What was life like for the scientists working at Los Alamos? Thomas McMahon imagines this life through the wide eyes of young Tim MacLaurin, the thirteen-year-old son of an MIT physicist who, inspired by a young woman named Maryann, worked on the project. Filled with the sensuous excitement of scientific discovery and the outrageous behavior of people pushed beyond their limits, "Principles of American Nuclear Chemistry" is a beautifully written coming-of-age story that explores the mysterious connections between love and work, inspiration and history.

Moving from Massachusetts to Kansas in 1855 with his new wife and a group of German carpenters, Gordon McKay is dead set on making his fortune raising bees-undaunted by Missouri border ruffians, newly-minted Darwinism, or the unsettled politics of a country on the brink of civil war.

The description for this book, Muscles, Reflexes, and Locomotion, will be forthcoming.