What We Are Reading Today: Trading at the Speed of Light by Donald MacKenzie

What We Are Reading Today: Trading at the Speed of Light by Donald MacKenzie
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Updated 02 February 2023

What We Are Reading Today: Trading at the Speed of Light by Donald MacKenzie

What We Are Reading Today: Trading at the Speed of Light by Donald MacKenzie

In today’s financial markets, trading floors on which brokers buy and sell shares face- to-face have increasingly been replaced by lightning-fast electronic systems that use algorithms to execute astounding volumes of transactions.

“Trading at the Speed of Light” tells the story of this epic transformation.

Donald MacKenzie shows how in the 1990s, in what were then the disreputable margins of the US financial system, a new approach to trading — automated high-frequency trading or HFT— began and then spread throughout the world.


What We Are Reading Today: A Mystery of Mysteries

What We Are Reading Today: A Mystery of Mysteries
Updated 30 March 2023

What We Are Reading Today: A Mystery of Mysteries

What We Are Reading Today: A Mystery of Mysteries

Author: Mark Dawidziak

Mark Dawidziak’s “A Mystery of Mysteries” is a brilliant biography of Edgar Allan Poe that examines the renowned author’s life through the prism of his mysterious death and its many possible causes.

Edgar Allan Poe died on October 7, 1849, at just forty, in a painful, utterly bizarre manner that would not have been out of place in one of his own tales of terror. 

In a compelling dual-timeline narrative alternating between Poe’s increasingly desperate last months and his brief but impactful life, the book sheds new light on the enigmatic master of macabre.


What We Are Reading Today: And Still the Waters Run by Angie Debo

What We Are Reading Today: And Still the Waters Run by Angie Debo
Updated 28 March 2023

What We Are Reading Today: And Still the Waters Run by Angie Debo

What We Are Reading Today: And Still the Waters Run by Angie Debo

“And Still the Waters Run” tells the tragic story of the liquidation of the independent Indian republics of the Choctaws, Chickasaws, Cherokees, Creeks, and Seminoles, known as the Five Civilized Tribes.

At the turn of the twentieth century, the tribes owned the eastern half of what is now Oklahoma, a territory immensely wealthy in farmland, forests, coal, and oil. Their political and economic status was guaranteed by the federal government—until American settlers arrived. Congress abrogated treaties that it had promised would last “as long as the waters run,” and within a generation, the tribes were systematically stripped of their holdings, and were rescued from starvation only through public charity.


What We Are Reading Today: Creativity, Inc. by Ed Catmull

What We Are Reading Today: Creativity, Inc. by Ed Catmull
Updated 28 March 2023

What We Are Reading Today: Creativity, Inc. by Ed Catmull

What We Are Reading Today: Creativity, Inc. by Ed Catmull

The co-founder and longtime president of Pixar updates and expands his 2014 New York Times bestseller on creative leadership, reflecting on the management principles that built Pixar’s singularly successful culture and allowed it to retain its creative culture while continuing to evolve, says a review published on goodreads.com. “Creativity, Inc.” has been expanded to illuminate the continuing development of the unique culture at Pixar. This updated edition details how Ed Catmull built a culture that does not just pay lip service to the importance of things like honesty, communication, and originality but commits to them.


What We Are Reading Today: Plant Atlas 2020: Mapping Changes in the Distribution of the British and Irish Flora

What We Are Reading Today: Plant Atlas 2020: Mapping  Changes in the Distribution of the British and Irish Flora
Updated 28 March 2023

What We Are Reading Today: Plant Atlas 2020: Mapping Changes in the Distribution of the British and Irish Flora

What We Are Reading Today: Plant Atlas 2020: Mapping  Changes in the Distribution of the British and Irish Flora

Authors: P. A. Stroh, K. J. Walker, T. A. Humphrey, O. L. Pescott, & R. J. Burkmar

“Plant Atlas 2020” presents the results of field surveys by the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland, building on past atlas surveys undertaken by the Botanical Society in the early and late twentieth century.

Drawing on the work of thousands of botanists who covered the entirety of Britain and Ireland between 2000 and 2019, this two-volume book features introductory chapters that provide a detailed assessment of the changes to the region’s flora over the past hundred years.

Distribution maps and accompanying text and graphics display the phenology, altitudinal range, and time-series trends for 2,616 native and alien species and 247 hybrids.

With more than 30 million records gathered during the project, Plant Atlas 2020 will serve as an essential resource for the study and conservation of these wild plants and their vitally important habitats for decades to come.


What We Are Reading Today: The Man Who Caught the Storm

What We Are Reading Today: The Man Who Caught the Storm
Updated 27 March 2023

What We Are Reading Today: The Man Who Caught the Storm

What We Are Reading Today: The Man Who Caught the Storm

Author: Brantley Hargrove

“The Man Who Caught the Storm” offers insight into the life and death saga of one of history’s greatest storm chasers. It is a tale of obsession, ingenuity, and the race to understand nature’s fiercest phenomenon — the tornado.

At the turn of the twenty-first century, the tornado was one of the last true mysteries of the modern world. It was a monster that ravaged the American heartland a thousand times each year, yet science’s every effort to divine its inner workings had ended in failure. Researchers all but gave up, until the arrival of an outsider.

Tim Samaras didn’t attend a day of college in his life.