The Fate of the Atlantic and our Disappearing Fisheries

The Last Fish Tale

Bestselling author Mark Kurlansky tells the story - past, present and future - of fishing at sea and the demise of an entire way of life.

Mark Kurlansky is the author of several bestselling non-fiction titles including Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World (winner of the Glenfiddich Best Food Book Award), The Basque History of the World, Salt: A World History, 1968: The Year that Rocked the World, a short story collection The White Man in the Tree and a novel, Boogaloo on 2nd Avenue.

Will most of the major fisheries of the world be exhausted by 2048, as has been claimed? Have the number of large fish in the ocean decreased by 90 per cent over the past 50 years, as has been asserted by a respected scientist? Are 60 per cent of the fish species studied by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation either fully exploited or depleted, as one of their reports attests? Fishing at sea, an ancient trade and a way of life that has defined coastal towns throughout history, may be coming to an end. The culture and traditions of coastal Britain and of seagoing nations everywhere are now threatened with extinction. 
 
In his most important book yet, Mark Kurlansky - the celebrated author of Cod, Salt and The Big Oyster - explores the fate of our oceans and the decline of our most ancient coastal enterprise. The Last Fish Tale sends up a timely distress flare but one which brilliantly illuminates a colourful, exuberant and poignant landscape, from Newlyn in Cornwall to Gloucester in Massachusetts - a fishing village first settled by Englishmen in the early 1600s. The result is a cultural, economic, environmental and culinary bouillabaisse - the most compelling fish tale of our time.

The History of a Dangerous Idea

Nonviolence

A brilliant book by bestselling writer Mark Kurlansky on the place of pacifism in world history. An original work within the history of ideas genre, with a foreword by the Dalai Lama.

Kurlansky writes history with his heart firmly on his sleeve, unashamedly hopeful that people are becoming more tired of war, quicker to condemn it

Short and punchy and has a good heart... fascinating, vibrant and thought-provoking

This book is crammed with historical fact... thought provoking

Succinct yet wide-ranging...Kurlansky is adamant that his book is about hope, that over and over again non-violence has had its own small successes, from Gandhi to Martin Luther King

The ideal Christmas present for world leaders and jihad warriors everywhere

Kurlansky tells an intriguing story - with some nuggets of fascinating trivia

An entertaining, interesting and sometimes inspiring gallop through parts of the history of non-violent conflict

Mark Kurlansky is the bestselling author of Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World (winner of the Glenfiddich Best Food Book Award), The Basque History of the World, Salt: A World History, 1968: The Year that Rocked the World, a short story collection The White Man in the Tree and a novel Boogaloo on 2nd Avenue (all published by Cape and Vintage). He lives in New York City with his wife and daughter.

The conventional history of nations, even continents, is a history of warfare. According to this view, all the important ideas and significant changes of humankind occured as part of an effort to win one violent, bloody conflict or another. 
 
But there have always been a few who refused to fight. Following the grand sweep of history from Confucius to Tolstoy, Erasmus to Gandhi, bestselling author Mark Kurlansky traces pacifism and its proponents to show how many modern ideas, a united Europe, the United Nations, and the abolition of slavery - originated in non-violence movements.

A Molluscular History of New York

The Big Oyster

From the bestselling author of Salt and Cod comes a fascinating history of New York and the oyster - its influence on four centuries of cultural, economic, and culinary trends - with recipes throughout

Kurlansky's great ability is to chose a single element as a prism through which to view the development or degeneration of culture; in this book he takes his readers from the 16th century to the present day, encompassing biology, commerce, the politics of race, history, literature, and, of course, gourmandise

A diligent researcher and a terrific storyteller...quirky, engrossing narrative

Fascinating... Kurlansky's portrait of that vanished age is absolutely engrossing

An absorbing book filled with evocative detail and culinary colour

Kurlansky has established a niche for himself as a purveyor of popular history tied to commodities

Mark Kurlansky is the author of Cod: a Biography of the Fish that Changed the World (winner of the Glenfiddich Award for the Best Food Book in 1997), The Basque History of the World, Salt: A World History and Choice Cuts: A Miscellany of Food Writing. He lives in New York City with his wife and daughter.

When Peter Minuit bought Manhattan for $24 in 1626 he showed his shrewdness by also buying the oyster beds off tiny, nearby Oyster Island, renamed Ellis Island in 1770. 
 
From the Minuit purchase until pollution finally destroyed the beds in the 1920s, New York was a city known for its oysters, especially in the late 1800s, when Europe and America enjoyed a decades-long oyster craze. In a dubious endorsement, William Makepeace Thackeray said that eating a New York oyster was like eating a baby. 
 
Travellers to New York were also keen to experience the famous New York oyster houses. While some were known for their elegance, due to a longstanding belief in the aphrodisiac quality of oysters, they were often associated with prostitution. In 1842, when the novelist Charles Dickens arrived in New York, he could not conceal his eagerness to find and experience the fabled oyster cellars of New York City's slums. 
 
The Big Oyster is the story of a city and of an international trade.Filled with cultural, social and culinary insight - as well as recipes, maps, drawings and photographs - this is history at its most engrossing, entertaining and delicious.

a Novel of Pastry, Guilt and Music

Boogaloo On 2nd Avenue

A vivid, funny, exuberantly textured debut novel about a tight-knit, ethnically diverse New York neighbourhood on the brink of change, from the bestselling author of Cod, Salt and 1968.

A marvellous debut by any standards... Beautifully done

Witty, hard-edged and mouth-watering. A tightly crafted, vibrant book filled with the romance and hardships of family life, violence, music and butter

Rich and compelling. Warm social comedy, period detail and perceptive psychology... Kurlansky writes from the heart and taste-buds

Whimsical. Kurlansky's powers of description and humour are abundantly engaging... [An] impassioned, nostalgic, charmingly written novel

Exuberant...hilarious. Recipes for some of the mouth-watering dishes mentioned in the book provide a satisfactorily eccentric coda to an original New York novel

Mark Kurlansky is the bestselling author of Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World (winner of the Glenfidish Best Food Book Award), The Basque History of the World, Salt: A World History, 1968: The Year that Rocked the World and a short story collection The White Man in the Tree (all published by Cape and Vintage). He lives in New York City with his wife and daughter.

It's the boom years of the 1980s, and life is closing in on Nathan Seltzer, who rarely travels outside his suddenly gentrifying Lower East Side neighbourhood. While he tries to decide whether he should cheat on his wife with Karoline, a German pastry chef whose parents may or may not have been Nazis, his father, Harry, is plotting with the 1960s boogaloo star Chow Mein Vega for the comeback of this dance craze. Meanwhile, a homicidal drug addict is terrorizing the neighbourhood. 
 
With its ensemble cast of unforgettable characters, Boogaloo on 2nd Avenue is a comedy of cultures about the old and the new, about Latinos, Jews, Sicilians and Germans. It's about struggling to hold onto life in a rapidly changing world, about food and sex and about how our lives are shaped by love and guilt.

The Year that Rocked the World

1968

‘A fascinating account… combining the rigour of the historian with the powerful emotions of someone who was a 20-year-old student at the time’ Uncut

A riveting, evocative, entertaining read.

Eminently readable... Will bring a flood of memories of an exceptional year in the exceptional 1960s

Kurlansky is a very superior journalist: diligent in his research, quirkily original in his insights, swift and clear in his storytelling. 1968 is a riveting, evocative, entertaining read

Mark Kurlansky is author of Cod:  A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World (winner of the Glenfidish's Best Food Book Award), The Basque History of the World, Salt:  A World History and a short story collection The White Man in the Tree (all published by Cape and Vintage).  He lives in New York City with his wife and daughter.

‘A fascinating account…combining the rigour of the historian with the powerful emotions of someone who was a twenty-year-old student at the time’ Uncut 
 
It was the year of sex and drugs and rock and roll. But what impact did it have on today’s political and social landscape? 
 
It was also the year of the Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy assassinations, the Prague Spring, the Chicago convention, the Tet offensive in Vietnam and the anti-war movement, the student rebellion that paralysed France, civil rights, the beginning of the end for the Soviet Union, and the birth of the women's movement. 
 
With 1968: The Year that Rocked the World, award-winning journalist Mark Kurlansky has written his magnum opus - a cultural and political history of that world-changing year of social upheaval, when television's impact on global events first became apparent, and when simultaneously – in Paris, Prague, London, Berkeley, and all over the globe – uprisings spontaneously occurred. 1968 encompasses the worlds of youth and music, politics, war, economics, assassinations, riots, demonstrations and the media, and shows us how we got to where we are today.

Salt

'Salt is the fascinating, indispensable history of an indispensable ingredient. It's a must-have book for any serious cook or foodie' Anthony Bourdain

Refreshing and invigorating, full of fascinating fact

This is an extraordinary little book, unputdownable, written in the most lyrical, flowing style which paints vivid pictures and, at the same time, punches into place hard facts that stop you dead in your tracks. A compulsive read

Crisply and elegantly written - piques the appetite and sharpens the senses

A rich stew about every salt-influenced concoction and creation, from the first sausages and cured hams and fish sauces to the invention of parmesan, tomato ketchup and Tabasco sauce

An entertainingly anecdotal and lovingly partisan history.

Mark Kurlansky is the author of 23 books of fiction, nonfiction, children's writing. His best-selling Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World won the 1999 James Beard Award for Food Writing and the 1999 Glenfiddich Award. His other works include: Salt, The Basque History of the World and the short story collection The White Man in the Tree. He lives in New York City with his wife and daughter.

Homer called it a divine substance. Plato described it as especially dear to the gods. As Mark Kurlansky so brilliantly relates here, salt has shaped civilisation from the beginning, and its story is a glittering, often surprising part of the history of mankind. Wars have been fought over salt and, while salt taxes secured empires across Europe and Asia, they have also inspired revolution - Gandhi's salt march in 1930 began the overthrow of British rule in India. 
 
From the rural Sichuan province where the last home-made soya sauce is produced to the Cheshire brine springs that supplied salt around the globe, Mark Kurlansky has produced a kaleidoscope of world history, a multi-layered masterpiece that blends political, commercial, scientific, religious and culinary records into a rich and memorable tale.

The White Man In The Tree

The fiction debut by the author of the bestselling Cod and The Basque History of the World - a funny and moving romp through the world's melting pot

Mark Kurlansky is the author of A Continent of Islands: Searching for the Caribbean Destiny, A Chosen Few: The Resurrection of European Jewry, Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World, winner of the 1999 Glenfiddich Food and Drinks Award for the Best Food Book, and The Basque History of the World. During the past twenty years he has spent a great deal of time in the Caribbean, including seven years as the Chicago Tribune's Caribbean correspondent. He lives in New York City.

The White man in the Tree is a comedy of cultural misunderstanding set in the Caribbean, New York and Paris, a novella and eight stories about people who, because of their differences - between men and women, blacks and whites, Jews and Christians, rich and poor - misjudge each other. Celebrated for his non-fiction, Mark Kurlansky is equally at home with fiction: he has an ability to unmask our foibles and write about love with great wit and humour.Whether it is a sophisticated European filmmaker, an ambitious young black Haitian woman, a promising politician obsessed with women's feet, or a fish-out-of-water rabbi in search of a kosher chicken in Curacao, each of Kurlansky's characters engages us with impulses and interactions that are by turns comic, insightful and poignant. The White Man in the Tree is an affectionate portrait of a unique society, where Europe, America, Africa and Asia meet Latin America. Filled with surprises and delight as Kurlansky approaches each scene from a new and unexpected angle, The White Man in the Tree is a tender, wholly original and thoroughly entertaining fiction debut.

The Basque History Of The World

'History, reportage, travel writing, wisdom and recipes - entertaining and enlightening' Sunday Times

A diligently researched, entertainingly anecdotal and lovingly partisan history

[An] informative, quirky and delightful book

A riveting [story] told with charm and dexterity

The award-winning author of Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World takes an equally unconventional and engaging approach to those curmudgeonly nationalists, the Basques... Each chapter...addresses a particular facet of Basque culture...while the whole is punctured with simple but mouth-watering recipes reflecting the glorious tradition of Basque cuisine. Proof - if proof were needed - that learning about history can be fun

The Basques are Europe's oldest people, their origins a mystery, their language related to no other on Earth, and even though few in population and from a remote and rugged corner of Spain and France, they have had a profound impact on the world. Whilst inward-looking, preserving their ancient language and customs, the Basques also struck out for new horizons, pioneers of whaling and cod fishing, leading the way in exploration of the Americas and Asia, were among the first capitalists and later led Southern Europe's industrial revolution. 
 
Mark Kurlansky, the author of the acclaimed Cod, blends human stories with economic, political, literary and culinary history to paint a fascinating picture of an intriguing people.

Charting the waves a mere fish can send through history, Kurlansky has fashioned an epic masterpiece out of a seemingly small subject.

A must-have book for anyone who loves fish. Kurlansky was innovative (and is now much imitated) in writing a book about how a commodity shaped history.

This is an extraordinary little book, unputdownable, written in the most lyrical, flowing style which paints vivid pictures and, at the same time, punches into place hard facts that stop you dead in your tracks. Who would ever think that a book on cod would make a compulsive read? And yet this is precisely what Kurlansky has done

To go out and buy a book on the subject (of cod) is to invite glances of suspicion. While a few eccentrics might think this is a good reason to purchase several copies, for the rest of us it requires a certain leap of faith. Cod...amply rewards such a leap. It is compact and beautifully produced

Refreshing and invigorating, full of fascinating facts

'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 prolific fish. He chronicles the cod wars of the 16th and 20th centuries. He blends in recipes and lore from the Middle Ages to the present. In a story that brings world history and human passions into captivating focus, he shows how the most profitable fish in history is today faced with extinction.

Mark Kurlansky

An endlessly varied overview of our culinary history... an hors d'oeuvre to more satisfying topics of history and culture

The book is fat with eccentric wit, tips and recipes... there are rich pickings especially among the literary tidbits: Hemingway on fish in the Seine, Chekhov on oysters and - best of all - Pablo Neruda's 'Ode to French Fries'

a miscellany of food writing

The winner of the Glenfiddich Best Food Book Award leads is on a dazzling culinary tour around the world and through history - from the fifth century BC to the present day. 
 
Presented by subject - including 'Food and Sex', 'Bread', 'Rants' and 'Dessert' - and illustrated with Kurlansky's own pen-and-ink drawings as well as classic photographs, this wonderful collection, like the very best meal, is varied, delicious and uniquely satisfying.

Mark Kurlansky

Praise for Choice Cuts

An endlessly varied overview of our culinary history... an hors d'oeuvre to more satisfying topics of history and culture

A lively selection

The book is fat with eccentric wit, tips and recipes... there are rich pickings especially among the literary tidbits: Hemingway on fish in the Seine, Chekhov on oysters and - best of all - Pablo Neruda's 'Ode to Fr ...

An endlessly varied overview of our culinary history... an hors d'oeuvre to more satisfying topics of history and culture

A lively selection

The book is fat with eccentric wit, tips and recipes... there are rich pickings especially among the literary tidbits: Hemingway on fish in the Seine, Chekhov on oysters and - best of all - Pablo Neruda's 'Ode to Fr ...

An endlessly varied overview of our culinary history... an hors d'oeuvre to more satisfying topics of history and culture

A lively selection

The book is fat with eccentric wit, tips and recipes... there are rich pickings especially among the literary tidbits: Hemingway on fish in the Seine, Chekhov on oysters and - best of all - Pablo Neruda's 'Ode to Fr ...

Books by Mark Kurlansky

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