<p>Why do some books stay with you for a lifetime, never leaving your head or your heart? Can a book really change the course of your life? If you could venture to the past and award Nobel Prizes, whom would you choose as your laureates? Can we trust historical accounts? How should we consider our most important Founding Fathers and their imperfections? What about our own ancestors? What's our place-our role-in the Universe? Are we immortal? What does it mean to age with grace? These are some of the questions explored in this collection of diverse essays. The author is a fellow reader who has been searching for the answers to these questions in his favorite places-books.</p>