Book Bites are quick looks at a book from our Guest Host readers. Try a new book this week!

Today’s book is Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World, by Mark Kurlansky.

“Cod, it turns out, is the reason Europeans set sail across the Atlantic, and it is the only reason they could. What did the Vikings eat in icy Greenland and on the five expeditions to America recorded in the Icelandic sagas? Cod, frozen and dried in the frosty air, then broken into pieces and eaten like hardtack. What was the staple of the medieval diet? Cod again, sold salted by the Basques, an enigmatic people with a mysterious, unlimited supply of cod. As we make our way through the centuries of cod history, we also find a delicious legacy of recipes, and the tragic story of environmental failure, of depleted fishing stocks where once their numbers were legendary. In this lovely, thoughtful history, Mark Kurlansky ponders the question: Is the fish that changed the world forever changed by the world’s folly?”

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Book Bites are quick looks at a book from our Guest Host readers. Try a new book this week!

Today’s book is Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch, by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett.

“According to The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch (the world’s only completely accurate book of prophecies, written in 1655, before she exploded), the world will end on a Saturday. Next Saturday, in fact. Just before dinner.

So the armies of Good and Evil are amassing, Atlantis is rising, frogs are falling, tempers are flaring. Everything appears to be going according to Divine Plan. Except a somewhat fussy angel and a fast-living demon—both of whom have lived amongst Earth’s mortals since The Beginning and have grown rather fond of the lifestyle—are not actually looking forward to the coming Rapture.

And someone seems to have misplaced the Antichrist . .”

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Book Bites are quick looks at a book from our Guest Host readers. Try a new book this week!

Today’s book is The Constellation Games by Leonard Richardson. “Ariel Blum is pushing thirty and has very little to show for it. He’s using his computer science degree to write pony-themed video games for ten-year-olds. He hasn’t met a nice Jewish girl because he’s secretly in love with his best friend, Jenny Gallegos. Whenever he tries to make something of his life, he finds himself back on the couch, replaying the games of his youth. “

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Book Bites are quick looks at a book from our Guest Host readers. Try a new book this week!

Today’s book is A Walk in the Woods, by Bill Bryson. “The Appalachian Trail trail stretches from Georgia to Maine and covers some of the most breathtaking terrain in America–majestic mountains, silent forests, sparking lakes. If you’re going to take a hike, it’s probably the place to go. And Bill Bryson is surely the most entertaining guide you’ll find. He introduces us to the history and ecology of the trail and to some of the other hardy (or just foolhardy) folks he meets along the way–and a couple of bears. Already a classic, A Walk in the Woods will make you long for the great outdoors (or at least a comfortable chair to sit and read in).”

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