Scienticity - User contributions [en]

Kurlansky: Salt

2006-09-09T02:21:05Z

EHLingg:

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Mark Kurlansky, ''Salt''. New York : Walker and Company, 2002. 484 pages.

Kurlansky introduces the reader to the ancient political value of having salt in a country, how salt shaped civilizations, and that it was often used for currency. Whoever controlled the salt had the power. There are sketches and maps to guide the reader along. You can read about the rest of the world, but let me tell you that the USA is presently the largest salt producer and consumer, but only 8% is used for food; the other largest, single use is for de-icing the roads!

I don't cook or eat with much salt, but in Cuzco, Peru I visited salt flats and having learned about the life of salt miners/farmers, I pay a little more attention. I learned that a lifetime of stomping in the salt flats corrodes one's feet.

A recent book by Kurlansky, ''Cod'', received a James Beard Award for Excellence in Food Writing; however, his previous books seem to have been about history and geography.

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[[Category: Book Notes]]

Lynch: The Highest Tide

2006-09-09T02:13:39Z

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{{BNR-table|scienticity=4|readability=5|hermeneutics=4|charisma=4|recommendation=4}}
Jim Lynch, ''The Highest Tide''. [Novel] New York and London : Bloomsbury Publishing, 2005. 247 pages.

Jim Lynch lives in Olympia, Washington, the site of his first novel. Although fiction, this book has science besieged worthiness. He has won national journalism awards and published short fiction in literary magazines.

The story is told in the first person by Miles O'Malley, the 13 year old son in a dysfunctional family living in the South Sound, on Chatham Cove, part of Puget Sound. He researches the marine specimens he finds on his nightime adventures, and consults with a neighboring professor. He sells edible species to local restaurants and others to acquariums. His friends range from teenagers through an elderly woman he befriends. She is considered a "seer."

Through the course of a summer he discovers marine life that doesn't usually claim Chatham Cove as its habitat. After his discovery, the media descends on the town, followed by marine biologists and other scientists. Miles noticed when the tide was out that there were changes in the marine life on the flats, and he wondered what the differences would be when he was older.

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[[Category: Book Notes]]

Rappole: Birds of the Mid-Atlantic Region

2006-08-31T20:44:46Z

EHLingg:

{{BNR-table|scienticity=5|readability=4|hermeneutics=5|charisma=5|recommendation=5}}
John H. Rappole, ''Birds of the Mid-Atlantic Region and Where to Find Them''. Baltimore : Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002. xiii + 427 pages.

This resource book contains a color-tab index for bird groups and a driving locator for 74 birding sites. It is a comprehensive field guide to the 346 species of birds found in the Mid-Atlantic region. Five photographers contributed to the color photo of each bird.

John Rappole is a noted ornithologist and a research scientist at
the Smithsonian Conservation and Research Center in Front Royal, VA. He has written four other books in his field.

I met John quite by accident when, while jogging, he knocked the passenger-side mirror off my car outside the grounds of Chautauqua Institution, NY. When we had dinner in August, he reported that he had found a new bird species in Burma. Perhaps there is another book in the future!

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[[Category: Book Notes]]