The most controversial part of my book is my assertion that biotech is key to saving the banana. I came by this assertion with a lot of difficulty - initially believing that most genetic engineering in our food supply was a bad thing. But, as usual, the issue isn't black and white. With bananas, the shade of gray is especially green.
Read the piece here.
963 in nonfiction, according to Amazon. ("Banana" is number nine.)
All this week. More consumer and publishing-oriented banana information, as well as a couple of "out-takes" from the book (director's cuts? Who knew? Link.)
From an interview I did back in December. Learn about slipping on banana peels, extinction, and fruity folklore here.
A really good review by Ralph Ranalli in the Boston Globe, January 3:
"Thanks to Dan Koeppel, I'll never walk through the produce aisle the same way again.
Until I read his new book, "Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World," I had never really wondered why there were myriad varieties of apple - Royal Gala, Granny Smith, Red Delicious, Macoun, McIntosh, etc. - yet just one monolithic, curved sweet yellow fruit labeled simply "bananas." (Plantains don't count; they're green and you have to cook them before you eat them.)
The reason, it turns out, is that the banana as we know it is a worldwide poster child for bio-nondiversity. Known as the Cavendish, the bananas sold in my local supermarket in Watertown are virtual genetic duplicates of the ones sold at my sister's greengrocer in Los Angeles and at food markets in Tokyo, Paris, and Rio de Janeiro. The Cavendish is grown everywhere from Central America to New Guinea to India to the Caribbean to Southeast Asia.
In "Banana," Koeppel, a longtime outdoors and adventure writer, weaves a multifaceted story about how the fruit's unique nature has allowed it to become a worldwide food staple and a geopolitical force that has both shaped and toppled nations."
(complete review after the jump, or read it directly at the Globe here.)
Continue reading "Boston Globe says Banana is "compelling," "fascinating," "disturbing."" »
Whether or not I will wear a banana costume to readings (next: Vroman's Bookstore Pasadena, CA, January 10).
The answer is probably not. But if you wear one, I'll give you a free book. Here's a link to over 60 different yellow fruit suits to choose from.
They're right...the book does have a lot of information crammed into it...
"Nature and science writer Koeppel (To See Every Bird on Earth, 2005) chronicles the banana's history, from early cultivation to modern popularization, and suggests ways to save it from extinction.Expanded from an article originally published in Popular Science, the narrative covers the fruit's biblical roots (that forbidden treat Eve plucked may not have been an apple), the history of exploitative "banana republics" and the fruit's present precarious state.
Continue reading "Kirkus Reviews: Banana is a "lively, well-modulated survey"" »
This brief - but nice - review appeared in the October 29, 2007 edition of Publishers Weekly. It also serves as a pretty good pocket summary of what the book is about.
"The world’s most humble fruit has caused inordinate damage to nature and man, and Popular Science journalist Koeppel (To See Every Bird on Earth) embarks on an intelligent, chock-a-block sifting through the havoc. Seedless, sexless bananas evolved from a wild inedible fruit first cultivated in Southeast Asia, and was probably the “apple” that got Adam and Eve in trouble in the Garden of Eden.
"The Affected" is a new documentary that chronicles the lives of banana and sugar plantation workers in modern-day Latin America - and has uncovered a startling, ongoing nightmare: an epidemic of kidney failure among sugar workers, possibly related to pesticide exposure. The work the filmmakers have been doing has led to the killing of one crew member, and threats on the lives of others. You can read more about "The Affected" - and learn how you can help - here. 
Mombasa, Kenya, October 5-9, 2008. Learn more.
