Product Description: All-new stories about the urban worlds where animals and humans fight, love, and find common ground, from the nationally bestselling author of Cod and Salt. In these stories, Mark Kurlansky journeys to his familiar haunts like New York’s Central Park or Miami’s Little Havana but with an original, earthy, and adventurous perspective...read more

Product Description: Nonfiction for kids interested in science, biography, and early entrepreneurs, this work explores the life story of Clarence Birdseye, the man who revolutionized the frozen food industry and changed the way people eat all over the world...read more

Chronicles the relationship between humans and cod from the time of Vikings and of Columbus through the present day, discussing their life cycles, enemies, and eating habits.

A guide to children's videos features critiques of the classic cartoons from Disney, MGM, and Warner's, feature-length films, and entertainment and educational tapes

Ordered to fly into the heart of enemy territory to bomb the vital Doumer Bridge linking Hanoi with Haiphong and China, the pilots of the 345th Tactical Fighter Squadron muster every ounce of courage they have to complete their mission. Original.

One of the reasons baseball fans so love the sport is that it involves certain physical acts of beauty. And one of the most beautiful sights in the history of baseball was Hank Greenberg's swing. His calmly poised body seemed to have some special set of springs with a trigger release that snapped his arms and swept the bat through the air with the clean speed and strength of a propeller. But what is even more extraordinary than his grace and his power is that in Detroit of 1934, his swing—or its absence—became entwined with American Jewish history. Though Hank Greenberg was one of the first players to challenge Babe Ruth's single-season record of sixty home runs, it was the game Greenberg did not play for which he is best remembered. With his decision to sit out a 1934 game between his Tigers and the New York Yankees because it fell on Yom Kippur, Hank Greenberg became a hero to Jews throughout America. Yet, as Kurlansky writes, he was the quintessential secular Jew, and to celebrate him for his loyalty to religious observance is to ignore who this man was. In Hank Greenberg Mark Kurlansky explores the truth behind the slugger's legend: his Bronx boyhood, his spectacular discipline as an aspiring ballplayer, the complexity of his decision not to play on Yom Kippur, and the cultural context of virulent anti-Semitism in which his career played out. What Kurlansky discovers is a man of immense dignity and restraint with a passion for sport who became a great reader—a man, too, who was an inspiration to the young Jackie Robinson, who said, "Class tells. It sticks out all over Mr. Greenberg."

Growing up in the years following World War II, Joel Bloom and his friends dreamed of either fighting in the military or leading the Dodgers to the World Series. But when Joel turns eighteen, the Vietnam War is in full swing, and the sides of war he learned about as a child are not nearly as clear. Old enough to be drafted, Joel loves his country but knows he cannot fight in an unjust war. After trying and failing to be a Conscientious Objector, he must decide whether to serve in Vietnam or leave for Canada-a decision that would help him avoid the violence of war but force him to leave behind those he loves and turn his back on everything he was brought up to believe. In an insightful and compelling novel from bestselling nonfiction writer Mark Kurlansky comes an exploration of one teen's struggle to understand himself amid the harsh realities of life during wartime.

Product Description: What is What? Could it be that noted author Mark Kurlansky has written a very short, terrifically witty, deeply thought-provoking book entirely in the form of questions? A book that draws on philosophy, religion, literature, policy - indeed, all of civilization - to ask what may well be the twenty most important questions in human history? Or has he given us a really smart, impossibly amusing game of twenty questions? Kurlansky considers the work of Confucius, Plato, Shakespeare, Descartes, Nietzsche, Freud, Hemingway, Emily Dickinson, the Talmud, Charles de Gaulle, Virginia Woolf, and others, distilling the deep questions of life to their sparkling essence...read more

Product Description: The bestselling author of Cod, Salt, and The Big Oyster has enthralled readers with his incisive blend of culinary, cultural, and social history. Now, in his most colorful, personal, and important book to date, Mark Kurlansky turns his attention to a disappearing way of life: fishing–how it has thrived in and defined one particular town for centuries, and what its imperiled future means for the rest of the world...read more

Product Description: From award-winning author Mark Kurlansky comes a look at our earth's disappearing fisheries as seen through the lens of America's oldest fishing port.

The author takes an insightful look at the influence of the oyster on four centuries of New York history, culture, economics, and culinary trends.

A sweeping history of the idea of nonviolence, from ancient Hindu times to the present day, looks at twenty-five thought-provoking lessons on the subject that can be used to promote change in the modern world, arguing that many of the most important conflicts of history could have been avoided by nonviolent means. 15,000 first printing.

Product Description: They are a mythical people, almost an imagined people, writes Kurlansky. Signs of their civilization exist well before the arrival of the Romans in 218 BC. Their forbidden tongue is equally mysterious, as it is related to no other, but today the Basques are enjoying what may be the most important cultural renaissance in their long existence...read more

A history of the fish that has led to wars, stirred revolutions, sustained economies and diets, and helped in the settlement of North America features photographs, drawings, and recipes, as well as the natural history of this much sought after fish

A debut novel by the author of Cod captures the lives of the inhabitants of a tight-knit, ethnically diverse neighborhood on the Lower East Side of New York, including Nathan, a claustrophic married man falling for Karoline, a German pastry maker, and his father, Harry, who is plotting with a 1960s boogaloo star to bring back the old dance craze. Reader's Guide included. Reprint. 15,000 first printing.

The best-selling author of Salt and Cod takes an insightful look at the influence of the oyster on four centuries of New York history, culture, economics, and culinary trends. (History -- United States)

A little girl swims across the Atlantic Ocean to Euskadi (the Basque Country) and discovers a beautiful, green land of friendly people with a very unique culture and language.