Taking... a certain leap of faith... to great reading

'To go out and buy a book on the subject [of cod] is to invite glances of suspicion. While a few eccentrics might think this is a good reason to purchase several copies, for the rest of us it requires a certain leap of faith. Cod ... amply rewards such a leap.' The Mail on Sunday

Recommended to me, Cod sounded like a really dull subject. But after reading this review, above, I took the leap and thoroughly enjoyed the compulsive read that is 'A biography of the fish that changed the world'.

I highly recommends it and these other literary wonders.

(Quote the International Standard Book Number (ISBN) and your bookseller will be able to trace them.)

		Cod A biography of the fish that changed the world by Mark Kurlansky Published by Vintage 1999 ISBN 0 09 926870 1


		Salt A World History by Mark Kurlansky 'A compulsive & totally fascinating read' Published by Vintage 2003 ISBN 0 09 928199 6


		The Alphabet Unravelling the mystery of the alphabet from A to Z (letter by letter) by David Sacks 'The best book I've ever read' For instance, in the chapter on X, this interesting info (on page 344)... "Why isn’t Z the unknown? According to legend, a 17th-century printer’s problem helped X land its major job symbolising something unknown. For the many equations in his now-famous 1937 mathematical work La Géométie, René Descartes chose letters A, B and C to represent any three constants and X, Y and Z to to represent any three unknowns. He intended that Z be the first unknown (corresponding to A) with Y second and X third. But the story goes that the printer, while typesetting the manuscript, found himself repeatedly running short of letter blocks for Y and Z, due to Descartes’ many equations calling for these letters. However, the printer still had plenty of Xs, a letter that in French-language print is used far less than Y or Z. So the printer wrote to Descartes, asking whether it made any difference which of the three, Z, Y or X, appeared in equations of one or two unknowns – and might X be the preferred letter for printing purposes? The great man replied that it was acceptable. And that is why the Géométie tends to favour X as the letter of an unknown quantity, especially in the second half of the treatise." Published by Arrow Books 2004 ISBN 0 09 943682 5


		Champagne How the world's most glamorous Wine triumphed over War and Hard Times by Don & Petie Kladstrup 'Le champagne, which is masculine in the French language, seemed to be the ideal complement to the harsh la Champagne, the province, which is feminine... a perfect couple inseparable and joined in a union of strength, gaiety and elegance. 'In just 18 months during the French Revolution, fifty thousand people were put to death on the guillotine. And while waiting in the tumbrel for their turn to mount the steps to their execution 'bankers, nobles and others' were yelling to their jailers to bring them champagne.' Published by Harper Perennial 2005 ISBN-10 0 06 073793 X ISBN-13 978 0 06 073793 1


		The Widow Clicquot The Story of a Champagne Empire and the woman who ruled it by Tilar J Mazzeo Champagne was not invented by the French – not even, as some believe, by Dom Pérignon – but was discovered by the English. Published by HarperCollins 2008 ISBN 978 0 06 171154 1


		Scurvy How a Surgeon, a Mariner and a Gentleman solved the Greatest Medical Mystery of the Age of sail by Stephen R Bown During the Age of Sail, more sailors died from scurvy than from injuries caused in battle. Published by Penguin Books 2003 ISBN 0 14 300264 3


		Writing about the history of the English language in Mother Tongue, American English in Made in America, and science in A Short History of Nearly Everything, Bill Bryson does not only delight with his travel adventures but also brings other subjects to light, in easy-to-read prose. For me, if his name was on the front of one of his books – no title – I'd read it. His prose and subject matter are that enjoyable. I recommend reading any of his books. Published by Random House Other than bookshops, they be purchased at amazon.com


		The Year 1000 by Robert Lacey & Danny Danziger 'In every shire (or county), there was a shire court that administered the king's law, and it was in the reign of Ethelred, that the 'shire reeve' or 'sheriff' first came into view as the CEO of local government.' Published by Abacus 1999 ISBN 0 349 113068


		Yarra A diverting history of Melbourne's murky river by Kristen Otto 'Too thin to plough... to thick to drink...' Published by Vintage 1999 ISBN 1 920885 78 1


		The Island of Lost Maps A true story of cartographic crime (in the 1990s) by Miles Harvey A story of a klemptomaniac who cut maps out of original atlases in private libraries, folded them up and stuffed them down his shirt!. Published by Phoenix 2001 ISBN 0 75381 315 7


		The Map that Changed the World A Tale of Rocks, Ruin and Redemption by Simon Winchester A story of the man and, through his endeavours, the birth of a science, namely Geology. Published by Penguin 2002 ISBN 0 140 28039 1


		The Lost Art of Sleep A wise and funny exploration of quite possibly the best third of your life... by Michael McGirr 'Bed is the most dangerous place on earth. More people die there than anywhere else. Maybe that’s why each passing generation spends less time in bed than the one before.' Published by Picador – Pan Macmillan Australia 2009 ISBN 978 0 330 42491 2


		Coal A human history by Barbara Freese 'Prized as "the best stone in England" by Roman invaders, who carved jewellery out of it...coal has transformed societies, expanded frontiers, sparked social movements, and still powers our electric grid. Coal, A Human History is a captivating narrative about an ordinary substance with an extraordinary impact on human civilisation.' Published by Penguin Books 2003 ISBN 0 14 200098 1


		Put what where? Over 2000 years of bizarre sex advice by John Naish 'JH Kellogg, MD, – of cornflakes fame – was about as qualified to compose a sex guide (Plain Facts about Sexual Life) as the Dalai Lama is to write books on hand-to-hand combat. Not only was Kellogg a virgin, but he believed sex was debilitating. He never consummated his own marriage and preferred instead to receive an enema from an orderly every morning after breakfast – which beats trying to clip a small plastic toy together.' Published by HarperElement 2005 ISBN 0 00 721423 5


		Swooning A classical music guide to life, love, lust and other follies by Christopher Lawrence Percy Grainger '...when old, liked to sleep at home under his piano '...lived in the same house in White Plains, New York for forty years but only mowed his front lawn once.' Published by Random House Australia 2001 ISBN 1 74051 059 3


		Eats, Shoots & Leaves The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation by Lynne Truss Published by Gotham Books 2003 ISBN 1 592 40887 6


		Raising the Dead The men who created Frankenstein by Andy Dougan Mary Shelley's concept of Dr Frankenstein was based on her husband, Percy Shelley who had a love of experimenting with electricity. Published by Birlinn Limited 2008 ISBN 978 1 84158 670 0


		Mutants On the Form, Varieties and Errors of the Human Body by Armand Marie Leroi 'We are all mutants. But some of us are more mutant than others.' ' A Dutch child born in 1995 had the remains of twenty-one [parasitic twin] foetuses (as determined by the leg count) embedded in its brain.' Published by Harper Perennial 2005 ISBN 0 00 653164 4


		There are hundreds of books teaching Adobe® Photoshop. However, I have found this one... Dynamic Learning Photoshop CS3 (though I'm sure there is a CS5 version) by Jennifer Smith & the AGI Creative Team ... particularily great as it teaches Colour Correction in a simplified yet thorough manner. You can download the chapter here, or purchase the book and other Design & Graphics literature (eg for CS4 andCS5) from the publisher at www.oreilly.com Published by O’Reilly Media 2007 ISBN-13 978 0 596 51061 9


		Many books have been written about these awful people and their ideologies...