Stranger than Fiction

In the category Disease for the 2021 NONFICTION READER CHALLENGE , I read The Great Mortality: An intimate history of the Black Death, the most devastating plague of all time by John Kelly, 2006. It was particularly interesting to read about a pandemic during the Covid-19 pandemic. The plague is now often referred to as the Black Death, but it was known to Europeans at that time as The Great Mortality, which Kelly calls “the greatest natural disaster in human history.” In the introduction, he mentions writing about a patient who had AIDS in the early 1990s [ in a previous book ] , when there were no effective treatments, and writes, “A hallmark of a pandemic disease is its ability to destroy worlds, not just individuals, but it was one thing to know that, quite another to witness it.” And, he adds what was at that time “newly emerging illnesses such as Ebola fever, Marburg disease, Hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, SARS, and avian flu.” So, adding the Covid-19 virus brings this up to ...

This book by Maria Balinska (2008) is, as the title states, about bagels. Why was I interested in reading about such a seemingly ‘modest’ food item as the bagel? First, I am a born and bred New Yorker, and fresh bagels from a bagel bakery had always been a part of my personal cuisine. Since living in other countries and travelling through other continents, however, I haven’t been able to find anything similar to a New York bagel. Either there is no equivalent at all or an item referred to as a bagel is merely a white roll with a hole. No comparison. However, I have been in places that claim to be the ‘birthplace’ of the bagel, but – curiously – they don’t sell anything resembling it now. Second, I am interested in the history of food and of foods. For example, I’ve read about chocolate, olives, olive oil, food in prehistory, beer, salt – but I was excited to find a book about the bagel. There are many myths surrounding its creation, so I thought I would find out the truth in this b...