I’ve been writing about science and the environment for over 20 years, but always I find myself gravitating to the non-sciency, non-naturey part of stories. My favorite part of my first book, on the American chestnut, was about how people in Appalachia loved and relied on this tree that was largely killed off in the early twentieth century. For Plastic: A Toxic Love Story, I was as fascinated by the cultural and psychological effects of plastic as its environmental and health impacts. One of the things I’ve learned is that some of the most powerful things shaping our lives – for better or worse – are ones we don’t notice or see.
I think of this 2001 expose as the granddaddy of this genre. The book reveals how “fast food has infiltrated every nook and cranny of American society” and the savage consequences of that long reach. Sure, we know fast food helped turn us into people who eat empty calories on the run. But the impact of fast food is much broader and deeper, affecting meatpacking, potato farming, minimum wage labor laws, urban sprawl, and even the tastes our tongues crave. It’s a tribute to the book’s revelations that many of the reviews ended on the same note of “you’ll never look at a burger the same way again.”
Now the subject of a film by Richard Linklater, Eric Schlosser's explosive bestseller Fast Food Nation: What the All-American Meal is Doing to the World tells the story of our love affair with fast food.
Britain eats more fast food than any other country in Europe. It looks good, tastes good, and it's cheap. But the real cost never appears on the menu.
Eric Schlosser visits the lab that re-creates the smell of strawberries; examines the safety records of abattoirs; reveals why the fries really taste so good and what lurks between the sesame buns - and shows how fast…
The North Atlantic between Iceland and Canada once teemed with cod. That rich fishery is what lured Europeans across the Atlantic in the first place, starting with the Vikings. And salt curing of the fish – a method perfected by medieval Basque whalers – is what made those long voyages possible. By the mid-sixteenth century, 60 percent of all fish eaten in Europe was cod. It soon would be a staple of new world diets – and one of the pleasures of the book are the cod recipes across the centuries. Above all, I appreciate how Kurlansky makes us care about this fish, whose numbers are now dwindling. As he writes, “the cod is on the wrong end of this 1,000-year fishing spree.”
'Who would ever think that a book on cod would make a compulsive read? And yet this is precisely what Kurlansky has done' Express on Sunday
The Cod. Wars have been fought over it, revolutions have been triggered by it, national diets have been based on it, economies and livelihoods have depended on it. To the millions it has sustained, it has been a treasure more precious that gold. This book spans 1,000 years and four continents. From the Vikings to Clarence Birdseye, Mark Kurlansky introduces the explorers, merchants, writers, chefs and fisherman, whose lives have been interwoven with this…
I’ve long been a fan of the podcast on which this book is based. By celebrating “the overlooked and the ordinary,” the authors remind us “that the world is full of amazing things.” Even the most mundane objects – locks, manhole covers, elevators, those inflatable dancing figures in front of car dealerships – were “designed,” a word signifying intent, inspiration, a desire to problem solve. For instance: the idea of painting center lanes on streets came to a Detroit man after driving on a country road behind a milk truck that was leaking its cargo. Stories like this make me see my surrounding with new eyes. Plus, I get an endless supply of fun tidbits to drop at cocktail parties.
Out now: The most entertaining and fascinating book about architecture and design, from the wildly popular podcast 99% Invisible. __________
A New York Times Bestseller
'Full of surprises and quirky information . . . a fascinating journey through the over-familiar.' - Financial Times, Best Books of 2020
'[A] diverse and enlightening book . . . The 99% Invisible City is altogether fresh and imaginative when it comes to thinking about urban spaces.' -The New York Times Book Review
'A delightful book about the under-appreciated wonders of good design' - Tim Harford, bestselling author of The Undercover Economist and Fifty…
This is one of the most gorgeous, profound, and nail-biting books I have ever read. We may be an above-ground species, but, as MacFarlane shows, our underground spaces reveal as much if not about much about the human impact on planet earth. They illuminate “the deep time legacies we are leaving.” Stops on his underground tour include: the invisible city of tunnels beath Paris streets; a remote Norwegian sea cave filled with ancient wall paintings; hollowed-out mountains on the Italy-Slovak border soaked with wartime atrocities. But the most moving journey is into Greenland glaciers where ice sheets tens of thousands of years old are melting away in real time.
In Underland, Robert Macfarlane delivers an epic exploration of the Earth's underworlds as they exist in myth, literature, memory, and the land itself. Traveling through the dizzying expanse of geologic time-from prehistoric art in Norwegian sea caves, to the blue depths of the Greenland ice cap, to a deep-sunk "hiding place" where nuclear waste will be stored for 100,000 years to come-Underland takes us on an extraordinary journey into our relationship with darkness, burial, and what lies beneath the surface of both place and mind.
Global in its geography and written with great lyricism, Underland speaks powerfully to our present…
This book is filled with surprises, starting with the foundational fact that sand is the most consumed natural resource, after air and water. It’s an essential ingredient of the modern world used for roads, to make buildings, to make glass, silicon chips, elastic, and much more. Surprise number two: we’re running out of this seemingly infinite stuff. China alone, I learned, used more cement in 2011-13 than the US did in the entire twentieth century. Today, he writes, “river beds and beaches around the world are being stripped bare of their precious grains. Forests and farms are being torn up. And people are being imprisoned, tortured, and murdered. All over sand.” Sand may be dry, but its story is gripping.
A finalist for the PEN/E. O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award
The gripping story of the most important overlooked commodity in the world--sand--and the crucial role it plays in our lives.
After water and air, sand is the natural resource that we consume more than any other--even more than oil. Every concrete building and paved road on Earth, every computer screen and silicon chip, is made from sand. From Egypt's pyramids to the Hubble telescope, from the world's tallest skyscraper to the sidewalk below it, from Chartres' stained-glass windows to your iPhone, sand shelters us, empowers us, engages us, and…
When I started researching my book Plastic: A Toxic Love Story, I spent a day writing down everything I touched that was plastic. The list went on for pages. That eye-opening exercise revealed to me how thoroughly plastic permeated modern life. In the space of scarcely 50 years, plastic transformed how we live, work, and play. Plastic surrounds us at every turn; present in the air, the soil, the seas, and even our bodies. The rise of plastic is one of the most profound changes that has taken place in my lifetime – and it was hiding in plain sight. My book was an effort to answer two basic questions: How did this happen? And what does it mean for us and the planet?
I’ve always been fascinated by group dynamics, large and small. Why things functioned well, why they didn’t. It’s possible my ability to empathize and use humor as a consensus-builder is the reason I was elected president of a homeowners association, a music production association, and even an agricultural group. Books were not particularly involved in this fascination! But in recent years, experiencing the breakdown of civility and trust in our political and cultural discourse, I’ve taken a more analytical view of the dynamics. These books, in their very different ways, have taught me lessons about life, understanding those with different beliefs, and finding ways to connect and move forward.
We’ve all experienced the overwhelming level of political and social divisiveness in our country. This invisible “virus” of negativity is, in part, the result of the name-calling and heated rhetoric that has become commonplace among commentators and elected leaders alike.
My book provides a clear perspective on the historical and modern-day causes of our nation's divisive state. It then proposes easy-to-understand solutions—an action plan for our elected leaders and citizens as well. Rather than a scholarly treatment of a complex topic, the book challenges us to take the obvious steps required of those living in a free democracy. And it…
Uniting the States of America: A Self-Care Plan for a Wounded Nation
Lyle Greenfield's "Uniting the States of America―A Self-Care Plan for a Wounded Nation" is a work of nonfiction and opinion. Incorporating the lessons of history and the ideas and wisdom of many, it is intended as both an educational resource and a call-to-action for citizens concerned about the politically and culturally divided state of our Union. A situation that has raised alarm for the very future of our democracy.
First, the book clearly identifies the causes of what has become a national crisis of belief in and love for our country. How the divisiveness and hostility rampant in our political…
