Dan Koeppel, author of Banana - our guest blogger for the week of 1/21

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Dan Koeppel is our guest blogger during the week of January 21st. If you have any questions for Dan Koeppel, add a comment to any of his posts. Here is some brief information about Banana : The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World:

To most people, a banana is a banana: a simple yellow fruit. Americans eat more bananas than apples and oranges combined. In others parts of the world, bananas are what keep millions of people alive. But for all its ubiquity, the banana is surprisingly mysterious; nobody knows how bananas evolved or exactly where they originated. Rich cultural lore surrounds the fruit: In ancient translations of the Bible, the “apple” consumed by Eve is actually a banana (it makes sense, doesn’t it?). Entire Central American nations have been said to rise and fall over the banana.

But the biggest mystery about the banana today is whether it will survive. A seedless fruit with a unique reproductive system, every banana is a genetic duplicate of the next, and therefore susceptible to the same blights. Today’s yellow banana, the Cavendish, is increasingly threatened by such a blight—and there’s no cure in sight.

Banana combines a pop-science journey around the globe, a fascinating tale of an iconic American business enterprise, and a look into the alternately tragic and hilarious banana subculture (one does exist)—ultimately taking us to the high-tech labs where new bananas are literally being built in test tubes, in a race to save the world’s most beloved fruit.

About Dan Koeppel

Dan Koeppel is a well-known outdoors, nature, and adventure writer who has written for the New York Times Magazine, Outside, Audubon, Popular Science, and National Geographic Adventure, where he is a contributing editor. Koeppel has also appeared on CNN and Good Morning America, and is a former commentator for Public Radio International's Marketplace.

Banana - The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World
Dan Koeppel - Author
$23.95 | add to cart
Book: Hardcover | 9.25 x 6.25in | 304 pages | ISBN 9781594630385 | 27 Dec 2007 | Hudson Street Press

Dan Koeppel, Banana, The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World, fruit, bonds, trade, history, money, commerce, subculture, yellow, Penguin Books, books