{"title":"Margalit Fox","description":"Margalit Fox originally trained as a cellist and a linguist before pursuing journalism. As a senior writer in The New York Times's celebrated Obituary News Department, she wrote the front-page public sendoffs of some of the leading cultural figures of our age. Winner of the William Saroyan Prize for Literature and author of three previous books, Conan Doyle for the Defense, The Riddle of the Labyrinth,  and Talking Hands, Fox lives in Manhattan with her husband, the writer and critic George Robinson.","products":[{"product_id":"the-riddle-of-the-labyrinth-the-quest-to-crack-an-ancient-code-paperback","title":"The Riddle of the Labyrinth: The Quest to Crack an Ancient Code - Paperback","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the tradition of Simon Winchester and Dava Sobel, \u003cem\u003eThe Riddle of the Labyrinth: The Quest to Crack an Ancient Code\u003c\/em\u003e tells one of the most intriguing stories in the history of language, masterfully blending history, linguistics, and cryptology with an elegantly wrought narrative.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eWhen famed archaeologist Arthur Evans unearthed the ruins of a sophisticated Bronze Age civilization that flowered on Crete 1,000 years before Greece's Classical Age, he discovered a cache of ancient tablets, Europe's earliest written records. For half a century, the meaning of the inscriptions, and even the language in which they were written, would remain a mystery.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eAward-winning \u003cem\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/em\u003e journalist Margalit Fox's riveting real-life intellectual detective story travels from the Bronze Age Aegean--the era of Odysseus, Agamemnon, and Helen--to the turn of the 20th century and the work of charismatic English archeologist Arthur Evans, to the colorful personal stories of the decipherers. These include Michael Ventris, the brilliant amateur who deciphered the script but met with a sudden, mysterious death that may have been a direct consequence of the deipherment; and Alice Kober, the unsung heroine of the story whose painstaking work allowed Ventris to crack the code.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eFront Jacket\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe Riddle of the Labyrinth\u003c\/em\u003e is the true story of the quest to solve one of the most mesmerizing linguistic riddles in history and of the three brilliant, obsessed, and ultimately doomed investigators whose combined work would eventually crack the code. An award-winning journalist trained as a linguist, Margalit Fox not only takes readers step-by-step through the forensic process involved in cracking an ancient secret code, she restores one of the primary investigators, Alice Kober, to her rightful place in what is one of the most remarkable intellectual detective stories of all time.\u003c\/p\u003e--The Guardian UK\u003ch3\u003eBack Jacket\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe Riddle of the Labyrinth\u003c\/em\u003e is the true story of the quest to solve one of the most mesmerizing linguistic riddles in history and of the three brilliant, obsessed, and ultimately doomed investigators whose combined work would eventually crack the code. An award-winning journalist trained as a linguist, Margalit Fox not only takes readers step-by-step through the forensic process involved in cracking an ancient secret code, she restores one of the primary investigators, Alice Kober, to her rightful place in what is one of the most remarkable intellectual detective stories of all time.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51365564645599,"sku":"9780062228864","price":19.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0813\/8958\/4607\/files\/gd3DuARjKD9780062228864.webp?v=1789066388"},{"product_id":"conan-doyle-for-the-defense-how-sherlock-holmess-creator-turned-real-life-detective-and-freed-a-man-wrongly-imprisoned-for-murder-paperback","title":"Conan Doyle for the Defense: How Sherlock Holmes's Creator Turned Real-Life Detective and Freed a Man Wrongly Imprisoned for Murder - Paperback","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e\"A wonderfully vivid portrait of the man behind Sherlock Holmes . . . Like all the best historical true crime books, it's about so much more than crime.\"--Tana French, author of \u003ci\u003eIn the Woods\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eA sensational Edwardian murder. A scandalous wrongful conviction. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to the rescue--a true story. \u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eAfter a wealthy woman was brutally murdered in her Glasgow home in 1908, the police found a convenient suspect in Oscar Slater, an immigrant Jewish cardsharp. Though he was known to be innocent, Slater was tried, convicted, and consigned to life at hard labor. Outraged by this injustice, Arthur Conan Doyle, already world renowned as the creator of Sherlock Holmes, used the methods of his most famous character to reinvestigate the case, ultimately winning Slater's freedom. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eWith \"an eye for the telling detail, a forensic sense of evidence and a relish for research\" (\u003ci\u003eThe\u003c\/i\u003e \u003ci\u003eWall Street Journal\u003c\/i\u003e), Margalit Fox immerses readers in the science of Edwardian crime detection and illuminates a watershed moment in its history, when reflexive prejudice began to be replaced by reason and the scientific method. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003ePraise for \u003ci\u003eConan Doyle for the Defense\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"Artful and compelling . . . [Fox's] narrative momentum never flags. . . . \u003ci\u003eConan Doyle for the Defense\u003c\/i\u003e will captivate almost any reader while being pure catnip for the devotee of true-crime writing.\"\u003cb\u003e--\u003ci\u003eThe Washington Post\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"Developed with brio . . . [Fox] is excellent in linking the 19th-century creation of policing and detection with the development of both detective fiction and the science of forensics--ballistics, fingerprints, toxicology and serology--as well as the quasi science of 'criminal anthropology.'\"\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e--The New York Times Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"[Fox] has an eye for the telling detail, a forensic sense of evidence and a relish for research.\"\u003cb\u003e--\u003ci\u003eThe Wall Street Journal\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Gripping . . . The book works on two levels, much like a good Holmes case. First, it is a fluid story of a crime. . . . Second, and more pertinently, it is a deeper story of how prejudice against a class of people, the covering up of sloppy police work and a poisonous political atmosphere can doom an innocent. We should all heed Holmes's salutary lesson: rationally follow the facts to find the truth.\"\u003cb\u003e--\u003ci\u003eTime\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51368481784031,"sku":"9780399589478","price":24.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0813\/8958\/4607\/files\/2-J-MjHdkZ9780399589478.webp?v=1789128505"},{"product_id":"the-talented-mrs-mandelbaum-the-rise-and-fall-of-an-american-organized-crime-boss-paperback","title":"The Talented Mrs. Mandelbaum: The Rise and Fall of an American Organized-Crime Boss - Paperback","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cb\u003eAmerica's first great organized-crime lord was a lady--a nice Jewish mother named Mrs. Mandelbaum.\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"A tour de force . . . With a pickpocket's finesse, Margalit Fox lures us into the criminal underworld of Gilded Age New York.\"--Liza Mundy, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Sisterhood\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eA \u003ci\u003ePARADE \u003c\/i\u003eBEST BOOK OF THE YEAR\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIn 1850, an impoverished twenty-five-year-old named Fredericka Mandelbaum came to New York in steerage and worked as a peddler on the streets of Lower Manhattan. By the 1870s she was a fixture of high society and an admired philanthropist. How was she able to ascend from tenement poverty to vast wealth? \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIn the intervening years, \"Marm\" Mandelbaum had become the country's most notorious \"fence\"--a receiver of stolen goods--and a criminal mastermind. By the mid-1880s as much as $10 million worth of purloined luxury goods (nearly $300 million today) had passed through her Lower East Side shop. Called \"the nucleus and center of the whole organization of crime,\" she planned robberies of cash, gold and diamonds throughout the country. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eBut Mrs. Mandelbaum wasn't just a successful crook: She was a business visionary--one of the first entrepreneurs in America to systemize the scattershot enterprise of property crime. Handpicking a cadre of the finest bank robbers, housebreakers and shoplifters, she handled logistics and organized supply chains--turning theft into a viable, scalable \u003ci\u003ebusiness\u003c\/i\u003e. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Talented Mrs. Mandelbaum\u003c\/i\u003e paints a vivid portrait of Gilded Age New York--a city teeming with nefarious rogues, capitalist power brokers and Tammany Hall bigwigs, all straddling the line between underworld enterprise and \"legitimate\" commerce. Combining deep historical research with the narrative flair for which she is celebrated, Margalit Fox tells the unforgettable true story of a once-famous heroine whose life exemplifies America's cherished rags-to-riches narrative while simultaneously upending it entirely.","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51368749695199,"sku":"9780593243879","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0813\/8958\/4607\/files\/3-rlcH9Dhx9780593243879.webp?v=1789132344"},{"product_id":"the-confidence-men-how-two-prisoners-of-war-engineered-the-most-remarkable-escape-in-history-paperback","title":"The Confidence Men: How Two Prisoners of War Engineered the Most Remarkable Escape in History - Paperback","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eNATIONAL BESTSELLER - \u003ci\u003eThe Great Escape\u003c\/i\u003e for the Great War: the astonishing true story of two World War I prisoners who pulled off one of the most ingenious escapes of all time.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cb\u003eFINALIST FOR THE EDGAR\u003cb\u003e(R)\u003c\/b\u003e AWARD -\u003c\/b\u003e ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: \u003ci\u003eThe Washington Post, \u003c\/i\u003eNPR - \"Fox unspools Jones and Hill's delightfully elaborate scheme in nail-biting episodes that advance like a narrative Rube Goldberg machine.\"--\u003ci\u003eThe New York Times Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eImprisoned in a remote Turkish POW camp during World War I, having survived a two-month forced march and a terrifying shootout in the desert, two British officers, Harry Jones and Cedric Hill, join forces to bamboozle their iron-fisted captors. To stave off despair and boredom, Jones takes a handmade Ouija board and fakes elaborate séances for his fellow prisoners. Word gets around, and one day an Ottoman official approaches Jones with a query: Could Jones contact the spirit world to find a vast treasure rumored to be buried nearby? Jones, a trained lawyer, and Hill, a brilliant magician, use the Ouija board--and their keen understanding of the psychology of deception--to build a trap for their captors that will ultimately lead them to freedom. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eA gripping nonfiction thriller, \u003ci\u003eThe Confidence Men \u003c\/i\u003eis the story of one of the only known con games played for a good cause--and of a profound but unlikely friendship. Had it not been for \"the Great War,\" Jones, the Oxford-educated son of a British lord, and Hill, a mechanic on an Australian sheep ranch, would never have met. But in pain, loneliness, hunger, and isolation, they formed a powerful emotional and intellectual alliance that saved both of their lives. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eMargalit Fox brings her \"nose for interesting facts, the ability to construct a taut narrative arc, and a Dickens-level gift for concisely conveying personality\" (Kathryn Schulz, \u003ci\u003eNew York\u003c\/i\u003e) to this tale of psychological strategy that is rife with cunning, danger, and moments of high farce that rival anything in \u003ci\u003eCatch-22\u003c\/i\u003e.","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51369502310623,"sku":"9781984853851","price":18.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0813\/8958\/4607\/files\/AsX2r82Xjv9781984853851.webp?v=1789142523"},{"product_id":"talking-hands-what-sign-language-reveals-about-the-mind-paperback","title":"Talking Hands: What Sign Language Reveals about the Mind - Paperback","description":"\u003cp\u003eImagine a village where everyone \"speaks\" sign language. Just such a village -- an isolated Bedouin community in Israel with an unusually high rate of deafness -- is at the heart of \u003ci\u003eTalking Hands: What Sign Language Reveals About the Mind.\u003c\/i\u003e There, an indigenous sign language has sprung up, used by deaf and hearing villagers alike. It is a language no outsider has been able to decode, until now. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e A \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e reporter trained as a linguist, Margalit Fox is the only Western journalist to have set foot in this remarkable village. In \u003ci\u003eTalking Hands, \u003c\/i\u003e she follows an international team of scientists that is unraveling this mysterious language. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e Because the sign language of the village has arisen completely on its own, outside the influence of any other language, it is a living demonstration of the \"language instinct,\" man's inborn capacity to create language. If the researchers can decode this language, they will have helped isolate ingredients essential to all human language, signed and spoken. But as \u003ci\u003eTalking Hands\u003c\/i\u003e grippingly shows, their work in the village is also a race against time, because the unique language of the village may already be endangered. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003ci\u003eTalking Hands\u003c\/i\u003e offers a fascinating introduction to the signed languages of the world -- languages as beautiful, vital and emphatically human as any other -- explaining why they are now furnishing cognitive scientists with long-sought keys to understanding how language works in the mind. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e Written in lyrical, accessible prose, \u003ci\u003eTalking Hands\u003c\/i\u003e will captivate anyone interested in language, the human mind and journeys to exotic places.","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51376120824031,"sku":"9780743247139","price":22.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0813\/8958\/4607\/files\/WfbYcvEo-A9780743247139.webp?v=1789214243"}],"url":"https:\/\/blackandbarhe.com\/collections\/margalit-fox.oembed","provider":"Black \u0026 Barhe Bookstore","version":"1.0","type":"link"}