Bandon Public Library

William Shakespeare, the most celebrated poet in the English language, left behind nearly a million words of text, but his biography has long been a thicket of supposition arranged around scant facts. With his trademark wit, Bill Bryson sorts through this colorful muddle to reveal the man himself. Bryson documents the efforts of earlier scholars, and, emulating the style of his travelogues, records episodes in his own research. He celebrates Shakespeare...

In this philosophical fantasy, naive Candide sees and suffers such misfortune that he ultimately rejects the philosophy of his tutor Doctor Pangloss, who claims that "all is for the best in this best of all possible worlds." Candide and his companions--Pangloss, his beloved Cunegonde, and his servant Cacambo--display an instinct for survival that provides them hope in an otherwise somber setting. When they all retire together to a simple life on a...

In The March of Folly, two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Barbara Tuchman tackles the pervasive presence of folly in governments through the ages. Defining folly as the pursuit by governments of policies contrary to their own interests, despite the availability of feasible alternatives, Tuchman details four decisive turning points in history that illustrate the very heights of folly in government: the Trojan War, the breakup of the Holy

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"Drawing on the literature of combat, from Homer and Shakespeare to Erich Maria Remarque and Michael Herr, Hedges shows how human beings are conditioned to embrace what he calls "the myth of war"--The idea that combat is noble, selfless, and glorious. And yet if human history is any guide, nations and imperiums have stumbled and even fallen when they believed the myths peddled about war and about themselves. The reality of war, which Hedges knows...

"From the author of 1491--the best-selling study of the pre-Columbian Americas--a deeply engaging new history that explores the most momentous biological event since the death of the dinosaurs. More than 200 million years ago, geological forces split apart the continents. Isolated from each other, the two halves of the world developed totally different suites of plants and animals. Columbus's voyages brought them back together--and marked the beginning...

A biography of architect Zaha Hadid, who grew up in Baghdad and went on to design buildings all over the world. She became one of the most irreverent, controversial, and celebrated architects in the world. -- Publisher description

Over the course of one pivotal year, events that shaped American and world history took place: The North Vietnamese launched the Tet offensive. Prague Spring began. Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated. Students protested across the United States and around the world. Robert Kennedy was assassinated. The Democratic National Convention in Chicago was besieged by riots. Apollo 11 launched. And Richard Nixon was elected president of the United States....

"Splendidly readable and hugely informative. . . . Episode after episode from the cultural life of the twentieth century springs to vivid life." -Boston Globe From Freud to Babbitt, from Animal Farm to Sartre to the Great Society, from the Theory of Re

"The incredible, harrowing account of how American democracy was hacked by Moscow as part of a covert operation to influence the U.S. election and help Donald Trump gain the presidency. [This book] is a story of political skullduggery unprecedented in American history. It weaves together tales of international intrigue, cyber espionage, and superpower rivalry. After U.S.-Russia relations soured, as Vladimir Putin moved to reassert Russian strength...