A compelling history of silence as a shaper of the human mind—in prisons, in places of contemplation, and in our own lives—from the author of Brilliant.Through her evocative intertwined histories of the penitentiary and the monastery, Jane Brox illuminates the many ways silence is far more complex than any absolute; how it has influenced ideas of the self, soul, and society. Brox traces its place as a transformative power in the monastic world from Medieval...

This "superb history" of artificial light traces the evolution of society—"invariably fascinating and often original . . . [it] amply lives up to its title" ( Publishers Weekly, starred review).In Brilliant, Jane Brox explores humankind's ever-changing relationship to artificial light, from the stone lamps of the Pleistocene to the LEDs embedded in fabrics of the future. More than a survey of technological development, this sweeping history reveal...

“Of soil and soul…Ms. Brox has restored a lost world.”—Wall Street JournalA journey through both family history and the fascinating and quintessentially American history of New England’s Merrimack Valley, its farmers, and the immigrant workers caught up in the industrial textile age.After years of living away, Jane Brox made the decision to return to the family farm of her birth, where her aging father still tended the crops. Brox ...

A stirring memoir of a young, single woman's laborious struggle to save her family’s New England apple farm from going under during the Great Depression.The Orchard is an exquisitely beautiful and poignant memoir of a young woman’s single-handed struggle to save her New England farm in the depths of the Great Depression. Discovered by the author’s daughter after the author’s death, it tells the story of Adele “Kitty” Robertson, young and e...

Another "dazzling epic" from the author of Brilliant, exploring an overlooked yet elemental force in our lives-silence-from contemporary Cistercian monks to an extraordinary 19th-century prison. *Lev Grossman, Time The author of the "dazzling epic" (Time) Brilliant delivers an indelible view of the ways silence affects those who seek it and those who have it imposed upon them. Through her original, intertwined histories of the penitentiary and the monastery, Jane Brox illuminates the many ...

Brilliant, reminiscent of Lewis Hyde's The Gift in its reach and of Timothy Egan's The Worst Hard Time in its haunting evocation of human lives, offers a sweeping view of a surprisingly revealing aspect of human history—from the stone lamps of the Pleistocene to the LEDs embedded in fabrics of the future.Brox plumbs the class implications of light—who had it, who didn't—through the many centuries when crude lamps and tallow candles constricted waking hour...

A stirring memoir of a young, single woman's laborious struggle to save her family's New England apple farm from going under during the Great Depression.The Orchard is a poignant memoir of a young woman's single-handed struggle to save her New England farm in the depths of the Great Depression. Discovered by the author's daughter after the author's death, it tells the story of Adele "Kitty" Robertson, young and energetic, but unprepared by her Radcliffe ed...