Most Popular Books by Andrew Smith

From the Americas to Australasia, from northern Europe to southern Africa, the tomato tickles the world''s taste buds. Americans along devour more than twelve million tons annually of this peculiar fruit, variously considered poisonous, curative, and aphrodisiacal. In this first concerted study of the tomato in America, Andrew F. Smith separates myth from historical fact, beginning with the Salem, New Jersey, man who, in 1820, allegedly attracted spectators from hundreds of miles to watch him eat a tomato on the courthouse steps (the legend says they expected to see him die a painful death). Later, hucksters such as Dr. John Cook Bennett and the Amazing Archibald Miles peddled the tomato''s purported medicinal benefits. The competition was so fierce that the Tomato Pill War broke out in 1838. The Tomato in America traces the early cultivation of the tomato, its infiltration of American cooking practices, the early manufacture of preserved tomatoes and ketchup (soon hailed as "the national condiment of the United States"), and the "great tomato mania" of the 1820s and 1830s. The book also includes tomato recipes from the pre-Civil War period, covering everything from sauces, soups, and main dishes to desserts and sweets. Now available for the first time in paperback, The Tomato in America provides a piquant and entertaining look at a versatile and storied figure in culinary history.

" The Social Network meets Hammer of the Gods" in this story of a 1990s web titan who made a fortune and lost it all—and what happened afterward ( The Independent). One day in February 2001, Josh Harris woke to certain knowledge that he was about to lose everything. The man Time magazine called "The Warhol of the Web" was reduced to a helpless spectator as his fortune dwindled from 85 million dollars to nothing, all in the space of a week. Harris had been a maverick genius preternaturally adapted to the new online world. He founded New York''s first dotcom, Pseudo.com, and paved the way for a cadre of twentysomethings to follow, riding a wave of tech euphoria to unimagined wealth and fame for five years—before the great dotcom crash, in which Web 1.0 was wiped from the face of the earth. Long before then, though, Harris''s view of the web had darkened, and he began a series of lurid social experiments aimed at illustrating his worst fear: that the internet would soon alter the very fabric of society—cognitive, social, political, and otherwise. In Totally Wired, journalist Andrew Smith seeks to unravel the opaque and mysterious episodes of the early dotcom craze, in which the seeds of our current reality were sown. Drawing on in-depth interviews with Harris and those who worked alongside him in downtown Manhattan''s "Silicon Alley," the tale moves from a compound in Ethiopia through New York, San Francisco, Las Vegas, London, and Salt Lake City, Utah; from the dawn of the web to the present, taking in the rise of alternative facts, troll society, and the unexpected origins of the net itself, as our world has grown uncannily to resemble the one Harris predicted—and urged us to evade. "Raucous, whimsical, sad and very funny...a fascinating account of what could have been, what briefly was, what almost lasted." ― The Wall Street Journal "Told with verve and style...A valuable history." ― Kirkus Reviews "A brilliant exploration of madness and genius in the early days of the web." ―The Guardian "Dark and compelling." ―Daily Mail "This is a book whose time has come." ―Sunday Times

A celebration of the Apollo eleven moon landing—the fascinating story of twelve astronauts who ventured to space with interviews of nine of the surviving men. The Apollo lunar missions of the 1960s and 1970s have been called the last optimistic acts of the twentieth century. Twelve astronauts made this greatest of all journeys and were indelibly marked by it, for better or for worse. Journalist Andrew Smith tracks down the nine surviving members of this elite group to find their answers to the question "Where do you go after you''ve been to the Moon?" A thrilling blend of history, reportage, and memoir, Moondust rekindles the hopeful excitement of an incandescent hour in America''s past when anything seemed possible as it captures the bittersweet heroism of those who risked everything to hurl themselves out of the known world—and who were never again quite able to accept its familiar bounds. "Fascinating. A wonderful book." —David Bowie "Highly entertaining . . . [Smith''s] superb book is fitting tribute to a unique band of twentieth-century heroes." — GQ "It left me spellbound . . . belongs to the same tradition as Tom Wolfe''s The Right Stuff ." — Sunday Times (London) "Spellbinding . . . a provocative meditation on lunar travel and humanity''s relation to space." — Business Week "Smith''s book is an engrossing read, full of humor, insight, and appreciation for the vision and outright zaniness that marked the only human mission to another world." — Space Daily "Forget flower power, the Beatles and Beach Boys . . . what made the 1960s an unforgettable decade was the conquest of space." — The Guardian , Best Books of the Season

Includes an excerpt from the Andrew Smith novel, The Alex crow.

Codex Alexandrinus is one of the three earliest surviving entire Greek Bibles and is an important fifth-century witness to the Christian Scriptures, yet no major analysis of the codex has been performed in over a century. In A Study of the Gospels in Codex Alexandrinus W. Andrew Smith delivers a fresh and highly-detailed examination of the codex and its rich variety of features using codicology, palaeography, and statistical analysis. Among the highlights of this study, W. Andrew Smith’s work overturns the view that a single scribe was responsible for copying the canonical books of the New Testament and demonstrates that the orthographic patterns in the Gospels can no longer be used to argue for Egyptian provenance of the codex.

Finn Easton, sixteen and epileptic, struggles to feel like more than just a character in his father''s cult-classic novels with the help of his best friend, Cade Hernandez, and first love, Julia, until Julia moves away.

The summer before Troy Stotts turns seventeen, his mother dies. Troy and his father barely speak, communicating instead by writing notes on a legal pad by the phone. Troy spends most of his time with his closest friends: Tom Buller, brash and fearless, the son of a drunk; Gabe Benavidez, smart enough to know he''ll never take over the family ranch; and Gabe''s sister, Luz, whose family overprotects her, and who Troy has loved since they were children. Troy and his friends don''t want trouble. They want this to be the summer of what Troy calls "ghost medicine," when time seems to stop, so they won''t have to face the past or the future. But before the summer is over, their paths will cross in dangerous and fateful ways with people who will change their lives: Rose, a damaged derelict who lives with a flock of wild horses and goats; and Chase Rutledge, the arrogant sheriff''s son. Troy and his friends want to disappear. Instead, they will become what they least expect —brothers, lovers, heroes, and ghosts.

The ghost story 1840-1920: A cultural history examines the British ghost story within the political contexts of the long nineteenth century. By relating the ghost story to economic, national, colonial and gendered contexts'' it provides a critical re-evaluation of the period. The conjuring of a political discourse of spectrality during the nineteenth century enables a culturally sensitive reconsideration of the work of writers including Dickens, Collins, Charlotte Riddell, Vernon Lee, May Sinclair, Kipling, Le Fanu, Henry James and M.R. James. Additionally, a chapter on the interpretation of spirit messages reveals how issues relating to textual analysis were implicated within a language of the spectral. This book is the first full-length study of the British ghost story in over 30 years and it will be of interest to academics, graduate students and advanced undergraduates working on the Gothic, literary studies, historical studies, critical theory and cultural studies.

Stoker is best remembered today as the author of Dracula . However, as the twelve essays in this volume demonstrate, Stoker''s work blends the Gothic with the discourses of politics, sexuality, medicine and national identity to produce texts that may be read by a variety of critical methodologies. Following an Introduction that analyses how Stoker''s writings have been critically received in the twentieth century, the book addresses not merely Dracula but also the author''s other writings through historicism, psychology and genre.

Eisner and Harvey Award-winning writer Mark Andrew Smith joins forces with Eisner-nominated Orc Stain creator James Stokoe for a graphic novel packed with shocks, gore, and screamingly outrageous humor, when America''s Favorite Pastime becomes one baseball team''s ultimate nightmare! Long past their former glory, the minor league Sluggers get an invitation to play a baseball game in a cursed small town. After the 7th inning stretch, the sun goes down, and the dysfunctional teammates find themselves fighting for their lives against a town of flesh-eating monsters! Now, it''s up to coach Casey Sullivan to help his team escape from being the next dish in the town''s terrifying feeding frenzy! Featuring a bonus section with concept art, pinups by multiple artists, and more.