Garden History

A selection of writings about gardens and gardening by six 19th-century women, compiled by Dee Palmer, a journalist and writer with a special interest in gardening. When she started the research for this audiobook, she expected to find many differences between the experiences of 19th-century women gardeners and those of today. Instead, she was struck by how modern much of their advice is, and her personal selection from the writings of these six women reflects that.

As late as the 1960s, tacos were virtually unknown outside Mexico and the American Southwest. Within fifty years the United States had shipped taco shells everywhere from Alaska to Australia, Morocco to Mongolia. But how did this tasty hand-held food - and Mexican food more broadly - become so ubiquitous? In Planet Taco, Jeffrey Pilcher traces the historical origins and evolution of Mexico's national cuisine, explores its incarnation as a Mexican American fast-food, shows how surfers became global pioneers of Mexican food, and how Corona beer conquered the world.

Words to Eat By explores the remarkable stories behind five of our most basic food words, words which reveal fascinating aspects of the evolution of the English language and our powerful associations with certain foods. Using sources that vary from Roman histories and early translations of the Bible to Julia Child's recipes and Frank Bruni's restaurant reviews, Ina Lipkowitz shows how saturated with French and Italian names the English culinary vocabulary is, "from a la carte to zabaglione."

With their deadly plants, razor-sharp shears, shady corners, and ready-made burial sites, gardens make an ideal scene for the perfect murder. But the outsize influence that gardens and gardening have had on the mystery genre has been underappreciated. Now, Marta McDowell, a writer and gardener with a near-encyclopedic knowledge of the genre, illuminates the many ways in which our greatest mystery writers, from Edgar Allen Poe to authors on today’s bestseller lists, have found inspiration in the sinister side of gardens.

Este audiolibro compendia la historia de España a través de sus cocinas y despensas, desde los caníbales y carroñeros de la cueva de Atapuerca hasta la increíble —y sin embargo cierta— invención de la tortilla de patatas sin patatas y sin huevos de nuestra más reciente posguerra.

In War Dogs, Rebecca Frankel offers a riveting mix of on-the-ground reporting, her own hands-on experiences in the military working dog world, and a look at the science of dogs' special abilities - from their amazing noses and powerful jaws to their enormous sensitivity to the emotions of their human companions. The history of dogs in the U.S. military is long and rich, from the spirit-lifting mascots of the Civil War to the dogs who lead patrols hunting for IEDs today.

The American South is a multifaceted region with its own vocabulary, peculiarities, and cultural touchstones. Even for those born in the South, the unspoken rules - layered in local nuances and complexities - can sometimes be confounding. Tennessee whiskey may technically be bourbon, but don't let anyone in Kentucky hear you call it that. And bless your heart, don't you dare make the mistake of confusing a magnolia blossom with a Japanese tulip.

Chocolate is one of the most popular flavors in the world. Over 5,000 years ago in the rainforests of Ecuador, the people planted the seeds from the wild cocoa trees. They ground the beans to make a chocolate drink with water.

Its history stretches back almost to the founding of the nation and includes many colorful characters, both well known and obscure, from the hatchet-wielding prohibitionist Carry Nation to George Garvin Brown, who in 1872 created Old Forester, the first bourbon to be sold only by the bottle.

At once a requisite collector's guide and a pursuit of meaning within storytelling, The Essential Guide to Collecting Calvin and Hobbes also offers a critical appraisal of Bill Watterson, as well as a deep examination of the most obscure Calvin and Hobbes relic, the textbook Teaching with Calvin and Hobbes: "a miraculous artifact unlike any other collectible in the world."

In Kings of the Garden, Adam J. Criblez traces the fall and rise of the New York Knicks between the 1973, the year they won their last NBA championship, and 1985, when the organization drafted Patrick Ewing and gave their fans hope after a decade of frustrations. During these years, the teams led by Walt Frazier, Earl Monroe, Bob McAdoo, Spencer Haywood, and Bernard King never achieved tremendous on-court success, and their struggles mirrored those facing New York City over the same span.

Here eminent food historian Jeffrey M. Pilcher narrates the brewing traditions and contemporary production of beer across Europe, North America, Africa, Asia, and Latin America—from the fermented beverages of precapitalist societies to the present. Unique local products, often homebrewed by women, were transformed into homogenous global commodities as giant brewing factories exported their beers using new refrigeration technology, railroads, and steamships.

Unearth the untold stories of bourbon whiskey: Immerse yourself in the riveting history and exciting future of America's native spirit!

One of the classic works on interior decoration, Edith Wharton’s The Decoration of Houses offers a comprehensive look at the history and character of turn-of-the-century interior design. Co-written with architect Ogden Codman, Jr., this invaluable reference provides us with numerous keen and practical axioms for house design, such as (1) The better the house, the less need for curtains, and (2) the height of a well-proportioned doorway should be twice its width.

Greyhounds, streaks of lightning, were bred to be the fastest dogs on earth. Yet for decades, tens of thousands were destroyed, abandoned, and abused each year when they couldn't run fast enough. Scrappy Marion Fitzgibbon, whose empathy for animals made her relentless, became obsessed with saving these dogs - despite the overwhelming power of dog-racing proponents - when she became head of the Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

Ask children where food comes from, and they’ll probably answer: “the supermarket.” Ask most adults, and their replies may not be much different. Where our foods are raised and what happens to them between farm and supermarket shelf have become mysteries. How did we become so disconnected from the sources of our breads, beef, cheeses, cereal, apples, and countless other foods that nourish us every day?

A gold medal wrestler, Reza's inspiring life celebrates honor, family and freedom. After he leads bloody battles in the 1979 Iranian Revolution and serves in the Air Force, Reza desires a fate beyond the suffocating suppression of Ayatollah Khomeini's Iran. On the last night of the 1982 Military World Wrestling Championships, he grips his gold medal, knowing American wrestlers wait minutes away to help him defect.

Of all the great cities in the world, few personify their country like New York City. As America's largest city and best known immigration gateway into the country, the Big Apple represents the beauty, diversity and sheer strength of the United States, a global financial center that has enticed people chasing the "American Dream" for centuries. As such, it's only fitting that Madison Square Garden, the stadium that bills itself as the world's most famous arena, resides in the heart of Manhattan.

The Bourbon Drinker's Companion is a narrative journey into the heart of American craft distilleries, taking listeners from the well-known Jim Beam Booker Noe plant to craft whiskey brewers on the West Coast to the emerging new traditional distillers of the South, in search of America's best whiskey. Bestselling author Colin Spoelman is back to celebrate all things whiskey as he explores the effect branding, taste, region, and distilling processes have on America's beloved and most notorious drink.

This book takes a deep dive into the Old Testament and New Testament's use and development of the Wedding Metaphor in Scripture. The book develops the importance of the Wedding Metaphor in understanding the heart and character of God Himself. Additionally, we learn some amazing aspects of the plans and purposes of God regarding the Creation from beginning to the end of time.