1400 Bananas 76 Towns 1 Million People

For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel’s sake. The great affair is to move. ~ Robert Louis Stevenson in Travels with a Donkey Few of us have the panache to put in our papers, free ourselves from our desks, and take off on a half-year-long trip along the coastal necklace of peninsular India. This richly-flavoured travelogue combines adventure, serendipity, food, and sheer joie de vivre. The narrative irresistibly draws us in as benevolent observers of the many facets and foibles of humanity. Living out of a backpack, in budget lodgings, and eating bananas as a staple, only add to the heady challenges that stimulate the spirit of wanderlust of this maverick-explorer. The tour diary, starting from the remote north-western coastal tip and climaxing, rather precariously, way above sea-level at the potentially sinister Indo-Tibetan border, is an engrossing chronicle of discoveries about the desires, views, tribulations, joys, and sheer zest for living, of the teeming millions of India. Thrown in for good measure, in a refreshingly tongue-in-cheek style, are recipes for some of the gastronomic delights offered in the places traversed. Itinerant sidelights about people of all classes and creeds – fishermen, seafarers, rickshaw-drivers, priests, salesmen, radicals, typical and atypical families, and all the rest – create a colourful kalaidescope that is quintessentially India. This book is as enjoyable and energising as a good cup of chai...

From the creator of the popular website Ask a Manager and New York’s work-advice columnist comes a witty, practical guide to 200 difficult professional conversations—featuring all-new advice! There’s a reason Alison Green has been called “the Dear Abby of the work world.” Ten years as a workplace-advice columnist have taught her that people avoid awkward conversations in the office because they simply don’t know what to say. Thankfully, Green does—and in this incredibly helpful book, she tackles the tough discussions you may need to have during your career. You’ll learn what to say when • coworkers push their work on you—then take credit for it • you accidentally trash-talk someone in an email then hit “reply all” • you’re being micromanaged—or not being managed at all • you catch a colleague in a lie • your boss seems unhappy with your work • your cubemate’s loud speakerphone is making you homicidal • you got drunk at the holiday party Praise for Ask a Manager “A must-read for anyone who works . . . [Alison Green’s] advice boils down to the idea that you should be professional (even when others are not) and that communicating in a straightforward manner with candor and kindness will get you far, no matter where you work.”—Booklist (starred review) “The author’s friendly, warm, no-nonsense writing is a pleasure to read, and her advice can be widely applied to relationships in all areas of readers’ lives. Ideal for anyone new to the job market or new to management, or anyone hoping to improve their work experience.”—Library Journal (starred review) “I am a huge fan of Alison Green’s Ask a Manager column. This book is even better. It teaches us how to deal with many of the most vexing big and little problems in our workplaces—and to do so with grace, confidence, and a sense of humor.”—Robert Sutton, Stanford professor and author of The No Asshole Rule and The Asshole Survival Guide “Ask a Manager is the ultimate playbook for navigating the traditional workforce in a diplomatic but firm way.”—Erin Lowry, author of Broke Millennial: Stop Scraping By and Get Your Financial Life Together

This comprehensive overview of local food systems explores alternative definitions of local food, estimates market size and reach, describes the characteristics of local consumers and producers, and examines early indications of the economic and health impacts of local food systems. Defining ¿local¿ based on marketing arrangements, such as farmers selling directly to consumers at regional farmers¿ markets or to schools, is well recognized. Statistics suggest that local food markets account for a small, but growing, share of U.S. agricultural production. For smaller farms, direct marketing to consumers accounts for a higher percentage of their sales than for larger farms. Charts and tables.