Interpreter Of Maladies
Rising: Dispatches from the New American Shore

The Way Things Work

As seen on CBS News Sunday Morning.

Explainer-in-Chief David Macaulay updates his worldwide bestseller to capture the latest developments in the technology that most impacts our lives. What possible link could there be between parking meters and meat grinders, jumbo jets and jackhammers, remote control and rockets, electric guitars and egg beaters? Macaulay explains them all!

Famously packed with information on the inner workings of everything from windmills to Wi-Fi, this extraordinary and humorous book both guides readers through the fundamental principles of machines and shows how the developments of the past are building blocks of the world of tomorrow. This sweepingly revised edition embraces recent technological developments, from touchscreens to 3D printers. Each scientific principle is brilliantly explained, with the help of a charming, if rather slow-witted, woolly mammoth.

An illustrated survey of significant inventions closes the book, along with a glossary of technical terms and an index.

More Non-Juvenile, YA Books

  • Centering on the infamous World War II firebombing of Dresden, the novel is the result of what Kurt Vonnegut described as a twenty-three-year struggle to write a book about what he had witnessed as an American prisoner of war.
  • In Tell Me Everything, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Elizabeth Strout returns to Crosby, Maine, exploring the complexities of new friendships and old loves amidst a shocking murder investigation. As characters navigate their intertwined lives, they grapple with profound questions about the meaning of existence, highlighting the enduring power of relationships and love in its many forms.
  • “An enthralling tale of a secret resistance movement run by Black women in pre-Civil War New Orleans.”—Time
  • Riley's poetry captures the essence of rural American life in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and his works continue to be studied and recited to this day.