Everything you never knew about sushi—its surprising origins, the colorful lives of its chefs, and the bizarre behavior of the creatures that compose it Trevor Corson takes us behind the scenes at America's first sushi-chef training academy, as eager novices strive to master the elusive art of cooking without cooking. He delves into the biology and natural history of the edible creatures of the sea, and tells the fascinating story of an Indo-Chinese meal reinvented in nineteenth-century Tokyo as a cheap fast food. He reveals the pioneers who brought sushi to the United States and explores how this unlikely meal is exploding into the American heartland just as the long-term future of sushi may be unraveling. The Story of Sushi is at once a compelling tale of human determination and a delectable smorgasbord of surprising food science, intrepid reporting, and provocative cultural history. Views: 23
The ancient god Loki has been set free from the chains which bound him for centuries, and free to wreak terrible revenge. As Edmund and Elspeth desperately search for him, the fire and destruction they expect is nowhere to be seen. They discover instead strange emblems carved along the route south. Traveling ever closer toward the war between the Visigoths and the English, Edmond and Elspeth feel they are being drawn into a trap. But with the help of their friends, and faith in themselves they will face Loki one last time, at an ancient circle of stones that may be their last hope to defeat the terrible trickster. Review"Beguiling and engrossing" (Praise for "The Book of the Sword") The Book Magazine About the AuthorA.* J.* LAKE is a former teacher with a lifelong interest in the period of British history known as the Dark Ages. She is inspired by mountains, storms, and places of ice and snow. And she secretly hopes that dragons are real. www.thedarkestage.com Views: 23
The first instalment of the highly anticipated biography of Henry VIII, written by one of the UK's most popular, established and exciting historians. Published to coincide with the 500th anniversary of Henry's accession to the throne, 'Henry: Virtuous Prince' is a radical re-evaluation of the monarchy's most enduring icon.Henry VIII was Britain's most powerful monarch, yet he was not born to rule. Thrust into the limelight after the sudden death of his elder brother, Prince Arthur, Henry ascended the throne in 1509, marking the beginning of a reign that altered the course of English history.In his youth Henry was highly intelligent, athletic and musically talented. He excelled in Latin and Mathematics and was an accomplished musician. On his accession to the throne, aged just seventeen, after the tumultuous rule of his father, he provided England with hope of a new beginning.Nobody could have foreseen how radical Henry's rule would prove to be. Often... Views: 23
Catriona Natasha Brooke's granny is totally unlike other people's grandmothers. When she isn't dressed in motorbike leathers, Granny the Pag wears dirty black skirts that trail on the ground and fastens her old sweaters with an enormous black broochencrusted with diamonds. Even worse, she smokes! The Pag can be a social embarrassment, but when Catriona's relationship with her is threatened, Catriona fights for the right to choose where she lives and who with - she chooses Granny the Pag. Views: 22
The classic medical text known as Gray’s Anatomy is one of the most famous books ever written. Now, on the 150th anniversary of its publication, acclaimed science writer and master of narrative nonfiction Bill Hayes has written the fascinating, never-before-told true story of how this seminal volume came to be. A blend of history, science, culture, and Hayes’s own personal experiences, The Anatomist is this author’s most accomplished and affecting work to date.With passion and wit, Hayes explores the significance of Gray’s Anatomy and explains why it came to symbolize a turning point in medical history. But he does much, much more. Uncovering a treasure trove of forgotten letters and diaries, he illuminates the astonishing relationship between the fiercely gifted young anatomist Henry Gray and his younger collaborator H. V. Carter, whose exquisite anatomical illustrations are masterpieces of art and close observation. Tracing the triumphs and tragedies of these two extraordinary men, Hayes brings an equally extraordinary era–the mid-1800s–unforgettably to life.But the journey Hayes takes us on is not only outward but inward–through the blood and tissue and organs of the human body–for The Anatomist* *chronicles Hayes’s year as a student of classical gross anatomy, performing with his own hands the dissections and examinations detailed by Henry Gray 150 years ago. As Hayes’s acquaintance with death deepens, he finds his understanding and appreciation of life deepening in unexpected and profoundly moving ways.The Anatomist is more than just the story of a book. It is the story of the human body, a story whose beginning and end we all know and share but that, like all great stories, is infinitely rich in between.From Publishers WeeklyAt 150 years old, Gray's Anatomy still sets the standard in medical textbooks, yet little has been written about its author, Henry Gray. Even less celebrated is Henry Carter, the illustrator who brought Gray's groundbreaking anatomy text to life. Hayes (Sleep Demons: An Insomniac's Memoir) explores the lives of these two men, balancing biographical chapters with his own experience in the anatomy classroom, dissecting cadavers and marveling at each new discovery with prose both lucid and arrestingly beautiful: Like a pomegranate, whose leathery rind belies its jewel box interior, the kidney is spectacular inside. From Carter's diary entries, Hayes recreates an era when medical advances were rapidly changing the way people lived as well as challenging religious dogma, and people turned to science in hopes of reconciling the two. Hayes finds emotional resonance in Carter's longing for a job that would matter, as well as in his internal conflicts as a Protestant Dissenter and his fear of professing his despised beliefs in public. As Hayes relates his own growing wonder and respect for anatomy, one feels the echo of Carter and Gray's devotion as they worked to create what one historian called an affordable, accurate teaching aid. Hayes pays eloquent tribute to two masterpieces: the human body and the book detailing it. (Dec. 26) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From The New YorkerHayes’s history of the illustrated medical text "Gray’s Anatomy" coincides with the hundred-and-fiftieth anniversary of its first publication. Fascinated by the fact that little was known about the famous book’s genesis, Hayes combed through nineteenth-century letters and medical-school records, learning that, besides Henry Gray, the brilliant scholar and surgeon who wrote the text, another anatomist was crucial to the book’s popularity: Henry Vandyke Carter, who provided its painstaking drawings. Hayes moves nimbly between the dour streets of Victorian London, where Gray and Carter trained at St. George’s Hospital, and the sunnier classrooms of a West Coast university filled with athletic physical therapists in training, where he enrolls in anatomy classes and discovers that "when done well, dissection is very pleasing aesthetically." Copyright © 2007 Click here to subscribe to The New Yorker"All laud and honor to Hayes....In perusing the body's 650 muscles and 206 bones, he has made the case that we are, as the psalmist wrote, "fearfully and wonderfully made" and that dissection has an aesthetic all its own. The act of carving open a body becomes, in this context, a perverse act of love, a desecration that consecrates "the extraordinary, the inner architecture of the human form." - The Washington Post"How do you write a book about someone about whom next to nothing is known? For most writers, the answer would be move on to the next subject. But Bill Hayes has an unusual set of skills. The author of previous books on insomnia and blood, he is part science writer, part memoirist, part culture explainer. “The Anatomist,” his appealing new book about the man behind Gray’s Anatomy, combines his search for the remaining traces of Henry Gray with a memoir of his own experience as a dissection student and a scalpel’s-eye tour of the body." - The New York Times"Some of [Hayes's] most memorable writing describes the dissection classes he attended in San Francisco. We are treated to a selection of fascinating anatomical snippets about, for example, how to trace evidence of the sealed hole in the fetal heart through which the mother's blood enters; or how to find the kidney in a cadaver; or that blood flowing out of the heart is first used to feed the heart itself; or, best of all, a structural analysis of how the Queen manages to deliver such a uniquely restrained wave." -Nature: The International Weekly Journal of Science Views: 22
The humorous and heartwarming story of Jack Jackman, a young boy who wants to be a stock drover, set in the small Waikato township of Waharoa in the 1930s. Jack has a wonderful, warm relationship with his parents and an old family friend, Andy the Drover, who each week drives a mob of sheep or cattle through the main street with the help of his dog, Old Drumble, and his horse, Nosy. All three become the boy fs close friends over the long hot summer holidays, and each week Andy tells him an even more amazing story of how Old Drumble has saved the day yet again, with each adventure becoming more and more absurd. A Baron Munchausen of the sheep mob, Andy fs yarns are delightful, funny and quixotic - and in the hands of a master storyteller like Jack Lasenby, a passionate advocate of children fs literacy, the result is pure magic. Views: 22
Like Philip Kerr's Berlin Noir trilogy, A Drop of Chinese Blood presents an unfamiliar world where the rules are an enigmaJames Church's Inspector O novels have been hailed as "crackling good" (The Washington Post) and "tremendously clever" (Tampa Tribune), while Church himself has been embraced by critics as "the equal of le Carré" (Publishers Weekly, starred). Now Church--a former Western intelligence officer who pulls back the curtain on the hidden world of North Korea in a way that no one else can--comes roaring back with an unputdownable new series featuring Inspector O's nephew, Bing, the director of state security in a region in northeast China bordering North Korea.When clues point to a connection between a beautiful woman's disappearance and Bing's sensitive assignment to bring an agent across the North Korean border, O reluctantly helps him navigate an increasingly complex and deadly maze. James Church has crafted a... Views: 22
When she disappeared from her rural hometown, Wendy White was a sweet, family-oriented girl, a late bloomer who’d recently moved out on her own, with her first real boyfriend and a job waiting tables at the local tavern. It happens all the time—a woman goes missing, a family mourns, and the case remains unsolved. Stacy Flynn is a reporter looking for her big break. She moved east from Cleveland, a city known for its violent crime, but that’s the last thing she expected to cover in Haeden. This small, upstate New York town counts a dairy farm as its main employer and is home to families who’ve set down roots and never left—people who don’t take kindly to outsiders. Flynn is researching the environmental impact of the dairy, and the way money flows outward like the chemical runoff, eventually poisoning those who live at the edges of its reach. Five months after she disappeared, Wendy’s body is found in a ditch just off one of... Views: 22
An encyclopedic attack on modern culture so hilariously bitter that it actually becomes uplifting. Based on two runaway UK bestsellers, this new American edition has been ingeniously adapted and features exclusive new material for US audiences by former Daily Show writer Brendan Hay. If you hate chick lit, Che Guevara merchandise, pop Kabbalah, cosmetic-surgery-gone-wrong-as-tv-programming, DVDs with ads you can't skip, or any of a few hundred other insanely annoying modern things, then this book will finally lend creedence to your frustrations. Say NO to the awful ideas, terrible people, useless products, and infuriating doublespeak that increasingly dominates our lives. Never before has there been a book so completely full of shit. Clearly, it isn't just you... Views: 22
Suddenly, she felt the thrill of being in so foreign a place, far more foreign that she had expected; a place where anything might happen ...'The restored Tuscan farmhouse on the edge of an ancient wood is the perfect setting for a late September holiday. As Justine Elliott, ehr friends and their families from university gather to relax and unwind, she hopes it will be a chance to put the most tragic events of the prvious year behind them all.However, the apparently peaceful Italian countryside holds as many secrets as its visitors and, before the week is out, the past and the present will collide, with unexpected and dramatic results ... Views: 22
