National Network for Equitable Library Service

An "obsessive, mystical, terrifying" exploration of the shadowy world of the anesthetized mind—and what it can teach us about the nature of memory and consciousness (*New Yorker*). Features fascinating insights from real-life doctors and patients—"a must-read for anyone who woke from surgery and couldn't remember anything about the experience" (*Signature Reads*). First there's the injection, then the countdown—and next thing you know, you're awake.

Who qualifies as the worst of Roman emperors and why? Join L. J. Trafford for a tour of the very worst leadership in ancient Rome featuring Caligula, Commodus, and many more. Between 27 BCE and 476 CE, a series of men became Roman Emperor, ruling a domain that stretched across Europe, North Africa, and the Near East. Some of them did this rather well, expanding Rome’s territories further, installing just laws, and maintaining order within the city. Others, however, were distinctly less successful at the job.

On the morning of September 2, 1798, just after first light, the back door to Carpenters' Hall is discovered ajar. Gold, silver, banknotes-the vast riches of a well-guarded bank vault-all of it gone without a trace. Frantic bankers secure an arrest warrant for the clever blacksmith who worked on the vault doors, a young Scot who crossed the ocean like thousands of others on America's promise of liberty and opportunity. Bankers know him to be innocent but lock him up anyway, then leave him to die in their fever-ridden jail.

Chinatown, U.S.A.: a state of mind, a world within a world, a neighborhood that exists in more cities than you might imagine. Every day, Americans find "something different" in Chinatown's narrow lanes and overflowing markets, tasting exotic delicacies from a world apart or bartering for a trinket on the street — all without ever leaving the country.

"An exceptionally good book . . . worthy to stand on the nature shelf of anyone interested in mountainous America." - The New York Times. An eloquently written story, laced with appreciations of the region's natural history. Includes historic photographs. In midwinter 1920, Floyd Schmoe and his bride struggled up Mount Rainier on snowshoes on a long-delayed honeymoon. As the new caretakers at Paradise Inn, they would be alone in a towering world of snow and ice and incomparable beauty, until the plows arrived to free them on the fourth of July.

From the acclaimed biographer, screenwriter, and novelist Frederic Raphael, here is an audacious history of Josephus (37-c.100), the Jewish general turned Roman historian, whose emblematic betrayal is a touchstone for the Jew alone in the Gentile world. Joseph ben Mattathias's transformation into Titus Flavius Josephus, historian to the Roman emperor Vespasian, is a gripping and dramatic story. His life, in the hands of Frederic Raphael, becomes a point of departure for an appraisal of Diasporan Jews seeking a place in the dominant cultures they inhabit.

Early in the first century B.C., a Greek philosopher named Posidonius began an ambitious and dangerous journey into the little-known lands of the Celts. A man of great intellectual curiosity and considerable daring, Posidonius traveled from his home on the island of Rhodes to Rome, the capital of the expanding empire that had begun to dominate the Mediterranean. From there Posidonius planned to investigate for himself the mysterious Celts, reputed to be cannibals and savages. His journey would be one of the great adventures of the ancient world.

In ancient Egypt, women enjoyed a legal, social, and sexual independence unrivaled by their Greek or Roman counterparts—or, in fact, by most women until the late nineteenth century. They could own and trade property, work outside the home, marry foreigners, and live alone without the protection of a male guardian.

Partly as a result of poor commanders and partly because the Romans had an innate and misguided belief in the invincibility of their legions, the first battles against the Cimbri were a series of disasters. These culminated in the Battle of Arausio in 105 BC when two Roman armies were utterly destroyed. Rome finally realized that their republic faced an existential threat, and made the necessary painful political and military changes that were needed to face that threat. Rome also found a commander who could take on the Cimbri.

Essence and emblem of life—feared, revered, mythologized, and used in magic and medicine from earliest times—human blood is now the center of a huge, secretive, and often dangerous worldwide commerce. It is a commerce whose impact upon humanity rivals that of any other business—millions of lives have been saved by blood and its various derivatives, and tens of thousands of lives have been lost. Douglas Starr tells how this came to be, in a sweeping history that ranges through the centuries.