Month: August 2011

From modest beginnings as a tea shop in New York, the Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company became the largest retailer in the world. But its explosive growth made it a mortal threat to hundreds of thousands of mom-and-pop grocery stores. Main Street fought back tooth and nail and eventually the federal government pressed criminal charges against the Great A&P for selling food too cheaply — and won. The Great A&P and the Struggle for Small Business in America is Marc Levinson‘s brilliant business history of a stunningly successful company that forever changed how Americans shop and what Americans eat. The “Wall Street Journal” named it one of the Ten Best Nonfiction Books of 2011. (Hill & Wang/Farrar, Straus & Giroux)

Humanity is on the cusp of an exciting longevity revolution. The first person to live to 150 years has probably already been born. What will your life look like when you live to be over 100? Will you be healthy? Will your marriage need a sunset clause? How long will you have to work? Will you finish one career at 65 only to go back to school to learn a new one? And then, will you be happily working for another sixty years? Maybe you’ll be a parent to a newborn and a grandparent at the same time. Will the world become overpopulated? And how will living longer affect your finances, your family life, and your views on religion and the afterlife? In “Washington Post” bestseller 100 Plus: How the Coming Age of Longevity Will Change Everything, From Careers and Relationships to Family and Faith, futurist Sonia Arrison takes us on an eye-opening journey to the future at our doorsteps, where science and technology is beginning to radically change life as we know it. She introduces us to the people transforming our lives, the brilliant scientists, genius inventors and billionaires who fund their work, and paints a vivid picture of a future that only recently seemed like science fiction, but now is very real. (Basic Books/Perseus)