mark kurlansky

Ah Christmas: ‘Tis the season to be . . . despondent and predictable? It is the time to bemoan the commercialisation of a Christian festival, to listen as miserable souls announce “I hate Christmas” to all who will listen, and recall those ghosts of Christmas past when the festive season turned into family turmoil or personal...
> writingelsewhere/2766/you-better-not-cry-by-augusten-burroughs-christmas-spirits/

One of the conspicuous growth areas in non-fiction has been in the genre of what we might call single-issue histories where a writer takes a seemingly mundane or commonplace subject -- be it tulips in Amsterdam, the humble potato or ubiquitous chocolate -- and expand a history around it. The acknowledged master of this genre, and the most...
> writingelsewhere/2714/the-big-oyster-by-mark-kurlansky/

President Barack Obama’s recent speeches directed at the Islamic world – coded or clear – are an obvious attempt to defuse (or perhaps simply diffuse) the flashpoints between the West and the Islamic world. Many argue this overdue hand of friendship and a willingness to engage in dialogue will assuage the current climate of...
> writingelsewhere/2465/blood-and-rage-a-cultural-history-of-terrorism-by-michael-burleigh-we-who-are-about-to-die/

The cover of New York's weekly Village Voice in early June encapsulated the feeling in a single image. It was a variation on Grant Wood's famous painting American Gothic, the portrait of the elderly, pitchfork-bearing Iowan farmer and his spinster daughter. But rather than representing the Puritan ethics and hard-working dignity of the Midwest...
> culturalelsewhere/243/just-five-years-ago-america-in-crisis-2004-land-of-the-free-and-home-of-the-afraid/

It was an afternoon in June 1846 when Charles Dickens finally broke the writing block which had been troubling him. It had been two years since his previous novel, but these last weeks present walking in the hills of Switzerland above Lausanne had allowed him to sketch out the framework of a book. In his study overlooking the lake,...
> writingelsewhere/1681/peter-ackroyd-interviewed-about-his-definitive-charles-dickens-biography-1991/

With this 2004 year about half gone we appear to be in a volatile time. Some days you just don't want to get out of bed. In politically precarious North Asia both South Korea and Taiwan are suffering internal ructions. Islamist terrorism has cast a shadow of fear over the "coalition of the willing", there have been bombs from...
> writingelsewhere/256/1968-the-year-that-rocked-the-world-by-mark-kurlansky-reviewed-2004/

American author Craig Unger doesn't sound the lefty conspiracy-theory nutcase his opponents paint him. Back in New York after a European speaking tour supporting his House of Bush, House of Saud -- which persuasively lays bare the complex relationship between the ruling dynasty in Saudi Arabia, and the family and friends of the first and...
> writingelsewhere/251/craig-unger-interviewed-2004-inside-the-house-of-bush-and-the-house-of-saud/

Some years ago I was invited by Lonely Planet to write for them. This was flattering and exciting, but there was a catch: I would have to undertake a research trip at my own expense and write it up within their strict guidelines. Around the same time the American writer Thomas Kohnstamm was also approached. He abruptly quit his boringly...
> writingelsewhere/248/thomas-kohnstamm-interviewed-finding-comfort-and-hell-on-this-lonely-planet/

Journalists are rarely given the gift of prophesy. And like some Alice in Wonderland character they are always running twice as fast just to keep up with current events. The luxury of second-guessing the future generally falls on columnists. Contemporary journalism largely consists of two motivations which might be given the same adjective:...
> culturalelsewhere/242/berlin-and-the-bickering-koreas-2004-a-tale-of-two-walls/

Mark Kurlansky is the writer many others want to be: his career in journalism took him to Europe, China, the Caribbean and Middle East, and he lived for a time in Mexico City. His award-winning books are enormously popular despite addressing unusual subjects, notably the complex histories of cod, salt, and the Basques. He has also written an...
> writingelsewhere/222/mark-kurlansky-interviewed-2005-the-author-and-his-wide-wide-world/