Pulitzer Prizes 2010

Book Title: Tinkers
Author/Editor: Paul Harding

ISBN: 9780099538042
Publisher: Bellevue Literary Press
Description: An old man lies dying. Confined to bed in his living room, he sees the walls around him begin to collapse, the windows come loose from their sashes, and the ceiling plaster fall off in great chunks, showering him with a lifetime of debris: newspaper clippings, old photographs, wool jackets, rusty tools, and the mangled brass works of antique clocks. Soon, the clouds from the sky above plummet down on top of him, followed by the stars, till the black night covers him like a shroud. He is hallucinating, in death throes from cancer and kidney failure. Tinkers is about the legacy of consciousness and the porousness of identity from one generation the next. At once heartbreaking and life affirming, it is an elegiac meditation on love, loss, and the fierce beauty of nature.

Book Title: Next to normal
Author/Editor: Music by Tom Kitt and book and lyrics by Brian Yorkey

ISBN: 9781559363709

Book Title: Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World
Author/Editor: Liaquat Ahamed

ISBN: 9781594201820
Publisher: Penguin
Description: It is commonly believed that the Great Depression that began in 1929 resulted from a confluence of events beyond any one person’s or government’s control. In fact, as Liaquat Ahamed reveals, it was the decisions taken by a small number of central bankers that were the primary cause of the economic meltdown, the effects of which set the stage for World War II and reverberated for decades.

Book Title: The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt
Author/Editor: T J Stiles

ISBN: 9780375415425
Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf
Description: Founder of a dynasty, builder of the original Grand Central, creator of an impossibly vast fortune, Cornelius “Commodore” Vanderbilt is an American icon. Humbly born on Staten Island during George Washington’s presidency, he rose from boatman to builder of the nation’s largest fleet of steamships to lord of a railroad empire. Lincoln consulted him on steamship strategy during the Civil War; Jay Gould was first his uneasy ally and then sworn enemy; and Victoria Woodhull, the first woman to run for president of the United States, was his spiritual counselor.

Book Title: The Dead Hand
Author/Editor: David E Hoffman

ISBN: 9780307387844
Publisher: Random House
Description: During the Cold War, the United States and Soviet Union amassed nuclear arsenals containing the explosive power of one million Hiroshimas. The Soviet Union secretly plotted to create the “Dead Hand,” a system designed to launch an automatic retaliatory nuclear strike on the United States, and developed a fearsome biological warfare machine. President Ronald Reagan, hoping to awe the Soviets into submission, pushed hard for the creation of space-based missile defenses. In the first full account of how the arms race finally ended, The Dead Hand provides an unprecedented look at the inner motives and secret decisions of each side.