` These were the nights when the German bombers growled through the sky, their bellies full with steel & cordite. When the moon was low their dark shapes & still darker shadows came over the coast. Several hours later they`d return again, wearily, lighter in weight, fewer in number, dropping the occasional bomb on the forgotten land of creeks & channels beneath them. On one of those nights it all began for me
- war, after all, starts many things, & even though I wasn`t born for another twenty-five years, my story began there.` It is May 1945 & as church bells ring out Victory in Europe over the Norfolk saltmarshes, Goose`s daughter Lil is born. But as Lil enters Goose`s world, her father leaves it, in a makeshift boat bound
- or so the story goes
- for Germany, his home. Forty years later it is Lil`s son, Pip, who begins to make sense of his family`s fragmented history. Who was his grandfather, who fell from the sky into Goose`s life & then disappeared as suddenly as he came? What was the truth of his mother, Lil, who lived & lost her way between the creeks & the samphire? & what does it all mean for Pip, whose heritage of flood, fireworks, fish & clouds, has left him ill-prepared for life beyond the marshes?


...

For the sake of salt, Rome created a system of remuneration (from which we get the word salary), nomads domesticated the camel, the Low Countries revolted against their Spanish oppressors, & Gandhi marched against the tyranny of the British. Through the ages, salt has conferred status, preserved foods, & mingled in the blood, sweat, & tears of humanity. Today, chefs of haute cuisine covet it in its most exotic forms -- underground salt deposits, Hawaiian black lava salt, glittery African crystals, & pink Peruvian salt from the sea carried in bricks on the backs of llamas. From proverbs to technical arguments, from anecdotes to examples of folklore, chemist & philosopher Pierre Laszlo takes us through the kingdom of white gold. With enthusiasm & freshness (Le Monde) he mixes literary analysis, history, anthropology, biology, physics, economics, art history, political science, chemistry, ethnology, & linguistics to create a full body of knowledge about the everyday substance that rocked the world & brings zest to the ordinary. Laszlo explains the history behind Morton Salt's slogan When it rains, it pours! & looks into the plight of the salt miner, as well as spectroscopy & nuclear magnetic resonance. Salt is a tour de force about a chemical compound that is one of the very foundations of civilization. ...

In apartheid southern Africa, a three-year-old girl named Koba is snatched from her Kalahari desert tribe after witnessing her parents' brutal murder by white farmers. A hunting party discovers the Bushman group poaching on their property, & a white farmer is killed by a poisoned arrow. The orphaned child is taken in by a liberal white woman called Marta, & Koba finds herself trapped in a terrifying new world. She slowly learns to adapt & survive in a cave isolated from the farm's dangerous but beautiful environment. Koba grows up quickly & as a teenager learns 'white' ways alongside Marta's son, Mannie, a boy her own age, while never forgetting the pull of her own desert people. One weekend though, when Marta & her husband are away, a passionate love affair develops between Mannie & Koba which questions all their assumptions & loyalties, bringing down upon them all the force of the law. ...

This book mixes the unusual recipe of a large helping of history, a decent portion of politics, a drop of geology & major injection of home economics. Blended together carefully, the outcome is a fascinating story & journey around the world that constantly surprises & enlightens the reader. Adding a sprinkling of salt to your dinner will never quite feel the same again. ...

The Rain Shakers are novelty, cloud shaped salt & pepper pots. Season your dishes with a downpour from the flat-bottomed grey & white clouds & be your own culinary weather man... Salt moving in on a Siberian wind from the east? Or pepper ominously looming in on the Gulf Stream? A cruet set to get dinner conversation going. ...

`A part of me will always live at Salt Creek though it is on the far side of the world...` The comfortable & respectable life Hester Finch now leads in Chichester, Engl&, could not be further from the hardship her family endured on leaving Adelaide for Salt Creek in 1855. Yet she finds her thoughts drawn back to that remote, beautiful & inhospitable outcrop of South Australia & the connections she & her siblings forged there, far from the city society in which they had been raised: encounters with the few travellers passing along the nearby stock route & the local indigenous people
- in particular a boy, Tully, whom Hester`s father seeks to educate almost as his own son
- would change the fates of the Finches forever; nor would life ever be the same again for those who had long called the area home.

...

`A piercingly elegant novel... with the power to both break & mend your heart.` Ru Freeman, author of On Sal Mal Lane` Epic in scope & uniquely relevant in its concern for displacement. Particularly well-suited for our times, then.` Red Where do you go when you can’t go home? On the eve of her daughter Alia’s wedding, Salma reads the girl’s future in a cup of coffee dregs. Although she keeps her predictions to herself that day, they soon come to pass in the wake of the Six-Day War of 1967. Caught up in the resistance, Alia’s brother disappears, while Alia & her husband move from Nablus to Kuwait City. Reluctantly they build a life, torn between needing to remember & learning to forget. When Saddam Hussein invades Kuwait, Alia & her family yet again lose their home, their l&, & their story as they know it. Scattering to Beirut, Paris & Boston, Alia’s children begin families of their own, once more navigating the burdens & blessings of beginning again. ...

Where do you go when you can`t go home? On the eve of her daughter Alia`s wedding, Salma reads the girl`s future in a cup of coffee dregs. She sees an unsettled life for Alia & her children; she also sees travel, & luck. While she chooses to keep her predictions to herself that day, they will all soon come to pass when the family is uprooted in the wake of the Six-Day War of 1967. Salma is forced to leave her home in Nablus; Alia`s brother gets pulled into a politically militarised world he can`t escape; & Alia & her gentle-spirited husband move to Kuwait City, where they reluctantly build a life with their three children. When Saddam Hussein invades Kuwait in 1990, Alia & her family once again lose their home, their l&, & their story as they know it, scattering to Beirut, Paris, Boston, & beyond. Soon Alia`s children begin families of their own, once again navigating the burdens (and blessings) of assimilation. Spanning fifty years, Salt Houses is a devastating & lyrical debut about one family in the wake of war, about needing to remember, & learning to forget. ...

Reno & Tahoe in the Moon Spotlight guide series; covering a range of specific local cities, districts, areas & regions in North, Central & South America & targeted at those seeking to travel to a specific area within a country. Each of the guides has been extracted in full from the relevant country Moon Handbook & individual titles focus on a particular city, region or notable area of the destination. Many of the guides in the series are unique in their coverage, although are limited in putting the destination into its wider geographical context that a more comprehensive guide would provide. Stylistically, Moon ...

The Salt Lake City, Park City, & the Wasatch Adventure Map (2016 edition) is a waterproof, topographic map (lat/long, UTM grids) that

Includes:: route descriptions throughout trails the Wasatch Range including, Mill Creek Canyon, Big & Little Cottonwood Canyons, American Fork Canyon, Mount Timpanogos, Park City, Bonneville Shoreline Trail, Wasatch Mountain State Park. The map

Includes:: 25 of the best mountain bike rides & 32 hike suggestions for the area. The map also

Includes:: blowups of Corner Canyon, Snowbird/ Alta, Sundance & an inset of the Coyote Canyon trails in Heber City. Water/ Tear Proof Map, Flat Map, & Laminated Flat Map options are available (see below). Flat & Laminated maps make nice gifts as you can hang them on a wall.





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