Lake Bluff Library Adult Reading Lists

A history of the debutante ritual and its role in contemporary traditions chronicles how the exclusive presentations of husband-seeking noblewomen in the Tudor era expanded into London’s courtship seasons and beyond. (Description from NoveList.)

Explores the concept of land ownership and how it has shaped history, examining how people fight over, steward, and occasionally share land, and what humanity's proprietary relationship with land means for the future. (Description from catalog)

Pulitzer Prize- and National Book Award-winning author Richard Rhodes reveals the fascinating history behind energy transitions over time—wood to coal to oil to electricity and beyond. (Description from catalog)

Journalist Kristen Martin explores the real history of orphan-hood in the United States, from the 1800s to the present. Martin reveals the religious charity and mission that was the core of the first orphanages, the orphan trains that took parentless children out West, and the inherent racism that still underlies the United States' approach to child welfare.
(Description from catalog)

The story of a woman who overcame the limitations and expectations imposed by her social status and pushed forward an entirely new branch of science that we still use today.
(Description from catalog)

In the tradition of Fast Food Nation and The Omnivore's Dilemma, an extraordinary investigation into the human lives at the heart of the American grocery store What does it take to run the American supermarket? How do products get to shelves? Who sets the price? And who suffers the consequences of increased convenience end efficiency? (Description from catalog.)

An exuberant work of popular history: the story of how streets got their names and houses their numbers, and why something as seemingly mundane as an address can save lives or enforce power. (Description from NoveList.)

Describes how more than ten thousand definitions were submitted for the first Oxford English Dictionary from Dr. W.C. Minor, an American Civil War criminal who was considered both a genius and a lunatic. (Description from NoveList)

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author Michael Pollan, a radical challenge to how we think about drugs, and an exploration into the powerful human attraction to psychoactive plants -- and the equally powerful taboos. (Description from catalog)

Part H Is for Hawk, part The Soul of an Octopus, The Book of Eels is both a meditation on the world's most elusive fish-the eel-and a reflection on the human condition. (Description from catalog.)

Blending together natural history, philosophy and science, this stunning meditation on the extraordinary lives of whales takes readers on an exploration of the natural world to reveal what whales can teach us about ourselves, our planet and our relationship to other species. (Description from NoveList.)

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning, best-selling author of The Emperor of All Maladies comes a magnificent history of the gene and a response to the defining question of the future: What becomes of being human when we learn to “read” and “write” our own genetic information?
(Description from NoveList)

A captivating exploration into the secretive and sensuous world of truffles, the elusive food that has captured hearts, imaginations, and palates worldwide. (Description from Amazon)

Profoundly intertwined with human civilization, milk has a compelling and a surprisingly global story to tell. Tracing the liquid's diverse history from antiquity to the present, Mark Kurlansky details its curious and crucial role in cultural evolution, religion, nutrition, politics, and economics. (Description from NoveList)

The captivating story of the family behind the Cartier empire and the three brothers who turned their grandfather's humble Parisian jewelry store into a global luxury icon--as told by a great-granddaughter with exclusive access to long-lost family archives. (Description from catalog.)

Tells the behind-the-scenes story of the creation of the children’s TV programs Sesame Street, The Electric Company, Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood and more—which transformed the American childhood for the better, teaching kids about diversity, the ABCs and feminism. (Description from NoveList.)

The Monopolists reveals the unknown story of how Monopoly came into existence, the reinvention of its history by Parker Brothers and multiple media outlets, the lost female originator of the game, and one man's lifelong obsession to tell the true story about the game's questionable origins. (Description from NoveList)