Happy New Year!  Wishing each of our members and your loved ones good health and fulfillment in the coming year and beyond – and a year of joy in reading!

Our January book, Milk, Mark Kurlansky’s entertaining, fast-paced global history of the ubiquitous white fluid, “exhibits his usual knack for plumbing the depths of a single subject (Cod, Salt),” reports Publishers Weekly. “He shares a series of anecdotes on the evolution of milk’s production and consumption, as well as on its roles in various cultures, such as in ancient Greece–according to Greek mythology, the goddess Hera formed the Milky Way galaxy when she spilled milk while breastfeeding Heracles, and each drop became a star. Many Sumerian stories involve the search for a reliable milking animal, and Hindu creation myths tell of the god Vishnu creating the universe by churning a sea of milk. Kurlansky points out that every milk-drinking {cheese-eating, yoghurt-yearning, sauce-savoring, etc.} culture searched for the animals that provided the best source of milk–mares, pigs, reindeer, donkeys, camels–but that the most important issue for each culture was finding which milk-producing animals could be domesticated easiest. By the 16th century, the Netherlands had become the dairying center of Europe; the Dutch and others brought cows with them to America, and by 1629 cows outnumbered people in the Virginia colony. He ranges over the history of making milk safe, the ongoing debate between the benefits of raw milk versus pasteurized milk, and the growth of large, industrialized dairy farms. Kurlansky’s charming history of milk brims with excellent stories and great detail.”  Recipes are included!

The book selection for February is She Has Her Mother’s Laugh:  The Powers, Perversions and Potential of Heredity by Carl Zimmer.  There are 22 copies of this book in the Westchester Library System.