The return of the Flamingos - A success story!

Who can believe it. i by accident deleted my post I posted this morning. Man, what a disappointment, but I presume it is entirely my own fault. I was trying to edit the post and the rest is history. Not http://www.bestforreading.com though. My on line shop http://www.bestforreading.com  is still going strong. I am going to re-post the story about the flamingos as it is such a wonderful story.

Before I am going to tel you about the flamingos, my book choice of the week is:

Modernist Cuisine at Home [Hardcover]

Nathan Myhrvold (Author), Maxime Bilet (Author)

Book Description

Release date: October 8, 2012

The culinary revolution that has transformed restaurant menus around the world is also making its way into home kitchens. The Cooking Lab, publisher of the encyclopedic six-volume set Modernist Cuisine, which immediately became the definitive reference for this revolution, has now produced a lavishly illustrated guide for home cooks, complete with all-new recipes tailored for cooking enthusiasts of all skill levels.

Modernist Cuisine at Home, by Nathan Myhrvold with Maxime Bilet, is destined to set a new standard for home cookbooks. The authors have collected in this 456-page volume all the essential information that any cook needs to stock a modern kitchen, to master Modernist techniques, and to make hundreds of stunning recipes. The book includes a spiral-bound Kitchen Manual that reprints all of the recipes and reference tables on waterproof, tear-resistant paper. Drawing on the same commitment to perfection that produced Modernist Cuisine, Modernist Cuisine at Home applies innovations pioneered by The Cooking Lab to refine classic home dishes, from hamburgers and wings to macaroni and cheese. More than 400 new recipes are included, most with step-by-step photos that make it easy to bring dining of the highest quality to your own dinner table.

I live near the Black River http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_River_(Cape_Town). I have been passing this river for the last 30 years and always noticed the extreme pollution along this part of the river as it is situated in a densely populated part of Cape Town (http://library.thinkquest.org/C0126023/black_river.htm). Not only was the water polluted, but invasive hyacinths and other alien plants have taken the river over during certain times of the year. http://www.invasives.org.za/item/146-invasive-clearing-in-cape-town-black-river.html.

The City of Cape Town  www.capetown.gov.za along with a group called Friends of the Black River and other parties started with a major clean-up a year or two ago.

http://www.capetowngreenmap.co.za/blog/black-river-clean-bears-fruit  

This year I was amazed to see a small group of flamingos making themselves at home and soon there after large flocks came. Have a look and see for yourself!

In the middle of the suburbs

Ignoring me completely

Devil's Peak in the back ground

Busy traffic all around

A floating "sculpture"

Life goes on

And more flocks among the blue water

Just goes to show how nature reclaims after man has been around and disturbed the balance of Nature.

 My recipe of the week is "Wonder Salad"

Ingredients: 1 kg carrots peeled and cut in rings; 2 green bell peppers; 2 large onions cut in rings

Marinade: I packet tomato soup; 1 1/2 cup water; 1/2 cup oil; 3/4 cup vinegar; 1 cup sugar; 1 desert spoon Worcester Sauce; 2 desert spoons mustard; salt and pepper to taste.

Boil carrots until cooked but not soft. Layer the carrots, onion and bell pepper.

Mix marinade ingredient sin bowl and boil for 4 minutes - stir continuously.

Pour warm marinade over salad. Cover and leave in fridge for at least two days.      

  

 
Trivia Information: Lesotho a land locked country surrounded by South Africa is the highest country in the world above sea level.

Remember to visit: http://www.bestforreading.com for your on line shopping!!! 

The goddess and the dragon.

I am sure that when you read my posts, you would have noticed that http://www.bestfrorreading.com mostly place review on books. Well, today http://www.bestforreading.com is not going to review a book that is sold in my on line store, but a product. The product is a wonderful bed warmer for your four-legged friend. This is for those cold winter evenings when your best friend can sleep snug in this bed.

K&H Lounge Sleeper Self-Warming Pet Bed, 16-Inch by 20-Inch

by K&H Manufacturing

This wonderful Lounge Sleeper Self-Warming Pet Bed comes in two different colours namely gray/black     and mocha/green. This available at http://www.bestforreading.com under the section at the unbelievable price of only $24.00 excluding shipping.

   Look at the advantages:

• Self-warming material radiates heat back to your pet
• Non-slip bottom for stability
• Warmth with no electricity needed
• Fill made from recycled plastic bottles
• Easy wash and care

Happy shopping at http://www.bestforreading.com

LAST week I have been telling you of the letter I have found in the bottle when I was walking along the beach near the most southern point of Africa http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_Agulhas

http://blog.sa-venues.com/provinces/western-cape/cape-agulhas-photographs/    

While my farther and friends were once again fishing with their fishing rods, my brother, a friend and myself decided to walk along the beach. As we all knew that one always find something of interest along this beach, our eyes were peeled to the beach to be the first to spot anything of value. We had a habit as children to shout "dêps" if you see something you want. This is an Afrikaans  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afrikaans) word and it means roughly that the item belongs to the person who found the item. 

While we were walking we saw this "burnt" piece of log. We started running, but soon the other two thought it was a burnt log. I continued running and shouted "dêps". This is what I have found!

The "burnt" log. Notice that the goddess is resting her feet on a dragon. 

A different view of the goddess

Closer.

This piece of wood is about half a meter tall.

My recipe today is cold beet salad:

One bunch of beetroot (about four/five)
500 ml grape vinegar (2 cups)
500 ml sugar (2 cups)
250 ml water (1 cup)

Boil (separate water) beetroot until just done. it must be soft, but still firm.
Peel off the skins and grate (cut) into slices
Boil the beetroot for another ten minutes in the remaining ingredients.
Place in warm sterilised jars. Pour over liquid, close and ignore for at least a week.

Enjoy and remember to visit http://www.bestforreading.com for your on line shopping!

Trivia information: The longest earthworm was near King Williams Town in South Africa and measured 6.7 m (22 ft) - as long as 4 men lying head to toe!

    

   

   

A message in the bottle found on the South African Coast

You would have noticed by now that I am selling among others, history books in my on line store; http://www.bestforreading.com. If you haven not made an effort to visit http://www.bestforreading.com, do so without hesitation. I have many affiliated stores at http://www.bestforreading.com where you can make a choice out of thousands of books and everything else you are looking for. 

My book choice this week is to be found in my on line store at http://www.bestforreading.com

Fateful Lightning: A New History of the Civil War and Reconstruction [Paperback]

Allen C. Guelzo (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 18, 2012

The Civil War is the greatest trauma ever experienced by the American nation, a four-year paroxysm of violence that left in its wake more than 600,000 dead, more than 2 million refugees, and the destruction (in modern dollars) of more than $700 billion in property. The war also sparked some of the most heroic moments in American history and enshrined a galaxy of American heroes. Above all, it permanently ended the practice of slavery and proved, in an age of resurgent monarchies, that a liberal democracy could survive the most frightful of challenges.

In Fateful Lightning, two-time Lincoln Prize-winning historian Allen C. Guelzo offers a marvellous portrait of the Civil War and its era, covering not only the major figures and epic battles, but also politics, religion, gender, race, diplomacy, and technology. And unlike other surveys of the Civil War era, it extends the reader's vista to include the postwar Reconstruction period and discusses the modern-day legacy of the Civil War in American literature and popular culture. Guelzo also puts the conflict in a global perspective, underscoring Americans' acute sense of the vulnerability of their republic in a world of monarchies. He examines the strategy, the tactics, and especially the logistics of the Civil War and brings the most recent historical thinking to bear on emancipation, the presidency and the war powers, the blockade and international law, and the role of intellectuals, North and South.

Written by a leading authority on our nation's most searing crisis, Fateful Lightning offers a vivid and original account of an event whose echoes continue with Americans to this day.        

Speaking of history! In the late sixties and early seventies my father and brothers went fishing. I being the youngest, always tagged along, but I did my own thing. It was such fun to investigate all the tidal rock pools and to investigate what nature is showing me in abundance. At times I did beach combing to see what the sea pushed out of the water onto the sand dunes.

One such a place where my farther and siblings went fishing is called Buffelsjag Bay http://www.cap.org.za/view.asp?ItemID=51&tname=tblComponent1&oname=News%20/%20Projects%20/%20Stories&flt=stories&pg=front     

This little bay was basically closed to the public as it was a kelp farm, but as my parents knew a few people living there, we were allowed in. On one morning when my farther and brothers were fishing, I decided to do beach combing. I was walking along the beach and whenever I saw an object that could float, I threw it back into the wavers to see it coming out again. Above the high water mark I saw a bottle sticking out of the sand and I was about to through it back into the sea, when I saw a letter inside the bottle. 

This is what I found in the bottle: 

The original letter I found in the bottle. The paper is very flimsy . Look at the longitude and latitude given.  I t was posted near the Philippines and was carried to the coast of South Africa by currents and the Mozambique current coming down from the tropics to Cape Point where it meets up with the Benguela Current   

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_Point

The letter in English. The left side is written in Swedish.

A few of the letters

A Christmas card from Billy.

One of the letters.

Next week  I will post more wonderful items I have picked up at the very same beach!

My winning recipe of the week comes from "Die Groot Boerekosboek" by Dine van Zyl. (traditional Afrikaans food)

Fish cakes from raw fish    

6 slices bread, crusts removed
1 kg raw minced fish
60 ml (1/4 cup) parsley
60 ml (1/4 cup) grated onions
1.25 ml (1/4 t) nutmeg
10 ml (2 t) lemon juice
1.25 ml (1/4 t) white pepper
1 beaten egg
250 ml (1 cup) flour
Cooking oil for frying

Soak bread in water. Press water out and break into minced fish. Add all other ingredients and mix well. The  food processor does well here. 

Form little balls about the size of a golf ball and flatten slightly. Roll in flour on both sides. Fry in shallow oil and serve with mash potatoes.

REMEMBER TO SHOP AT http://www.bestforreading.com  

   

    

   

Your own Eco-friendly earthworm farm in your apartment!

If you haven't visited http://www.bestforreading.com yet, you are missing out on great deals and thousands of books and other items at discounted prices! Remember to do your on line purchases at http://www.bestforreading.com.

I am reading a very interesting book at the moment. A friend popped it into my hands last Friday. I am reading another book, but while I was waiting for my friend, I started reading and since then I cannot put the book down. It is called "Spanner in works" by Pat Fahrenfort and published by Umuzi.

It is the life story of a young girl of mixed race who had to leave school at an early age to supplement the household income  during the apartheid years. She managed to get a job at a printer company here in Cape Town. Eventually she worked herself up through shear determination and self study from a floor worker to the corridors of power in South Africa.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apartheid_in_South_Africa   

"South Africa's negotiated transition to democracy is heralded as a miracle the world over. Fahrenfort's story captures the daily struggles by ordinary working class people who had to negotiate their way through an unforgiving system" - Cyril Ramaphosa. Deputy leader of the ANC.

This makes great reading!

I always wanted an earthworm farm, but to spend about a R1000/$80 to $90, was ridiculously expensive. I decided to improvise my own. At the end of the day it cost me less than R100/$9. If you use a smaller container, it can even be cheaper. The advantage of this is that if you are living in an apartment, you can even keep it in your kitchen as it is odourless. Your main problem is to get hold of only a few earthworms. I started off  with only a few and now I have a few hundred, if not thousand. I will explain step by step how to build your own container.

I bought two air vents from my local hardware store and placed it on either side of the plastic container

The placing of the vents is near the top. I have made a hole by cutting out an area slightly smaller than the vent itself  and screwed the vent on. 

My container, but you can even use an old paint drum. It all depends on your needs!  

Odourless and the healthy contents.

I have also placed two vents at the bottom. This is very important as you want to catch the liquid  in a container. This liquid is the actual ingredient you need to fertilise your plants in your house. This is odourless as well!

I use any kitchen scraps as long as it is fresh. DO NOT use cooked food, onion or range peels as this is too acid. You can however, use teabags, egg shells, peels of  anything as long as it is fresh and not cooked.  If your fruit or vegetables goes off, you can use this as well. Use wet egg holders (the card board type) and newspapers. Wet it before tearing up and placing it in the container. Don't throw your pet's hair away after you have brushed it. Use this as well.    

Healthy earthworms

Happy earth worm farming. It gives one so much fun!

My winning recipe for the week will be Old Fashioned Chicken Pie from the Cape 

I large chopped onion

30 ml cooking oil (two dessert spoons)

350 g chopped mushrooms

2.5 kg raw chicken portions

2.5 ml (1/4 t) mace

2 bay leaves

2 cassia sticks

6 cloves 

12 black pepper corns

5 ml salt (1 t)

little bit of powder nutmeg

250 ml ( 1 cup) chicken stock (you can use the blocks you buy)

250 ml white wine

Sweat the onions in the cooking oil. Add mushrooms and stir fry. Take out. Fry chicken in same pot until brown . add onions and mushroom. Add all spices, the stock as well as the wine. Cook until meat is tender and remove bones. Cut meat smaller if it did not cook finely. 

15 ml sago

Luke warm water to cover

1 egg yolk

Juice of one lemon

30 ml (2 dessert spoons) brandy

Soak sago in water until it swells. Add to chicken. Cook slowly until sag appears glassy. Take pot from stove. Mix egg yolk, brandy and lemon juice add to chicken and place chicken in basted dish.

Optional:

4 thin pieces ham, diced

2 hard boiled  eggs

Puff pastry

Another egg yolk

15 ml (1 dessert spoon) milk.

Place ham over chicken,  followed by sliced hard boiled eggs

Place puff pastry over dish. You can make your own, but the bought one is as good. Press sides firmly down. Cut extra pieces off. Make holes in pastry for steam to escape. 

Mix egg yolk and milk and paint it over pastry. Bake for 10 min at 200 c and then for a further 30 minutes at  180 c until golden brown.

Home made chicken pie

Enjoy! recipe from "die groot Boerkosboek" by Dine van Zyl; ISBN 978-0-620-50278-8

Remember, for other wonderful recipe books, to visit http://www.bestforreading.com           

The Bushman Quiver

I have updated http://www.bestforreading.com again last week since I have last written my blog. Under the pet section I not only have added new books, but wonderful pet products as well. Have a look at this book which is available at http://www.bestforreading.com  

Cats Can't Shoot: A Pru Marlowe Pet Noir (Pru Marlowe Pet Mysteries) [Paperback]

Clea Simon (Author) Available at $14.36.

Book Description

Publication Date: April 3, 2012 | Series: Pru Marlowe Pet Mysteries

When Pru Marlowe gets the call that there's been a cat shooting, she's furious. Animal brutality is the one thing that this tough animal psychic won't stand for, and in her role as a behaviourist she's determined to care for the traumatised pet. But when Pru finds out that the catdidthe shooting - accidentally setting off a rare duelling pistol - she realises something else is going on. Could the white Persian really have killed her owner - or did the whole bloody mess have something to do with that pricey collectible? With the white cat turning a deaf ear to her questions, Pru must tune in to Beauville's other pampered residents - from the dead man's elite social set to their equally spoiled pets - and learn the truth before her ex, a former New York cop, gets too close. In a world where value is determined by a price tag, only Pru Marlowe and her trusty tabby Wallis can figure out if this was a case of feline felony - or if some human has set the Persian up to be the ultimate cat's paw.

Visit http://www.bestforreading.com for more books and products!

By know my regular readers would have noticed where my interests lay and over the past weekend, when I was cleaning out my cupboards, I came upon this original quiver set. I obtained this many years ago when I  was a student. In those years I went touring in South West Africa, known today as Namibia.

While I was visiting friends in Thsumeb (his town you will find in the north on the above map), a person who was working in the Tsumkwe area with Bushman tribes gave me a quiver. 

This link will give you an idea of Tsumkwe; http://www.namibian.org/travel/namibia/tsumkwe.html

A short video on Bushman: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sjbIKDw7Xw

My Quiver

The quiver itself is made from bark. This hollow inside and bound together with small strips of sinew. The ends are hide which has been dried on the bark. 

An indication of the inside of the quiver

The quiver with the sling. The sling is made from hide as well

Here you can clearly see the sinew strips  that was used to bound the bark together 

The dried hide

Four arrows. The arrow consists out of  three parts as well. The shaft,  a connection and the  arrow itself.  Each part is linked with small strips of sinew and bound around the shaft or arrow point. 

The front part of the arrow. This pulls out of the shaft when an animal has been shot and  is running through the bush. Only the arrow point remains in the animal.

The three parts with the metal arrow at the bottom

Close-up

The middle section

A fire stick. This made out of a light wood and the shaft at the top is turned by hand until the wood starts burning due to friction.  

Poison. This heated up and smeared on the arrow. The poison is the dark spot in the middle.
http://www.detectivekubu.com/Mantis/The_dreaded_Bushman_poisons.html

The sticks to make fire with .  A close-up view

My recipe of the week is very traditional Afrikaans recipe called  Vetkoek (Directly translated Fat cake)  

1 cup cake flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 beaten egg
1/2 cup water
Oil for frying

Mix all the dry ingredients together. Mix the egg and the water and add it to the dry ingredients. it must form a soft dough! Pour just enough oil in a pan and heat oil to hot. Fry dessert spoons of dough both sides until golden brown. You can fill it with any type of filling, but it is delicious with butter and jam.
It freezes very well.

.  

The white tribe from Africa

Of course I have updated my website, http://www.bestforreading.com  since I have last written my blog. I try to update http://www.bestforreading.com as often as possible to keep up to date with new publications and to inform you of HOT NEW RELEASES. 

Scroll through my website at http://www.bestforreading.com. Not only do I have books on sale, but travel packages, discount furniture and many more. Anything under the sun is available at http://www.bestforreading.com.

I am an African, a white African and belongs to the only White Tribe in Africa. I am of mixed European heritage, but the person whose surname I am carrying today arrived in this country from Leipzig in Germany.       

http://wwp.greenwichmeantime.com/time-zone/europe/european-union/germany/leipzig/

My forefather arrived in Cape Town aboard the Borsselen in 1723. This ship belonged to the Dutch East Indian Company (DEIC), who ruled the Cape Colony at that time. To find out more about the DEIC, read more in this link; http://www.sahistory.org.za/topic/dutch-east-india-company-deicvoc. In 1725 my forefather received citizenship in the Cape Colony and settled in Drakenstein Valley (Dragon) near Paarl.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drakenstein as a miller. 

By 1727 he owned a horse, a slave (http://www.sahistory.org.za/south-africa-1652-1806/history-slavery-and-early-colonisation-sa) and a weapon. Most likely an old musket gun of some sorts. 

Although not my forefather from 1723, this is a photo of my grandfather  (top right) and my great  grandparents. 

I hope you click on all the links given. I think it gives a wonderful insight of another world out there. A world you can discover at http//www.bestforreading.com.... 

My book choice of the week taken from my website at http://www.bestforreading.com is a historical book   

The World Until Yesterday: What Can We Learn from Traditional Societies? [Hardcover]

Jared Diamond (Author)
Book Description

Release Date: December 31, 2012

Most of us take for granted the features of our modern society, from air travel and telecommunications to literacy and obesity. Yet for nearly all of its six million years of existence, human society had none of these things. While the gulf that divides us from our primitive ancestors may seem unbridgeable wide, we can glimpse much of our former lifestyle in those largely traditional societies still or recently in existence. Societies like those of the New Guinea Highlanders remind us that it was only yesterday—in evolutionary time—when everything changed and that we moderns still possess bodies and social practices often better adapted to traditional than to modern conditions.

The World Until Yesterday provides a mesmerising firsthand picture of the human past as it had been for millions of years—a past that has mostly vanished—and considers what the differences between that past and our present mean for our lives today.
This is Jared Diamond’s most personal book to date, as he draws extensively from his decades of field work in the Pacific islands, as well as evidence from Inuit, Amazonian Indians, Kalahari San people, and others. Diamond doesn’t romanticise traditional societies—after all, we are shocked by some of their practices—but he finds that their solutions to universal human problems such as child rearing, elder care, dispute resolution, risk, and physical fitness have much to teach us. A characteristically provocative, enlightening, and entertaining book, The World Until Yesterday will be essential and delightful reading.

My recipe of the week is a different version of the sauce bean recipe I posted last week

(http://www.my-easy-cooking.com)

The ideal bean for this recipe is the black-eyed bean, also known as the black-eyed pea.This popular bean was most probably first cultivated in West Africa, but these days it can be found in many cuisines across the world. There are many beliefs and rituals associated with the black-eyed bean but the most common one is that eating black-eyed beans on New Year will bring prosperity and good luck. 

I am not a very superstitious person, but I do know that replacing some of your meals with a vegetarian bean option will not only benefit you health wise, but you will save a whack on groceries every week and that is a step in the right direction towards prosperity.

Curry Beans

serves 6 

Ingredients

1 x 500 gr dry black- eyed beans

1 tbsp vegetable oil

1 medium onion - chopped

2 cloves garlic - chopped

1 heaped tbsp curry powder

2 tsp ground turmeric

1tsp fennel seeds

1tsp gara masala

1 tbsp sugar

2 tbsp white vinegar

water

1x sachet tomato paste

salt

125ml coconut milk - optional 

Heat the oil in a heavy based pot and add the onion, garlic and all the spices. Stir for a couple of minutes until the onion becomes translucent and the slightly browned. Add the beans and cover with water. NO SALT ( the salt will prevent the beans from softening). Cook the beans until they are soft, about 40 minutes, adding boiling water if needed. After about 30 minutes, take a bean from the pot and press between your fingers, if it is soft, reduce the cooking time, if not keep cooking. What you want is a pot of soft, but not mush beans with a little liquid. Now add the tomato paste, salt, sugar and vinegar and cook for another 3-5 minutes. Taste and adjust to your liking, adding more sugar or more vinegar as required. The vinegar will thicken the beans slightly, but if you feel your beans are too watery, take a potato masher and mash some of the beans, it will help thicken the beans some more.. Add the coconut milk if you are using it.

This is an exceptional enjoyable meal and can be eaten as is or as a complement to a main meal such as a barbecue!

Visit http://bestforreading.com  for more recipe ideas! 

         

The Fire, potjiekos (small pot food) and no communication

Have you managed to look at my site, http://www.bestforreading.com to have a look at all the hot new releases? A few books will only be released tomorrow, 8 January 2013. And while we are on the subject of 2013; may you all have a positive, awe-inspiring New Year. Hey, look at the bright side of things, we survived 21 December 2012 when the world was meant to come to an end according to the Mayan calender. According to some this was a "mushroom" trip from certain New Age individuals!

http://t.co/vDg15EmB     

For those of you who have been waiting for my post last week, just to let you know that I did not experience  a "writer's block". I  had a long standing friend visiting from Beijing here. He invited me to stay for a few days at his holiday home in Uilenkraalsmond (the mouth of the owl), a holiday resort just past Gansbaai (Goose Bay), but there is no translation in English. http://uilenkraalsmond.co.za/

Here are a few photo's.

On the beach with Uilenkraalsmond in the  background

The Beach

The tranquil sea

My friend's holiday house. 

Inside, the lounge area

Under water. some or other sea plant.

I have left Cape Town on Friday morning, 28 December 2012 as I was meant to meet him in Hermanus, the capital of the Whale Watching Route. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermanus. We met for breakfast and while eating, we noticed smoke bulging from the mountain peaks. I must mention that there was a strong North Western wind blowing. As I drove out of Hermanus towards Stanford on route to Uilenkraalsmond, I could see that the wind will force the flames down towards the lower slopes. On Saturday morning we woke up with no electricity, mobile reception or Internet. This was down for nearly two whole days. We being South African Afrikaners are not perturbed by this and made a fire outside in the fire place and cooked food on the fire in a cast iron pot. this is called potjiekos (food in a pot). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potjiekos This is my reason why I did not post my regular blog on the Monday morning. When I returned to Cape Town on Tuesday, I could understand while all communications and power was down. Have a look at this link. http://www.hermanustimes.co.za/982/media/photogallery/stanford-fire   

As mentioned before, I have uploaded Hot New Releases  on my website http://www.bestforreading.com. Have look at this wonderful book!

The World Until Yesterday: What Can We Learn from Traditional Societies? [Hardcover]

Jared Diamond (Author)

Book Description

Release Date: December 31, 2012

Most of us take for granted the features of our modern society, from air travel and telecommunications to literacy and obesity. Yet for nearly all of its six million years of existence, human society had none of these things. While the gulf that divides us from our primitive ancestors may seem unbridgeably wide, we can glimpse much of our former lifestyle in those largely traditional societies still or recently in existence. Societies like those of the New Guinea Highlanders remind us that it was only yesterday—in evolutionary time—when everything changed and that we moderns still possess bodies and social practices often better adapted to traditional than to modern conditions.

The World Until Yesterday provides a  mesmerizing firsthand picture of the human past as it had been for millions of years—a past that has mostly vanished—and considers what the differences between that past and our present mean for our lives today.
This is Jared Diamond’s most personal book to date, as he draws extensively from his decades of field work in the Pacific islands, as well as evidence from Inuit, Amazonian Indians, Kalahari San people, and others. Diamond doesn’t romanticise traditional societies—after all, we are shocked by some of their practices—but he finds that their solutions to universal human problems such as child rearing, elder care, dispute resolution, risk, and physical fitness have much to teach us. A characteristically provocative, enlightening, and entertaining book, The World Until Yesterday will be essential and delightful reading.

Happy reading and visit http://bestforreading.com