Ferns, chocolate, and capybaras

Spring is on the way, and it’s time to take a journey to the lovely warm climes of Oaxaca, Mexico!  (We pronounce it “Wah-HAH-ka.”)

Dr. Sacks’s Oaxaca Journal has just been republished in a beautiful Vintage paperback edition, complete with the original fern drawings by Dick Rauh.

That’s Dr. Sacks on the cover, writing in his journal in the shade of a nopal cactus. He may be writing about the history of chocolate or chili peppers, his ferny childhood at Kew Gardens, the gentle capybara, the violent colonization of Mexico, or its glorious pre-Conquest architecture. Or perhaps he is musing on botanical hallucinogens or the strange habits of fern devotees and birders scouting for new species.

As the New York Times said of this book, “Sacks’s boundless curiosity is always a reward.”  (Did we mention that this book could completely solve your Mother’s Day shopping duties?)

We hope you love your local librarians as much as we do. As a salute to libraries large and small, we will donate a hardcover copy of Oaxaca Journal to the first ten libraries we hear from (please send in a request on library letterhead via email—sorry, we can only send within the United States).

Bon voyage!