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  All the Wild Hungers - A Season...

  Karen Babine

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  A “lovely” memoir of caring for a mother with cancer, reflecting on our appetites for food and for life (Minneapolis Star Tribune). When her mother is diagnosed with a rare cancer, Karen Babine—cook, collector of vintage cast iron, and fiercely devoted daughter, sister, and aunt—can’t help but wonder: feed a fever, starve a cold, but what do we do for cancer? And so she commits to preparing her mother anything she will eat, a vegetarian diving into the unfamiliar world of bone broth and pot roast.   In this series of mini-essays, Babine ponders the intimate connections between food, family, and illness. As she notes that her sister’s unborn baby is the size of lemon while her mother’s tumor is the size of a cabbage, she reflects on what draws us toward food metaphors to describe disease. What is the power of language, of naming, in a medical culture where patients are too often made invisible? How do we seek meaning where none is to be found—and can we create it from scratch? And how, Babine asks as she bakes cookies with her small niece and nephew, does a family create its own food culture across generations?   Generous and bittersweet, All the Wild Hungers is an affecting chronicle of one family’s experience of illness and of a writer's culinary attempt to make sense of the inexplicable.   “[Babine] continues to navigate her way through extraordinary challenges with ordinary comforts, finding poetry in the everyday. Reading this quiet book should provide the sort of balm for those in similar circumstances that writing it must have for the author.”―Kirkus Reviews   “Profound…Anyone who has experienced a family member’s struggle with cancer will be stabbed by recognition throughout this book…In the end, the overriding hunger referred to in this lovely book’s title is the hunger for life.”―Minneapolis Star Tribune

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  Sherpa Hospitality as a Cure for...

  Mark Horrell

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  The heroic story of how Sherpas stood up and took control of their destiny 
  Ever since Europeans started exploring the world’s highest mountains and trying to reach their summits in the early 20th century, Sherpas have been an integral part of mountaineering expeditions to the Himalayas. In this anthology curated from his popular Footsteps on the Mountain blog, Mark Horrell explores the evolution of Sherpa mountaineers, from the porters of early expeditions to the superstar climbers of the present day. 
  Writing with trademark warmth and humour, he starts by bringing to life the Sherpa characters of the early days, describing their customs and superstitions, and putting their contributions and achievements into context. 
  In the deeply personal second section of the book, he covers some of the conflicts of the 21st century, when a series of high-profile controversies highlighted the tensions between Sherpas and western climbers on Everest. He was a witness to a devastating avalanche in the Khumbu Icefall that killed 16 Nepali mountain workers and led to a labour dispute, and he describes the events that followed from a commercial client’s perspective. 
  In the final section of the book, he brings the story up to date and looks to the future, as Sherpas have moved out of the limelight of westerners, running successful mountaineering expedition companies and becoming celebrated climbers in their own right.

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  The American Transportation...

  Aaron W. Marrs

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  In the first half of the nineteenth century, transportation in the United States underwent an extraordinary transformation. In The American Transportation Revolution, Aaron W. Marrs explores the cultural influence of steamboats and railroads, which fascinated Americans across the country.Demonstrating the wide cultural reach of steam transit, Marrs draws from an eclectic set of sources, including children's books, comic almanacs, musical works, sermons, etiquette guides, cartoons, and employee rulebooks. This rich tapestry of cultural production helped "naturalize" steam technology for Americans before they ever encountered steam transit in person. Before ever seeing a railroad, Americans could read a novel that took place on a railroad, see an image of a train on currency, or purchase piano music imitating a train. These cultural artifacts made these new forms of transport feel familiar and natural.Marrs examines how cultural norms about travel emerged through the prescriptions of etiquette authors and the actions of travelers themselves, how enslaved people made innovative use of transportation networks to escape from slavery, and much more. Marrs convincingly demonstrates steam transportation's broad cultural impact on the United States, and how Americans, in turn, imprinted their own meaning on this new technology.

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  My Angels Wear Fur - Animals I...

  Devon O'day

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  The country music radio host reveals how rescue animals have transformed her life again and again in this heartwarming story collection. 
   
  Devon O’Day has a passion for animal rescue and the things vulnerable animals can teach us about ourselves. In My Angels Wear Fur, she introduces readers to: 
   
  Tennessee Tess: A stray dog delivered to her front door by a man working on a construction crew in the neighborhood and who ended up living the glamorous life in Hollywood with O’Day’s sister, actress Faith Ford. 
   
  The Boxer of Mercy: A brindle boxer who delivers dogs in need to O’Day’s front door. As soon as he knows the other dog is in good hands, the boxer disappears. 
   
  With more than thirty stories, My Angels Wear Fur make you understand what O’Day means when she says, “There is a God-like quality in animals. They love without judgment. They are loyal and caring and they see through each of us . . . to the hidden souls of our real beings.”

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  The Lawrence Durrell Travel Reader

  Lawrence Durrell

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  A collection of travel essays from the bestselling author whose writing sparkles with “prose as luminous as the Mediterranean air he loves” (Time). Few men have traveled as wisely as Lawrence Durrell. Born in India, he lived in Corfu as a young man, enjoying salt air, cobalt water, and an unfettered bohemian lifestyle. Over the following decades, he rambled around the Mediterranean, making homes in Egypt, Cyprus, and Greece. Each time he moved, he asked himself why he felt compelled to travel. In this book, he gives his answer. Durrell knew that the wise traveler looks not for pleasure, education, or landmarks, but is hungry for a sense of place—the element of a landscape, city, or nation that makes its people who they are. In this anthology, passages from Durrell’s classic Mediterranean writings are paired with observations on other lands. His writing is poetic, lush, and achingly clear, for this was a man who truly saw the world.

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  Buddy - How a Rooster Made Me a...

  Brian McGrory

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  Brian McGrory's life changed drastically after the death of his beloved dog, Harry: he fell in love with Pam, Harry's veterinarian. Though Brian's only responsibility used to be his adored Harry, Pam came with accessories that could not have been more exotic to the city-loving bachelor: a home in suburbia, two young daughters, two dogs, two cats, two rabbits, and a portly, snow white, red-crowned-and-wattled step-rooster named Buddy. While Buddy loves the women of the house, he takes Brian's presence as an affront, doing everything he can to drive out his rival. Initially resistant to elements of his new life and to the loud, aggressive rooster (who stares menacingly, pecks threateningly, and is constantly poised to attack), Brian eventually sees that Buddy shares the kind of extraordinary relationship with Pam and her two girls that he wants for himself. The rooster is what Brian needs to be-strong and content, devoted to what he has rather than what might be missing. As he learns how to live by living with animals, Buddy, Brian's nemesis, becomes Brian's inspiration, in this inherently human story of love, acceptance, and change.In the tradition of bestsellers like Marley and Me, Dewey, and The Tender Bar comes a heartwarming and wise tale of finding love in life's second chapter-and how it means all the more when you have to fight for it.

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