From the award-winning and bestselling author of Cod comes the dramatic, human story of a simple substance, an element almost as vital as water, that has created fortunes, provoked revolutions, directed economies and enlivened our recipes.Salt is common, easy to obtain and inexpensive. It is the stuff of kitchens and cooking. Yet trade routes were established, alliances built and empires secured – all for something that filled the oceans, bubbled up from springs, formed cr...

Lonely Planet: The world's leading travel guide publisher*Life-changing food adventures around the world.From bat on the island of Fais to chicken on a Russian train to barbecue in the American heartland, from mutton in Mongolia to couscous in Morocco to tacos in Tijuana - on the road, food nourishes us not only physically, but intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually too. It can be a gift that enables a traveller to survive, a doorway into the heart of a tribe...

Wars have been fought over it, revolutions have been spurred by it, national diets have been based on it, economies have depended on it, and the settlement of North America was driven by it. Cod, it turns out, is the reason Europeans set sail across the Atlantic, and it is the only reason they could. What did the Vikings eat in icy Greenland and on the five expeditions to America recorded in the Icelandic sagas? Cod -- frozen and dried in the frosty air, then broken into pieces and eaten l...

Mark Kurlansky's first global food history since the bestselling Cod and Salt; the fascinating cultural, economic, and culinary story of milk and all things dairy--with recipes throughout.According to the Greek creation myth, we are so much spilt milk; a splatter of the goddess Hera's breast milk became our galaxy, the Milky Way. But while mother's milk may be the essence of nourishment, it is the milk of other mammals that humans have cultivated...

Joining New York Times-bestselling author Mark Kurlansky's groundbreaking, award-winning Cod and Salt-a new classic-in-the-making.When Mark Kurlansky was seventeen, he took his first job as a commercial fisherman in the Atlantic on a forty-five-foot, wooden-hulled, two-man lobster boat, thus igniting a lifelong fascination and kinship with the mysterious creature. Since that defining experience, the lobster's role in cuisine and culture have chang...

The New York Times–bestselling author of Salt examines the intersections between his life and Ernest Hemingway's in this mix of travel memoir and history.By a series of coincidences, Mark Kurlansky's life has always been intertwined with Ernest Hemingway's legend, starting with being in Idaho the day of Hemingway's death. The Importance of Not Being Ernest explores the intersections between Hemingway's and Kurlansky's lives, resulting in c...

“Mr. Brunner’s winning book is a reassuring, nostalgic reminder that winter is the season of both play and regeneration.”—Wall Street JournalIn Winterlust, a farmer painstakingly photographs five thousand snowflakes, each one dramatically different from the next. Indigenous peoples thrive on frozen terrain, where famous explorers perish. Icicles reach deep underwater, then explode. Rooms warmed by crackling fires fill with scents of cinnamon, clov...

From New York Times bestselling author Mark Kurlansky, a delectable novel following one Manhattan block as an ancient cheesecake recipe-and a conniving landlord-change the Upper West Side forever.West 86th Street knows its desserts. It's the 1970s, and poppyseed strudel, praline ice cream cake, and New York cheesecake are as integral to Manhattan's Upper West Side as clustered pigeons, suited doormen, and greasy diners. That is, until Cato comes to town. C...

Winner of the National Book Award"What an elegant book this is, starting with that most elegant of creatures, the Belon oyster. . . . [Clark's] fantastic blending of science and art, history and journalism, brings the appetite back for life and literature both." — Los Angeles Times Book ReviewOn the northwest coast of France, just around the corner from the English Channel, is the little town of Locmariaquer (pronounced "loc-maria-...

In his eagerly awaited debut novel, critically acclaimed author Mark Kurlansky entertains readers with a brilliant story bursting with the vivid events and culinary delights–even recipes–that made bestsellers out of his nonfiction works Cod, Salt, and 1968.Nathan woke up on a Friday morning with the unshakable sense that during this day he would commit a catastrophic error in judgment. Something had been written by the gods, and Nathan Seltzer knew th...

National Outdoor Book Award Winner for Outdoor Literature**From the award-winning, bestselling author of Cod—the irresistible story of the science, history, art, and culture of the least efficient way to catch a fish.Fly fishing, historian Mark Kurlansky has found, is a battle of wits, fly fisher vs. fish—and the fly fisher does not always (or often) win. The targets—salmon, trout, and char; and for some, bass, tarpon, tuna, bonefish, and e...

By now you've probably heard that bees are disappearing--but they aren't the only species at risk. Populations of fireflies, butterflies, and ladybugs have all been declining in recent years, too. This middle grade nonfiction explains the growth, spread, and recent declines of each of these four types of insects. Exploring human causes, like the Baltimore electric company that collected fireflies to attempt to harness their phosphorescent lighting source, to natural occurrences, like the m...