Author: Mark Essig
Publisher: Hachette UK
ISBN: 0465040683
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 320
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Book Description
Unlike other barnyard animals, which pull plows, give eggs or milk, or grow wool, a pig produces only one thing: meat. Incredibly efficient at converting almost any organic matter into nourishing, delectable protein, swine are nothing short of a gastronomic godsend—yet their flesh is banned in many cultures, and the animals themselves are maligned as filthy, lazy brutes. As historian Mark Essig reveals in Lesser Beasts, swine have such a bad reputation for precisely the same reasons they are so valuable as a source of food: they are intelligent, self-sufficient, and omnivorous. What’s more, he argues, we ignore our historic partnership with these astonishing animals at our peril. Tracing the interplay of pig biology and human culture from Neolithic villages 10,000 years ago to modern industrial farms, Essig blends culinary and natural history to demonstrate the vast importance of the pig and the tragedy of its modern treatment at the hands of humans. Pork, Essig explains, has long been a staple of the human diet, prized in societies from Ancient Rome to dynastic China to the contemporary American South. Yet pigs’ ability to track down and eat a wide range of substances (some of them distinctly unpalatable to humans) and convert them into edible meat has also led people throughout history to demonize the entire species as craven and unclean. Today’s unconscionable system of factory farming, Essig explains, is only the latest instance of humans taking pigs for granted, and the most recent evidence of how both pigs and people suffer when our symbiotic relationship falls out of balance. An expansive, illuminating history of one of our most vital yet unsung food animals, Lesser Beasts turns a spotlight on the humble creature that, perhaps more than any other, has been a mainstay of civilization since its very beginnings—whether we like it or not.
Author: Mark Essig
Publisher: Hachette UK
ISBN: 0465040683
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 320
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Book Description
Unlike other barnyard animals, which pull plows, give eggs or milk, or grow wool, a pig produces only one thing: meat. Incredibly efficient at converting almost any organic matter into nourishing, delectable protein, swine are nothing short of a gastronomic godsend—yet their flesh is banned in many cultures, and the animals themselves are maligned as filthy, lazy brutes. As historian Mark Essig reveals in Lesser Beasts, swine have such a bad reputation for precisely the same reasons they are so valuable as a source of food: they are intelligent, self-sufficient, and omnivorous. What’s more, he argues, we ignore our historic partnership with these astonishing animals at our peril. Tracing the interplay of pig biology and human culture from Neolithic villages 10,000 years ago to modern industrial farms, Essig blends culinary and natural history to demonstrate the vast importance of the pig and the tragedy of its modern treatment at the hands of humans. Pork, Essig explains, has long been a staple of the human diet, prized in societies from Ancient Rome to dynastic China to the contemporary American South. Yet pigs’ ability to track down and eat a wide range of substances (some of them distinctly unpalatable to humans) and convert them into edible meat has also led people throughout history to demonize the entire species as craven and unclean. Today’s unconscionable system of factory farming, Essig explains, is only the latest instance of humans taking pigs for granted, and the most recent evidence of how both pigs and people suffer when our symbiotic relationship falls out of balance. An expansive, illuminating history of one of our most vital yet unsung food animals, Lesser Beasts turns a spotlight on the humble creature that, perhaps more than any other, has been a mainstay of civilization since its very beginnings—whether we like it or not.
Author: Jane Lindskold
Publisher: Obsidian Tiger Books
ISBN:
Category : Young Adult Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 525
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Book Description
Firekeeper never viewed her ability to speak with animals as anything other than her birthright as a human raised by wolves. However, to the theocrats of Liglim, it is literally the answer to prayer. Determined to pry the secret from the wolf-woman, the Liglimom kidnap Firekeeper and Blind Seer. Determined to leave no trail, they even take the risk of kidnapping Derian Counselor. But being trapped in a new land is only the beginning of the shocks to Firekeeper’s world view. Unlike the humans Firekeeper has met to this point, the Liglimom not only know about the elite Beasts who Firekeeper considers her people, they have enshrined them as go-betweens in their communication with the Divine. Before she departs Liglim, Firekeeper is determined to learn the truth about the relationship between the Wise Beasts and the humans of Liglim. If they are captives –as she, Blind Seer, and Derian are captives – then the wolf-woman vows to do everything in her power to set them free.
Author: Aja James
Publisher: Independent
ISBN: 1096331926
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 339
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A lost king… Goya is a rare magical being: a royal Beast. And not just any animal shifter, but the king of the earthly realm--the great white tiger. But now he is a king without a home, cut off from his kin, and trapped in a human body against his will. A single mother… Maddie Peterson is a career-minded single mother who has a fundamental distrust (and often, dislike) of men, especially in light of her cheating ex-husband and manipulative co-worker. But, then, she's never met a male like Goya before. Opposite worlds collide… When Maddie welcomes the silent stranger into her home, there is no denying their animal attraction. She teaches him how to be human, and he teaches her how to be wild. But when he gives his heart and soul to her, the pure spirit of the noblest of Beasts, is she brave enough to accept him as a partner into her life, as well as step into his fantastical, dangerous world?
Author: Belle Smith
Publisher: Publish America
ISBN: 1413769632
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 364
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Book Description
No matter what age we live in, we are pretty much like our ancestors: We eat what Og ate two hundred thousand years ago, we still reproduce and love basically the same way, and most importantly, we all average three score and ten life spans. This is a little better than Og but not much in the larger scheme of things. Lucians Place is a story of three people thrown back in time with just themselves, a huge plantation, two horses, and a self-aware computer. Two of these people are a mother and daughter. Our third unintended time traveler is the best friend of the late father and husband of the other two sole inhabitants of Earth. This story is of hope and a prediction of the miracles of science just a very few years off in our lifetime. Its funny, loving, sexy, thrilling, and prophetic.
Author: Brian Lumley
Publisher: Hachette UK
ISBN: 057508958X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 200
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Two monstrous armies stand opposed: Vormulac Unsleep's undead legions out of Turgosheim, and Wratha the Risen's Renegades, masters of the last great aerie of the Wamphyri. The spoils of war will be revenge, territory, and human flesh! And blood, of course - the sweet blood of Sunside's Szgany. For the blood is the life, and when life or land are threatened there's only one course of action for a vampire: battle to the death! Trapped in the middle: Nathan Keogh, Necroscope. And the espers of Earth's E-Branch, Trask and Zek, Goodly and Chung: Guardians of the Gate against a vampire invasion of Earth! The Necroscope holds the keys; he is the only one who can close the Gates to end the crimson carnage of the Bloodwars! But the past holds many a secret, and the future was ever a devious thing!
Author: John William Colenso
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Bible
Languages : en
Pages :
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Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages :
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ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :
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ISBN:
Category : Science
Languages : en
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Author: Santa Montefiore
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 9781416564942
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 448
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Book Description
From the author of The Gypsy Madonna and The Last Voyage of the Valentina, a breathless novel that sweeps its heroine from the Cornish coast to the rugged beauty of Puglia Italy, where she discovers a shocking truth about her family and the way to save her ancestral home. Celestria Montague always spends her summers at Pendrift Hall, the rambling, shabby mansion adorned with wisteria and clematis that has been home to the Montague family for generations. It is 1958, and the family is celebrating her father's fiftieth birthday at a lavish ball. The celebratory night ends in death and tragedy, however, and young Celestria learns that the family may lose Pendrift Hall. Her grandfather urges Celestria to play detective, to solve the mysteries surrounding the night's events, and to save the ancient mansion if at all possible. Her quest takes her to Italy's rugged and beautiful Puglia, and into the dark, cool cloisters of the Convento di Santa Maria del Mare. Here Celestria meets an enigmatic stranger and confronts unwelcome truths about her family—and herself. Sea of Lost Love is Santa Montefiore at her very best—sensitive, sensual, and complex.
