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Last week, bestselling author and University of California-Berkeley environmental journalism professor Michael Pollan attracted more than 1600 hot and sticky omnivores and vegetarians to the Ira Allen Chapel, despite the threat of some seriously bad weather. Pollan told his audience, packed into the pews like so many sardines, that Americans spend more time thinking about nutrition and diet than do citizens of any other industrialized country, but still manage to be “among the most unhealthy people in the world.” His solution?... Read more

It sure is hard living in America today, what with The New York Times, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Endangered Species Act wreaking havoc on old-fashioned American values. Sometimes our contemporary moment is enough to drive a man to assassinate a few liberal judges and career politicians with a slingshot that emits rattlesnake venom through a pair of fang-like needles.... Read more

We writers can be such attention whores and will drop to our knees and pucker up whenever someone offers us professional kudos. But only a precious few will ever achieve the industry’s highest honor: coining a phrase infectious enough to enter the mainstream vernacular.... Read more

Amy Trubek has radical ideas about food that just might be the most sensible ones you've ever heard. The author and University of Vermont assistant professor of Nutrition and Food Sciences believes the value of a community isn't measured just by its access to affordable grub, but by its support for producers whose food retains a uniquely local flavor informed by the region's air, water and soil, or terroir.... Read more

In the opening pages of his forthcoming book, David Sirota is reeling on a bathroom floor in Las Vegas’ Riviera Hotel. The setting: the first YearlyKos Convention, an annual gathering of Internet-based activists, citizen journalists and progressive political operatives, collectively known as the Netroots. Drunk and “freshman-year-at-college sick,” Sirota, a political journalist and former aide to then-Rep. Bernie Sanders, is nonetheless raring to go.... Read more

It’s hard to tell the difference between what James Kochalka does for fun and what he does for work. The Burlington comic artist’s day job as a stay-at-home father of two — Eli, 4-and-a-half, and Oliver, 6 months — might sound like work, but the tots are his central inspiration and key artistic collaborators.... Read more

Failure is a relative thing. Just ask any admirer of Nikola Tesla, one of the most unjustly obscure figures of the 20th century. The Serbian-born scientist (1856-1943) harnessed AC electrical power and invented the radio — before Marconi. Yet he died with the reputation of a “mad scientist” and was eclipsed in the public mind by his longtime rival, Thomas Edison. Over the years, Tesla’s strange career has inspired plays and cultish devotion, among both science-minded folks and believers in the paranormal.... Read more

When Polaroid announced last week the demise of its fabled instant camera, the nostalgia began, well, instantly. So did the stockpiling of self-developing film. It was a coincidence that in the same week, a new book documenting the rise and fall of another late, great photographic phenomenon was published: American Photobooth by Burlington photographer Näkki Goranin. The 224-page volume is extensively researched and amply illustrated with hundreds of images from Goranin’s vast personal collection.... Read more

No doubt about it: Americans love their pets. But rescuing a puppy gone missing halfway around the world takes a truly global effort. That’s one message of Cambridge resident Christine Sullivan’s self-published book 44 Days Out of Kandahar. The 214-page, professionally designed volume tells the true story of how Sullivan’s brother Mark Feffer, a Navy Reservist, befriended a skinny, reddish pup while serving on an Afghan army base in Kandahar. The soldiers who fed and played with the dog called her “Be-atch,” but Feffer renamed her Cinnamon.... Read more

Central Vermont is way better known for “granola” than shellfish, but that is changing on account of a resident oyster expert who calls Calais home. Rowan Jacobsen, 39, is the landlocked author of A Geography of Oysters: The Connoisseur’s Guide to Oyster Eating in North America, which includes tips on shipping, beverage pairing and recipes. Since it was released in September, the comprehensive tome has been going down easy in the food world.... Read more