Walker Percy's Lost in the Cosmos uses the form of a self-help book to satirically probe modern selfhood.

Under a strange self-help guise, the book asks what the self really is.

Thomas Keneally's Schindler's Ark is a historical novel centered on Oskar Schindler and the rescue of Jews during the Holocaust.

Based on true events, it tells how courage and chance saved lives.

Seymour Hersh's The Price of Power is an investigative portrait of Henry Kissinger's influence in the Nixon White House.

The book reconstructs what happened at the center of power through exhaustive reporting.

Fernand Braudel's The Wheels of Commerce traces the foundations of capitalism through exchange, trade, banking, and commercial networks.

The book reads the economic structure of the premodern world through markets and trade.

James Merrill's The Changing Light at Sandover is a long poem built from Ouija-board conversations and meditations on love, the dead, and cosmic order.

Private conversation expands into cosmology in poetic form.

M.F.K. Fisher's Consider the Oyster is a witty food essay on the history, handling, and enjoyment of oysters.

A witty book that shows how richly one ingredient can be written about.