Sarah Kanning

Some archaeologists now believe that humans learned how to brew beer before they learned to bake bread, and that our ancestors’ desire for alcoholic beverages helped encourage them to develop agriculture.
This falls under the category of “not quite news,” since various scientists and historians have reported on our species’ long history with alcohol, BUT it’s [...]

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It’s an interesting topic, and Reinhardt made it a delightful read, full of quirky asides and the kinds of details writers find eminently useful. If the story you are writing has a sword in it, you should read this book.

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Skipping the writer’s bookshelf for the moment to plug an online tool I use all the time: WorldCat (www.worldcat.org). No, it doesn’t have anything to do with cats, unfortunately — the “cat” is short for catalog, and it’s (among other things) an aggregator of  information from libraries all over the world about their holdings.
If you [...]

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It’s still Tuesday, so I still have time to bring you my entry for the Writer’s Bookshelf this week. I’m getting ready to head to Indiana for a few days to visit, so things are a bit harum-scarum around here — and this will be brief.
Wild Justice: The Moral Lives of Animals by Marc Bekoff [...]

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Wicked Plants is particularly of note to writers because of its focus on plants that are poisonous and/or noxious in some way, which makes it a nice supplement to herbal guides that focus on edible and medicinal plants, or more general field guides. Murder mystery writers in particular will find much to love here.

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