Books published by publisher W.W. Norton

Onboard the Fidele, a steamboat floating down the Mississippi to New Orleans, a confidence man sets out to defraud his fellow passengers. In quick succession he assumes numerous guises - from a legless beggar and a worldly businessman to a collector for charitable causes and a cosmopolitan' gentleman, who simply swindles a barber out of the price of a shave. Making very little from his hoaxes, the pleasure of trickery seems an end in itself for this slippery conman. Is he the Devil? Is his chicanery merely intended to expose the mercenary concerns of those around him? Set on April Fool's Day, The Confidence-Man (1857) is an engaging comedy of masquerades, digressions and shifting identity, and a devastating satire on the American dream.

Although it is possible to compare the talents of such geniuses as Shakespeare, Goethe, and Dante, or of various scientists, artists, and inventors, one man in history stands alone by virtue of the number and variety of his talents. It can be said with little argument that Leonardo da Vinci was gifted with more creative abilities than any other human being. Painter, sculptor, architect, mathematician, musician, astronomer, geologist, botanist, philosopher, and engineer - da Vinci was the prototype of the "Renaissance man." A brilliant pioneer in the field of science, he anticipated the invention of the airplane and the submarine, for example; the studies in his notebooks were so far ahead of his time that he had to write in code to avoid discovery and punishment for "heresy." His paintings and sketches alone rank him in the forefront of the world's great men. Fortunately, Leonardo lived in an age and a place - Renaissance Italy - where the intellectual was more highly honored than either the military man or the politician. His own nature antagonized many and brought him tragedy, but at the same time it carried him to such heights that even in his own era he was imitated, admired, and followed by most of his fellow artists. Today, we can only guess how much further and more quickly our civilization would have advanced had Leonardo's notebooks not been buried away, unread, for centuries. We can only marvel at the brain that conceived such ideas.

Goldsmith looks at the woman behind the icon of scientific discovery, and shows Curie (1867-1934) trying to balance a spectacular scientific career with the obligations of family, the prejudice of society, the constant search for adequate funding, and the battle for recognition. She draws on diaries, letters, and family interviews. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)