,000-year-old medium, Houston follows the development of writing, printing, the art of illustrations, and binding to show how ... Read more

$17.79 USD

Also available as: Audiobook

"A masterful and overwhelmingly entertaining volume." —Clea Simon, Boston GlobeIn The Book, Keith Houston reveals that the paper, ink, thread, glue, and board from which a book is made tell as rich a story as the words on its pages. In an invitingly tactile history of this 2,000-year-old medium, Houston follows the development of writing, printing, the art of illustrations, and binding to show how
... Read more

Also available as: Audiobook
Face with Tears of Joy

A Natural History of Emoji

by Keith Houston ...

A vibrant exploration of the world’s newest language—where it came from, how it works, and where it’s going.We are surrounded by emoji. They appear in politics, movies, drug deals, our sex lives, and more. But emoji’s impact has never been explored in full. In this rollicking tech and pop culture history, Keith Houston follows emoji from its birth in 1990s Japan, traces its Western explosion in ... Read more

$13.69 USD

Also available as: Audiobook

A vibrant exploration of the world’s newest language—where it came from, how it works, and where it’s going.We are surrounded by emoji. They appear in politics, movies, drug deals, our sex lives, and more. But emoji’s impact has never been explored in full. In this rollicking tech and pop culture history, Keith Houston follows emoji from its birth in 1990s Japan, traces its Western explosion in
... Read more

Also available as: Audiobook
Audiobook

Face with Tears of Joy

A Natural History of Emoji

by Keith Houston ...

Narrated by Michael Butler Murray ...

Unabridged

5 hours 43 min

A vibrant exploration of the world's newest language—where it came from, how it works, and where it's going.We are surrounded by emoji. They appear in politics, movies, drug deals, our sex lives, and more. But emoji's impact has never been explored in full. In this rollicking tech and pop culture history, Keith Houston follows emoji from its birth in 1990s Japan, traces its Western explosion in ... Read more

$19.99 USD

Also available as: eBook

A vibrant exploration of the world's newest language—where it came from, how it works, and where it's going.We are surrounded by emoji. They appear in politics, movies, drug deals, our sex lives, and more. But emoji's impact has never been explored in full. In this rollicking tech and pop culture history, Keith Houston follows emoji from its birth in 1990s Japan, traces its Western explosion in
... Read more

Also available as: eBook
Audiobook

Shady Characters

The Secret Life of Punctuation, Symbols, and Other Typographical Marks

by Keith Houston ...

Narrated by Elliot Fitzpatrick ...

Unabridged

7 hours 9 min

A charming and indispensable tour of two thousand years of the written word, Shady Characters weaves a fascinating trail across the parallel histories of language and typography.Whether investigating the asterisk (*) and dagger (†)—which alternately illuminated and skewered heretical verses of the early Bible—or the at sign (@), which languished in obscurity for centuries until rescued by the ... Read more

$19.99 USD

Also available as: eBook

A charming and indispensable tour of two thousand years of the written word, Shady Characters weaves a fascinating trail across the parallel histories of language and typography.Whether investigating the asterisk (*) and dagger (†)—which alternately illuminated and skewered heretical verses of the early Bible—or the at sign (@), which languished in obscurity for centuries until rescued by the
... Read more

Also available as: eBook
Audiobook

Empire of the Sum

The Rise and Reign of the Pocket Calculator

by Keith Houston ...

Narrated by Elliot Fitzpatrick ...

Unabridged

9 hours 7 min

The hidden history of the pocket calculator—a device that ushered in modern mathematics, helped build the atomic bomb, and went with us to the moon—and the mathematicians, designers, and inventors who brought it to life.Starting with hands, abacus, and slide rule, humans have always reached for tools to simplify math. Pocket-sized calculators ushered in modern mathematics, helped build the atomic ... Read more

$24.99 USD

Also available as: eBook

The hidden history of the pocket calculator—a device that ushered in modern mathematics, helped build the atomic bomb, and went with us to the moon—and the mathematicians, designers, and inventors who brought it to life.Starting with hands, abacus, and slide rule, humans have always reached for tools to simplify math. Pocket-sized calculators ushered in modern mathematics, helped build the atomic
... Read more

Also available as: eBook
Audiobook

The Book

A Cover-to-Cover Exploration of the Most Powerful Object of Our Time

by Keith Houston ...

Narrated by Dennis Kleinman ...

Unabridged

9 hours 58 min

We may love books, but do we know what lies behind them? In The Book, Keith Houston reveals that the paper, ink, thread, glue, and board from which a book is made tell as rich a story as the words on its pages—of civilizations, empires, human ingenuity, and madness. In an invitingly tactile history of this 2,000-year-old medium, Houston follows the development of writing, printing, the art of ... Read more

$19.99 USD

Also available as: eBook

We may love books, but do we know what lies behind them? In The Book, Keith Houston reveals that the paper, ink, thread, glue, and board from which a book is made tell as rich a story as the words on its pages—of civilizations, empires, human ingenuity, and madness. In an invitingly tactile history of this 2,000-year-old medium, Houston follows the development of writing, printing, the art of
... Read more

Also available as: eBook

Audiobook

The Source

How Rivers Made America and America Remade Its Rivers

by Martin Doyle ...

Narrated by Keith Sellon-Wright ...

Unabridged

10 hours 32 min

In this fresh and powerful work of environmental history, Martin Doyle explores how rivers have often been the source of arguments at the heart of the American experiment?over federalism, taxation, regulation, conservation, and development.Doyle tells the epic story of America and its rivers, from the U.S. Constitution's roots in interstate river navigation, the origins of the Army Corps of ... Read more

$30.99 USD

Also available as: eBook

In this fresh and powerful work of environmental history, Martin Doyle explores how rivers have often been the source of arguments at the heart of the American experiment?over federalism, taxation, regulation, conservation, and development.Doyle tells the epic story of America and its rivers, from the U.S. Constitution's roots in interstate river navigation, the origins of the Army Corps of
... Read more

Also available as: eBook
Audiobook

Nobody

Casualties of America’s War on the Vulnerable, from Ferguson to Flint and Beyond

by Marc Lamont Hill ...

Narrated by Kevin Kenerly ...

Unabridged

6 hours 4 min

Protests in Ferguson, Missouri, and across the United States following the death of Michael Brown revealed something far deeper than a passionate display of age-old racial frustrations; they unveiled a public chasm that has been growing for years, as America has consistently and intentionally denied significant segments of its population access to full freedom and prosperity.In Nobody, scholar and ... Read more

$19.95 USD or Free with Kobo Plus

Also available as: eBook

Protests in Ferguson, Missouri, and across the United States following the death of Michael Brown revealed something far deeper than a passionate display of age-old racial frustrations; they unveiled a public chasm that has been growing for years, as America has consistently and intentionally denied significant segments of its population access to full freedom and prosperity.In Nobody, scholar and
... Read more

Also available as: eBook
Audiobook

A Perfect Union

Dolley Madison and the Creation of the American Nation

by Catherine Allgor ...

Narrated by Anne Twomey ...

Unabridged

15 hours 58 min

An extraordinary American comes to life in this vivid, incisive portrait of the early days of the republic—and the birth of modern politics hen the roar of the Revolution had finally died down, a new generation of American politicians was summoned to the Potomac to assemble the nation's newly minted capital. Into that unsteady atmosphere which would soon enough erupt into another conflict with ... Read more

$32.99 USD

Also available as: eBook

An extraordinary American comes to life in this vivid, incisive portrait of the early days of the republic—and the birth of modern politics hen the roar of the Revolution had finally died down, a new generation of American politicians was summoned to the Potomac to assemble the nation's newly minted capital. Into that unsteady atmosphere which would soon enough erupt into another conflict with
... Read more

Also available as: eBook
Audiobook

American Republics

A Continental History of the United States 1783-1850

by Alan Taylor ...

Narrated by Graham Winton ...

Unabridged

14 hours 42 min

From a Pulitzer Prize–winning historian, the powerful story of a fragile nation as it expands across a contested continent.In this beautifully written history of America’s formative period, a preeminent historian upends the traditional story of a young nation confidently marching to its continent-spanning destiny. The newly constituted United States actually emerged as a fragile, internally ... Read more

$25.99 USD

Also available as: eBook

From a Pulitzer Prize–winning historian, the powerful story of a fragile nation as it expands across a contested continent.In this beautifully written history of America’s formative period, a preeminent historian upends the traditional story of a young nation confidently marching to its continent-spanning destiny. The newly constituted United States actually emerged as a fragile, internally
... Read more

Also available as: eBook

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“keith houston”

Shady Characters

Empire of the Sum

The Book

Face with Tears of Joy

Face with Tears of Joy

Shady Characters

Empire of the Sum

The Book

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The Source

Nobody

A Perfect Union

American Republics

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