Best Alcoholic Spirits
Wine Folly: The Essential Guide to Wine will help you make sense of it all in a unique infographic wine book. Designed by the creators of WineFolly.com, which has won Wine Blogger of the Year from the International Wine & Spirits Competition, this book combines sleek, modern information design with data visualization and gives readers pragmatic answers to all their wine questions, including: Court of Masters, Certified Sommelier (Level 2) 40 Under 40, Wine Enthusiast Magazine, 2015-2016 Wine Blogger of the Year, International Wine and Spirits Competition, 2013-14 Top Wine Writer, Quora, 2012.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"The page that explains how to write useful personal wine notes, for example, instantly organizes the way you do your evaluations of wine."
"Wine Folly does not only provide data about several kinds of wines but also explanes the art of wine tasting and evaluation."
"It talks about how to taste wine how to “eye” the wine, how to compare it, and, really breaks down the wine experience for anybody who aspires to be a wine connoisseur."
"VERY NICE coffee table book !"
"Great book and I've learned a lot about wines so far."
"This wine book is phenomenal!"
"Having the book in hand now allows me to provide visuals for every aspect of wine discussion."
"Perfect if you need a basic overview of wine."
In The Drunken Botanist , Amy Stewart explores the dizzying array of herbs, flowers, trees, fruits, and fungi that humans have, through ingenuity, inspiration, and sheer desperation, contrived to transform into alcohol over the centuries. An Amazon Best Book of the Month, March 2013 : Peppered with fascinating facts and well-chosen anecdotes, Amy Stewart’s brisk tour of the origin of spirits acquaints the curious cocktail fan with every conceivable ingredient.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Great read, more of a informational book to read to really get to know all the spices/herbs etc."
"Am highlighting places to check out on our trip to Italy this summer."
"Along with some history the author includes cocktail recipes which utilized some more obscure liqueurs."
"Anyone who enjoys plants and booze of any kind--beer, spirits, cocktails, wine, etc.--must read this book!"
"It's a very cool little book, and I learned quite a bit in the short amount of time I leafed though it."
"purchased as a gift, great little book full of lots of info for the gardener /drink lover in your life."
"Really fun to read and learn!"
"Bought this for a friend, but I read a bit to preview and it was great."
Death & Co is the most important, influential, and oft-imitated bar to emerge from the contemporary craft cocktail movement. This elegant, intelligent book—with drink recipes from the ‘Dirty Dozen’ of top bartender/mixologists working in America today (all Death & Co veterans), plus sound, concise advice on every aspect of drink making—will make sure that nobody could possibly forget that.” --David Wondrich, author of I mbibe! They craft each drink just as I would approach a dish, piecing together the ingredients, testing it tirelessly, striving for perfection, and also trying to connect each recipe to a story.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Make the drink experiments in the tasting and evaluating cocktails chapter."
"I've been trying to create a good selection of my own cocktails for a number of years, but I'm always looking for new ideas on both mixing and technique."
"Really enjoy mixing cocktails for friends in my home bar."
"Full of helpful info as well as wonderful drink recipes."
"Very nice book of cocktail recipes."
"We enjoy it so much, that I got a copy for my brother, who worked as a bartender, to share new ideas to classic cocktails."
"Really great book!"
"Excellent compendium of spirits and cocktails."
Best Liquor, Spirits & Mixed Drinks
Wine Folly: The Essential Guide to Wine will help you make sense of it all in a unique infographic wine book. Designed by the creators of WineFolly.com, which has won Wine Blogger of the Year from the International Wine & Spirits Competition, this book combines sleek, modern information design with data visualization and gives readers pragmatic answers to all their wine questions, including: “A magically vivid wine guide for our information age—cuts through the complexity of wine like a Champagne saber.”-- Mark Oldman , renowned wine expert and author of Oldman’s Guide to Outsmarting Wine. – Geoff Kruth , MS, President Guildsomm.com. "With clever graphics, Madeline has created a wine navigator that effortlessly guides new wine lovers to a better understanding of the taste, origins and geography of wine." Court of Masters, Certified Sommelier (Level 2) 40 Under 40, Wine Enthusiast Magazine, 2015-2016 Wine Blogger of the Year, International Wine and Spirits Competition, 2013-14 Top Wine Writer, Quora, 2012.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"The page that explains how to write useful personal wine notes, for example, instantly organizes the way you do your evaluations of wine."
"Wine Folly does not only provide data about several kinds of wines but also explanes the art of wine tasting and evaluation."
"It talks about how to taste wine how to “eye” the wine, how to compare it, and, really breaks down the wine experience for anybody who aspires to be a wine connoisseur."
"VERY NICE coffee table book !"
"Great book and I've learned a lot about wines so far."
"This wine book is phenomenal!"
"Having the book in hand now allows me to provide visuals for every aspect of wine discussion."
"Perfect if you need a basic overview of wine."
Best Mexico History
?Join author Emma Janzen through Mezcal as she presents an engaging primer on all things related to the spirit ; its long history, the craft of distilling it, and a thorough guide to many of the most common agaves used in production and how they shape the resulting spirit. Emma Janzen started writing about mezcal, cocktails, beer, and other spirits as the Liquid Austin columnist for the Austin American-Statesman in 2010.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"If you are new to Mezcal, buy this book!"
"This book brings forth a lot of the mysteries to the readers eyes."
"I know Emma's work from Imbibe magazine and I am glad she finally got around to writing this beautiful book!"
"I received this book on NetGalley for an honest review."
"Emma poses one of the most concise, insightful and well-rounded offerings to understanding the many historic and cultural complexities of this category."
"Got this as a gift for my boyfriend who bartends at a Mexican restaurant and loves mezcal."
"This is a beautiful, well-made book that will be treasured by anyone interested in spirits or in the traditions and culture of Mexico."
"This is a beautiful book."
Best Industries
In 2009, Simon Sinek started a movement to help people become more inspired at work, and in turn inspire their colleagues and customers. Sinek calls this powerful idea The Golden Circle, and it provides a framework upon which organizations can be built, movements can be led, and people can be inspired. “ Start with Why is one of the most useful and powerful books I have read in years.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"It reads a little bit like he took articles from his blog, stuck them in a large word-processing document, did some minor editing, and submitted the thing as-is for publication in order to create this book. As far as I can tell, if you're reasonably intelligent you can glean pretty much everything essential to Sinek's idea based on his TED Talk together with this understanding that "HOW" means something different in each of the two contexts he contrasts. What you WON'T get from that is his rather in-depth, incredibly clear exposé of why the "WHAT --> HOW" communication pattern requires manipulating people to some degree or another and why that is by necessity unsustainable in the long run. So in short, the book is a reasonable buy, certainly at the Kindle price, but do consider benefitting from Sinek's wisdom for free in 20 minutes first by watching his TED Talk."
"This book has inspired many thoughts as I read it, but it has helped me to truly put into perspective the age-old advice to follow your passion."
"I teach a college-level business course that shows people how to grow their business by word-of-mouth."
"We are 2 decades deep into hiring and promoting the least capable and those with the complete lack of vision and planning into upper and middle layers of management."
"I am confident this book has indeed the potential to change the world for the better through the life of its readers and organizations they might collaborate with."
"I did believe that the author took some leaps between an organization's existential rational and customer connections."
"The author was trying so hard to make a many-page book out of the message and it was excruciating to go through this repetition.. Save your money and (most importantly) your time and just watch the TED talk on YT.."
Best Wine
Wine Folly: The Essential Guide to Wine will help you make sense of it all in a unique infographic wine book. Designed by the creators of WineFolly.com, which has won Wine Blogger of the Year from the International Wine & Spirits Competition, this book combines sleek, modern information design with data visualization and gives readers pragmatic answers to all their wine questions, including: Court of Masters, Certified Sommelier (Level 2) 40 Under 40, Wine Enthusiast Magazine, 2015-2016 Wine Blogger of the Year, International Wine and Spirits Competition, 2013-14 Top Wine Writer, Quora, 2012.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"The page that explains how to write useful personal wine notes, for example, instantly organizes the way you do your evaluations of wine."
"Wine Folly does not only provide data about several kinds of wines but also explanes the art of wine tasting and evaluation."
"It talks about how to taste wine how to “eye” the wine, how to compare it, and, really breaks down the wine experience for anybody who aspires to be a wine connoisseur."
"VERY NICE coffee table book !"
"Great book and I've learned a lot about wines so far."
"This wine book is phenomenal!"
"Having the book in hand now allows me to provide visuals for every aspect of wine discussion."
"Perfect if you need a basic overview of wine."
Best Botany
In this international bestseller, forester and author Peter Wohlleben convincingly makes the case that, yes, the forest is a social network. Peter Wohlleben spent over twenty years working for the forestry commission in Germany before leaving to put his ideas of ecology into practice.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"At this job, he was expected to produce as many high quality saw logs as possible, with maximum efficiency, by any means necessary. Luckily, he made friends in the community of Hümmel, and was given permission to manage their forest in a less destructive manner. In one portion of the forest, old trees are leased as living gravestones, where families can bury the ashes of kin. The book is built on a foundation of reputable science, but it reads like grandpa chatting at fireside. He’s a gentle old storyteller explaining the wondrous magic of beautiful forests to befuddled space aliens from a crazy planet named Consume. Their root systems intermingle, allowing them to send nutrients to their hungry children, and to ailing neighbors. When a Douglas fir is struck by lightning, several of its close neighbors might also die, because of their underground connections. Analyzing the rings of their trunks, they learned that the pines that survived a climate that warmed 42°F, and then cooled about the same amount — in a period of just 30 years! Dinosaurs still exist in the form of birds, winged creatures that can quickly escape from hostile conditions. (Far more questionable is the future of corn, wheat, and rice, whose genetic diversity has been sharply reduced by the seed sellers of industrial agriculture.). They unfold in the spring, capture sunlight, and for several months manufacture sugar, cellulose, and other carbohydrates. When the tree can store no more sugar, or when the first hard frost arrives, the solar panels are no longer needed. Now, with bare branches, the tree is far less vulnerable to damage from strong winds, heavy wet snows, and ice storms. In addition to rotting leaves, a wild forest also transforms fallen branches and trunks into carbon rich humus. By the end, readers are likely to imagine that undisturbed forests are vastly more intelligent than severely disturbed communities of radicalized consumers. More and more, scientists are muttering and snarling, as the imaginary gulf between the plant and animal worlds fades away. Wohlleben is not a vegetarian, because experience has taught him that plants are no less alive, intelligent, and sacred than animals."
"Review The Hidden Life of Trees Peter Wohlleben. The Hidden Life of Trees” is an amazing book presenting trees as sentient, purposeful beings living in dynamic relationship with each other. This single fact has hidden the true life of the trees from us. “The Hidden Life of Trees” is carefully and well presented with humor, with gentleness, with compassion, with joy, even with love."
"He outlines how trees work in terms of light and water, their intricate relationship and co-dependence with the mushroom family. How they communicate, how they deal with pests and warn nearby trees of danger, how they even feed and support each other. These are very human characteristics and we share them with most animals as they are necessary to stop us killing ourselves as we learn to move about our environment and also to make choices. But it is hard to see how they would be of any advantage to a sessile tree with limited options, and so there is no obvious reason to think they would have evolved in plants."
"Wohlleben is a charming guide to magical, but very real, world."
"Live on a tree-filled island in the summer and have always "felt" the companionship of the trees but thought I was crazy."
Best Drinks & Beverages
The book also includes information on the many health benefits of kombucha, fascinating details of the drink’s history, and recipes for delicious foods and drinks you can make with kombucha (including some irresistible cocktails! “Deep-rooted insight into the history, science, and how-to of this ancient brew ... a critical addition to the bookshelf of anyone interested in good food.”. — Jennifer McGruther, author of The Nourished Kitchen. “On top of walking you through the kombucha fermentation process, The Big Book also includes a whopping 286 flavor combinations along with the history of the drink, information on health benefits, and much more. Expert brewers Hannah Crum and Alex LaGory reveal how easy, inexpensive, and safe it is to make your own delicious kombucha, with instructions for batch and continuous brewing.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"It is a good book in particular for those new to brewing and contains everything from the history of this delicious elixir, to brewing ingredients, tips, flavoring and using your Kombucha in cooking. In the past I have found the many books go too far one way -such as things to use your Kombucha in, or the other way -very basic tips, and do not strike the happy medium that allows the book to be an all around guide. The tea guide was also very detailed and useful -talking about types of blends you should and should not use, and acceptable quantities before they become too much for the balanced of the Kombucha, The sugar guide was equally as useful; as was the equipment guide, as I now know I should not have used that cheesecloth as a cover when in a pinch (allows contaminates to get in your brew). For me the advanced guide was so helpful -how to flavor, as we are currently experimenting with secondary fermentation using cascade hobs, and carbonation, as striking that right balance has been an admitted challenge; and other books have simply not been detailed enough, leaving me having to turn to good old Google -this book solves that! The remainder of this book is a guide to flavors one could experiment with, drinks one can use this in -such as cocktails and shrubs -both of which are hands down amazing with the addition of Kombucha! The book ends with more of the Kombucha story; but most usefully a very detailed guide to components of Kombucha, specific health concerns and how the consumption of Kombucha might help; further reading guides and a brew log, which is very useful for new brewers."
"This big (383 page), bold and beautiful book is full of a wealth of first-hand information on all aspects of Kombucha that Hannah and her partner Alex LaGory have curated over their years of involvement with the Kombucha sub-culture. From the history and science of Kombucha to straightforward guidelines on the many aspects of brewing, decanting and flavoring this healthful fermented tea, Hannah and Alex cram an awful lot of really useful information into this book."
"One thing missing from the book is best place to buy it, I found it though. First flavors I did were strawberry lemonade, blueberry lemonade and cherry lemonade."
"I read another review that had my exact mindset when I started brewing my own kombucha: There's plenty of information on the internet, why do I need a book?"
"My kombucha was pretty scary looking, scary enough that I could see other buyers thinking it was covered in mold, but after looking at the pictures in this book, I was able to figure out my kombucha was very yeasty and figure out it was probably due to using too many tea bags when brewing."
Best Language Humor
Featuring a foreword by Frank McCourt, and interspersed with a lively history of punctuation from the invention of the question mark in the time of Charlemagne to George Orwell shunning the semicolon, Eats, Shoots & Leaves makes a powerful case for the preservation of proper punctuation. Filled with dread at the sight of ubiquitous mistakes in store signs and headlines, Truss eloquently speaks to the value of punctuation in preserving the nuances of language.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"I couldn't imagine enjoying a book on punctuation; Ms Truss' "Eats, Shoots, and Leaves" weaves together the marks, their history and the rules of punctuation with examples, quotes and commentary in a bright and delightful way."
"It doesn't teach too much in the way of punctuation but does a solid job of showing where we'd be without it."
"I've always been a punctuation nut, because my mom, who taught English, made me very aware."
"Rather, she uses irony, self-deprecating humor, and other techniques to make apostrophes, commas, full stops (periods), and more interesting. In fact, she inspires: Her explanation of colons and semi-colons prompted me to play with their usage; I’ve been experimenting with them ever since. And “cutting a dash?” Well—I must stop using them as an easy way to incorporate stream-of-consciousness thinking, but I haven’t quite elevated them to an art form."
"Very funny and thought provoking little book."
"Author Lynne Truss, a self professed punctuation stickler, writes with knowledge, passion, not to mention an entertaining jazzy wit, with the result that EATS, SHOOTS AND LEAVES is great fun and not a little instructive. She does use real world examples, like the title of the Sandra Bullock-Hugh Grant movie "Two Weeks Notice," in which the possessive apostrophe eluded everyone from the screenwriter upward through the ranks of the studio brass, but she never wastes time flaying the irresponsible."
"It's a book about punctuation, yes, but it's not nearly as dull as it sounds."
"Lots of information, but not clear if you are trying to learn proper punctuation."