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Rowan Jacobsen is the James Beard Award-winning author of "A Geography of Oysters" and "Truffle Hound." His new book, "Wild Chocolate," tells the stories of the farmers, activists, and chocolatiers laboring to bring ancient cacao back from near extinction.
'Totem Salmon' by Freeman House (1999)
A lot of good books have been written about salmon, but none compares with "Totem Salmon," House's masterpiece about the efforts of his Northern California community to restore king salmon to their watershed. "Ecosystem absences can become a palpable presence," he writes, "a weird stillness moving against the winds of existence." House never wrote a second complete book. He didn't need to. Buy it here.
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Pollan's breakthrough book, and still his best, this "plant's-eye view" asks not what apples, tulips, marijuana, and the potato can do for us, but what we have done for them. A delightfully original perspective that has changed the way I see the world on a daily basis. Buy it here.
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