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  • Caffeine loses steam halfway through book

  • This book was interesting and fairly well-written for the first few chapters, and the way that the content was presented helped one to ignore the many grammar errors and spelling inconsistencies within the main text. However, once the book got past the history of caffeinated foods, the writing style ... Continue

    This book was interesting and fairly well-written for the first few chapters, and the way that the content was presented helped one to ignore the many grammar errors and spelling inconsistencies within the main text. However, once the book got past the history of caffeinated foods, the writing style became drier and unsure of itself, while the spelling inconsistencies became more apparent. After a certain point in the book, the authors kept repeating themselves to fill out the content of a chapter. In the future, I would recommend that the authors avoid separating out the scientific discussion of the foods and find a way to incorporate it into the discussion of caffeine culture in general; there were more than enough opportunities to insert all the scientific data in those chapters rather than separating them into their own dry and awkward section.

    

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• ― nashiitashii said on Jun 19, 2007 | Add your feedback

Caffeine is the world's most popular drug! Almost all of us start our day with a jolt of caffeine from coffee, tea or cola. And many of us crave chocolate when we're stressed or depressed. Without it we're lethargic, headachy and miserable. Why? Why do we crave caffeine? How much do we really know about our number one drug of choice?

Here is the first natural, cultural and artistic history of our favorite mood enhancer -- its discovery; its early uses; and its unexpected importance in medicine, religion, painting, poetry, learning and love. Weinberg and Bealer tell an intriguing story of a remarkable substance that has figured prominently in the exchanges of trade and intelligence among nations and whose most common sources -- coffee, tea and chocolate -- have been both promoted as productive of health and creativity and banned as corrupters of the body and mind or subverters of social order.

The World of Caffeine is a captivating tale of art and society -- from India to Balzac to cybercafes -- and the ultimate caffeine resource.

• nonfiction- food