A gripping biological detective story that uncovers the myth, mystery, and endangered fate of the world’s most humble fruitTo most people, a banana is a banana: a simple yellow fruit. Americans eat more bananas than apples and oranges combined. In others parts of the world, bananas are what keep millions of people alive. But for all its ubiquity, the banana is surprisingly mysterious; nobody knows how bananas evolved or exactly where they originated. Rich cultural ...

An urgent, on-the-scene account of chaos and compassion on the front lines of ground zero for Covid-19, from a senior doctor at New York City’s busiest emergency room“Remarkable and inspiring . . . We’re lucky to have this vivid firsthand account.”—A. J. Jacobs, bestselling author of The Year of Living BiblicallyWhen former New York Times journalist Dan Koeppel texted his cousin Robert Meyer, a twenty-year veteran of the e...

What drives a man to travel to sixty countries and spend a fortune to count birds? And what if that man is your father?Richard Koeppel’s obsession began at age twelve, in Queens, New York, when he first spotted a Brown Thrasher, and jotted the sighting in a notebook. Several decades, one failed marriage, and two sons later, he set out to see every bird on earth, becoming a member of a subculture of competitive bird watchers worldwide all pursuing the same goal. Ove...

Bob Roll is a former Tour de France racer, well-known scribe, and race announcer, and he's back to cause a ruckus! Bobke II (correctly pronounced "BOOB-kuh") revisits all of the original journals of Roll's wild rides and crazy tales about cycling's uncensored side. When Bobke retired from competition, his pen continued the crazed poetic commentary, and Roll's newest additions cover both topics held reverent in cycling and also those that are hardly related to the sport. Bobke tips his cap ...

This book features five peer-reviewed reviews on understanding and tackling Fusarium wilt in global banana production.The first chapter examines the way in which monoculture has affected the banana industry and discusses the available banana varieties, the advent of the Cavendish variety and the need to develop new banana varieties.The second chapter provides a comprehensive overview of the history, epidemiology and management of F. oxysporum forma specialis cubense Race 1 ...

Assesses current yields in different regions and constraints in improving productivityDiscusses all the key stages in cultivation needed to make banana production more efficientReviews ways of assessing and improving the sustainability of banana cultivation

An urgent, on-the-scene account of chaos and compassion on the front lines of ground zero for Covid-19, from a senior doctor at New York City’s busiest emergency room“Remarkable and inspiring . . . We’re lucky to have this vivid firsthand account.”—A. J. Jacobs, bestselling author of The Year of Living BiblicallyWhen former New York Times journalist Dan Koeppel texted his cousin Robert Meyer, a twenty-year veteran of the e...

To most people, a banana is a banana: a simple yellow fruit. Americans eat more bananas than apples and oranges combined. In others parts of the world, bananas are what keep millions of people alive. But for all its ubiquity, the banana is surprisingly mysterious; nobody knows how bananas evolved or exactly where they originated. Rich cultural lore surrounds the fruit: in ancient translations of the Bible, the "apple" consumed by Eve is actually a banana.But the biggest mystery abo...

Richard Koeppel's obsession began at age twelve, in Queens, New York, when he first spotted a Brown Thrasher, and jotted the sighting in a notebook. Several decades, one failed marriage, and two sons later, he set out to see every bird on earth, becoming a member of a subculture of competitive bird watchers worldwide all pursuing the same goal. Over twenty-five years, he collected over seven thousand species, becoming one of about ten people ever to do so. To See Every Bird on Earth explor...

A classic in the making -- an account of the biggest year in birdwatching history.In the USA, some 50 million people lay claim to being bird-watchers or “birders,” spending billions of dollars on birding-related travel and membership fees every year. A select, and utterly obsessed, few compete in one of the world’s quirkiest contests -- the race to spot the most species in North America in a single year. And 1998 wasn’t just a big year. It was the biggest. The Big Year

In this eye-opening study, Sidney W. Mintz shows how Europeans and Americans transformed sugar from a rare foreign luxury to a commonplace necessity of modern life, and how it changed the history of capitalism and industry. He discusses the production and consumption of sugar, and reveals how closely interwoven sugar's origins are as a "slave" crop grown in Europe's tropical colonies with its use first as an extravagant luxury for the aristocracy, then as a staple of the diet of the new in...

**NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A deeply moving memoir of illness and recovery that traces one young woman’s journey from diagnosis to remission to re-entry into “normal” life—from the founder of The Isolation Journals and a subject of the Netflix documentary American SymphonyONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post, Bloomberg, The Rumpus, She Reads, Library Journal, Booklist“I was immersed for the whole...