Lisa Margonelli reads from 'Oil on the Brain' September 25, 2007

"Lisa Margonelli has a rare and precious talent. She has drawn a wonderfully readable portrait of the fascinating and surprisingly little-known human face of Big Oil."
--Simon Winchester

Whether it’s gasoline prices, foreign policy, global warming, or changes in the mysterious Strategic Petroleum Reserve, the effects of oil are everywhere. But what do we really know about the industry itself? Lisa Margonelli set out to find the answers, from the bottom up. From tanker truck drivers to gas station owners, oil refineries to oilrigs, even the New York Mercantile Exchange and the oil fields of Iran, Margonelli looks in-depth at one of the world’s most pivotal industries, and brings us the rich history and precarious future of oil.
“Very few people are smart enough to tackle a subject as complicated as world oil, and of those people, I would wager that not one of them could do it with the humor and crackle and delight that Margonelli brings to bear. If you drive a car, you must read this book, but please not at the same time.”
--Mary Roach, author of Spook and Stiff

Lisa Margonelli is currently an Irvine Fellow at the New America Foundation. She has written for the San Francisco Chronicle, Wired, Business 2.0, Discover, and Jane, and was the recipient of a Sundance Institute Fellowship.