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  Paladares - Recipes Inspired by...

  Anya von Bremzen

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  Discover the fresh flavors of contemporary Cuba in this gorgeously photographed volume of stories and recipes from the country’s enterprising restaurants. Over the past decades, paladares—or private restaurants—have led a cultural and culinary renaissance in Cuba. In Paladares, James Beard Award-winning food writer Anya von Bremzen shares a fascinating journey through the country’s new food scene. Born in Soviet Russia, Bremzen brings a unique perspective to the stories she hears from Cuba’s chefs, restaurateurs, farmers, and food historians. She eavesdrops on passionate arguments about black beans and tamales; pries Daiquirí secrets from the legendary El Floridita (Hemingway’s watering hole); and guides us to vibrant markets and visionary organic farms.  Through Bremzen’s travels, we learn of Fidel’s obsession with dairy cows and hear wrenching memories of privation from the time after Soviet aid vanished. We meet colorful expats-turned-restaurateurs and local hipsters who obsess over global culture glimpsed in foreign movies and magazines.  The more than 100 recipes in Paladares are as intriguing as the characters behind them. And Fawn Schlow’s evocative photographs frame it all with the ramshackle glamour of old Havana, Cuba’s stunning countryside, dishes that are earthy and innovative, and Cuba’s incredible people.

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  This Ain't Shakespeare

  Brooks McBeth

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  Filmed live in Seattle, Joel McHale introduces us to his friend and fellow comedian, Brooks McBeth. Brooks has an edgy, but yet still endearing style of comedy that has made him a favorite at comedy clubs across the country.

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  Sweet Land of Liberty - A...

  Rossi Anastopoulo

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  A delicious and delightful narrative history of pie in AmericaFrom pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving to apple pie on the Fourth of July, nearly every American shares a certain nostalgia for a simple circle of crust and filling. But for centuries, pie has been a malleable icon, equally enjoyed at the table and coopted for social and political purposes. After all, it was a slice of cherry pie denied at the Woolworth’s lunch counter that ignited a wave of anti-segregation protests across the South during the civil rights movement. Molasses pie, a Southern favorite, captures the legacies of racial trauma and oppression passed down from America’s history of slavery, and Jell-O pie exemplifies the pressures and contradictions of gender roles in an evolving modern society. We all know the warm comfort of the so-called all-American apple pie … but just how did pie become the symbol of a nation?In Sweet Land of Liberty: A History of America in 11 Pies, food writer Rossi Anastopoulo cracks open our relationship to pie with wit and good humor. She traces the pies woven into our history, following the evolution of our country across centuries of innovation and change and examining how America’s relationship with this iconic dessert impacted culture across eras—and vice versa. With corresponding recipes for each chapter, Sweet Land of Liberty is an entertaining, informative, and utterly charming food history for bakers, dessert lovers, and history aficionados alike. Ultimately, the story of pie is the story of America itself, and it’s time to dig in.

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  The Pun Also Rises - How the...

  John Pollack

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  The pun is commonly dismissed as the lowest form of wit, and punsters are often unpopular for their obsessive wordplay. But such attitudes are relatively recent developments. In The Pun Also Rises, John Pollack-a former World Pun Champion and presidential speechwriter for Bill Clinton-explains why such wordplay is significant: It both revolutionized language and played a pivotal role in making the modern world possible. Skillfully weaving together stories and evidence from history, brain science, pop culture, literature, anthropology, and humor, The Pun Also Rises is an authoritative yet playful exploration of a practice that is common, in one form or another, to virtually every language on earth.At once entertaining and educational, this engaging book answers fundamental questions: Just what is a pun, and why do people make them? How did punning impact the development of human language, and how did that drive creativity and progress? And why, after centuries of decline, does the pun still matter?

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  Traffic-Free Cycle Trails - The...

  Nick Cotton

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  Traffic-Free Cycle Trails by Nick Cotton contains over 400 cycle routes in Great Britain. First published in 2004 and regularly updated ever since, it has become one of the country's most popular cycling books, and this fourth edition published in 2020 features a large number of updates and revisions.
  Traffic-Free Cycle Trails includes a great variety of routes on former railway paths, canal towpaths and forest trails in England, Scotland and Wales – and every ride is away from traffic. For that safe and peaceful bike ride, increasingly the target of families and leisure cyclists alike, Nick Cotton's guidebook has proven invaluable.
  Discover previously unknown local trails, plan fun rides for all the family, and travel to unfamiliar areas throughout the UK with quality routes. Presented in an easy-to-use format and packed with useful information in ten regional sections, it includes route descriptions of rides in every part of Britain. From novice riders looking to escape traffic to parents planning safe rides with children, let Traffic-Free Cycle Trails take the work out of finding the UK's best cycling routes.

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  China to Chitral - Mountains are...

  H.W. Tilman

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  In China to ChitralH.W. 'Bill' Tilman completes one of his great post-war journeys. He travels from Central China, crossing Sinkiang, the Gobi and Takla Makan Deserts, before escaping to a crumbling British Empire with a crossing of the Karakoram to the new nation of Pakistan.
  In 1951 there still persisted a legend that a vast mountain, higher than Everest, was to be found in the region, a good enough reason it seems for Tilman to traverse the land, 'a land shut in on three sides by vast snow ranges whose glacial streams nourish the oases and upon whose slopes the yaks and camels graze side by side; where in their felt yorts the Kirghiz and Kazak live much as they did in the days of Genghis Khan, except now they no longer take a hand in the devastation of Europe'.
  Widely regarded as some of Tilman's finest travel writing, China to Chitral is full of understatement and laconic humour, with descriptions of disastrous attempts on unclimbed mountains with Shipton, including Bogdo Ola—an extension of the mighty Tien Shan mountains—and the Chakar Aghil group near Kashgar on the old silk road. His command of the Chinese language—five words, all referring to food—proves less than helpful in his quest to find a decent meal: 'fortunately, in China there are no ridiculous hygienic regulations on the sale of food'. Tilman also has several unnerving encounters with less-than-friendly tribesmen …
  Tilman starts proper in Lanchow where he describes with some regret that he is less a traveller and more a passenger on this great traverse of the central basin and rim of mountain ranges at Asia's heart. But Tilman is one of our greatest ever travel writers, and we become a passenger to his adventurers.

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