What timing--just when the world is experiencing a series of financial dramas, historian Niall Ferguson offers up a look at the history of money, banking, and credit. Ferguson, who is both a historian and an author of several books on money-related topics, is an excellent guide to financial history from Mesopotamia's clay tablets to the bursting of bubbles. If you're looking for the logic behind financial institutions, want to better understand why credit was necessary for civilization to prosper, or are curious what Scottish widows have to do with insurance theory, you'll want to check out The Ascent of Money.

Journalist Hooman Majd is ideally positioned to write about contemporary Iran, for he's the Western-educated son of an Iranian diplomat and the grandson of an ayatollah. His ability to speak Farsi like a native allows him to use the language as a window into the economic, political, and social forces at work in Iran, and his examination of Iran as a Muslim, Shiite, and Persian country takes into account the diverse perspectives of many real-life people in the modern-day nation. Majd's even-handed, conversational style covers everything from the role of cats (not what you'd think for the home of Persian cats) to President Ahmadinejad's thoughts on the Holocaust.

Napoleon's ill-fated invasion of Egypt in 1798, with 335 ships and 40,000 men, was the largest long-distance seaborne force that the world had ever seen. But Napoleon's assault was intended to do more than simply expand French control, for Napoleon took with him more than 150 scientists, mathematicians, artists, and writers for the dual purposes of bringing Western civilization to Egypt and bringing Egyptian treasures back to France. Using newly uncovered diaries and papers, author Paul Strathern offers an entertaining account of the enterprise, as well as a nuanced portrait of Napoleon and the colorful members of his expedition. For more on the scientific expedition, try Nina Burleigh's Mirage.

During the Victorian era, attempts to communicate with the dead through mediums and séances grew in popularity, but they were attended by a flurry of scientific activity as researchers tried to determine whether spiritualism had a grounding in science. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Deborah Blum focuses on the prominent Harvard psychologist William James, who risked his reputation trying to gather scientific data proving--or disproving--the existence of paranormal powers. Although many scorned the idea that scientific reasoning could be applied to mind-reading and apparitions, he did find some allies. Their efforts are chronicled here, in what The Washington Post calls a "lively and provocative" book.

Though Victorian Europe suffered from several cholera epidemics, it was bubonic plague that erupted in turn-of-the-century San Francisco. In addition to describing how the plague arrived in San Francisco and how it spread once it got there, Wall Street Journal reporter Marilyn Chase also looks at the efforts of scientists Joseph Kinyoun, Dr. Rupert Blue, and Blue's aide Colby Rucker to contain and eradicate the disease. She also focuses on city administrators, who didn't want word of the epidemic to spread, and on the discriminatory practices aimed at the booming city's population of Chinese immigrants. If you're interested in public health issues or the history of San Francisco, you won't want to miss this gripping book.

The Victorian era is recognized as a time of prosperity for the British, but it wasn't without its conflicts. In the second half of the 19th century, as the British Empire expanded along the Nile River, tensions rose between the despotic Egyptian ruler and his people; then, when British troops made their presence felt, relations soured between the British and their Muslim subjects. Author Dominic Green profiles several prominent men, several of whom will be of interest to readers looking to discover parallels with today's troubles in the Middle East: the Sudanese Sufi leader Mohammed Ahmed; the British general Charles George Gordon; and the leader of the Egyptian revolt, Colonel Ahmed Urabi.

If you're a fan of Agatha Christie novels, your curiosity will be piqued by the true-life--and still unsolved--murder of successful attorney Charles Bravo, which a fascinated Christie called "one of the most mysterious poisoning cases ever recorded." Bravo and his new wife, Florence, lived in a stately house in London and enjoyed the best of Victorian society, but the household was not a happy one, for Bravo was abusive towards his wife and unreasonable towards his servants. His death, mere months into the marriage, was never solved, though Florence and several unhappy servants were suspected of murder. Could it have been suicide? Read Death at the Priory and draw your own conclusions.

What do the Internet and the telegraph have in common? No, that's not the start of a bad joke--it's a serious question, and one that journalist Tom Standage answers in this "lively, anecdote-filled history" (Booklist). For the most part, Standage covers the history of the telegraph, from its invention to the ways this once cutting-edge invention changed the world. But by looking at the social, cultural, economic, and political influence of the telegraph on the Victorian era, he is also able to draw conclusions about the Internet's effect on the modern age (though keep in mind that this book was first published in 1998--the year that Google was incorporated, and long before the advent of YouTube or Wikipedia).