The Yonkers Public Library Presents
Crestwood Centennial Conversation with Simon Winchester
Purchase the author’s books below in advance, and they will be available to pick up at the YPL event on Saturday, June 6th. Click here for event info.
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The Breath of the Gods is an urgently-needed portrait across time of that unseen force—unseen but not unfelt—that respects no national borders and no vessel or structure in its path. Wind, the movement of the air, is seen by so many as a heavenly creation and generally a thing of essential goodness. But when it flexes its invisible muscles, all should take care and be very afraid.
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Masterfully researched and eloquently written, The Professor and the Madman is an extraordinary tale of madness, genius, and the incredible obsessions of two remarkable men that led to the making of the Oxford English Dictionary—one of the most ambitious projects ever undertaken. As definitions were collected, the OED’s overseeing committee, led by Professor James Murray, was stunned to discover that one man, Dr. W. C. Minor, had submitted more than ten thousand entries. But their surprise would pale in comparison to what they were about to discover when the committee insisted on honoring him. Dr. Minor, an American Civil War veteran, was also an inmate at an asylum for the criminally insane.
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From the creation of the first encyclopedia to Wikipedia, from ancient museums to modern kindergarten classes—this is award winning writer Simon Winchester’s brilliant and all-encompassing narrative nonfiction look at how humans acquire, retain, and pass on information and data, and how technology continues to change our lives and our minds.
With the advent of the internet, any topic we want to know about is instantly available with the touch of a smartphone button. With so much knowledge at our fingertips, what is there left for our brains to do? At a time when core skills of learning and memory seem to be stripped of all value—no need for math, no need for map-reading, no need for memorization—are we risking our ability to think? In this modern information age, as we empty our minds, will we one day be incapable of thoughtfulness?
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In this fascinating history of science, Simon Winchester takes us back to origins of the Industrial Age, to England where he introduces the scientific minds that helped usher in modern production: John Wilkinson, Henry Maudslay, Joseph Bramah, Jesse Ramsden, and Joseph Whitworth. It was Thomas Jefferson who later exported their discoveries to the fledgling United States, setting the nation on its course to become an industrial manufacturing titan. Winchester moves forward through time, to today’s cutting-edge developments occurring around the world, from America to Western Europe to Asia.
About the Author
