This Kind of Book

[biscuitpig]

Talking with a boy today I realized I like history books with tremendous scholarship and witty writing on narrow topics. That collection includes:

The Nothing that Is: A Natural History of Zero by Robert Kaplan

A Fez of the Heart: Travels around Turkey in Search of a Hat by Jeremy Seal

Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World by Mark

Comments

[lydonwrites]

I'm waiting for my local library to get a copy of The Food Of A Younger Land by Kurlansky, so I can read about what we ate before the advent of refrigeration, when we ate locally and seasonally, as a matter of course.

Never read SALT though, so now I'm wondering...

[purplesquirrel]

I recommend Banana: The Fate of the Fruit that Changed the World and Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea.

Who knew that both bananas and cod changed the world so much!

[lanalama]

I recommend Ballad of the Whiskey Robber by Julian Rubinstein.

You can wiki it if you want to know more.

[revdj]

I'd been reading big biographies of Teddy Roosevelt for years. There was always a chapter, or a half-chapter, about when he was the police chief of New York city. "He promised to enforce the law without corruption. People cheered. He enforced the law, including 'blue laws.' People hated him."

I found a book (a real BOOK! A thick one!) just about that time. All sorts of adventures and characters and pictures and details and it was positively surreal. There was as much to tell about that short time that other books told about his whole life.

How did the author find out all this stuff?

[biscuitpig]

YAY! Isn't it amazing? It must take years of hard work and cleverness.