From the Bookshelf of Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge…
Find A Copy At
Group Discussions About This Book
No group discussions for this book yet.
What Members Thought

I was totally fascinated by this little journey through history, starting in ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt and the important role beer played in every day life, all the way through the impact that Coca-Cola had on 20th century America. The book takes six different beverages-beer, wine, spirits, coffee, tea and Coca-Cola-and creates a history of the world by the way each drink impacted and helped shape events in history. Very creative and thought-provoking!

A very easy-to-read walk through six important drinks - wine, beer, spirits, coffee, tea and soda. You get a bit of the history and culture of each, delivered in an engaging and well-paced narrative. There are tons of notes and sources cited, but they're all at the end, so they don't break the flow of your reading (which is my preference in a book like this, intended for a lay audience). Hopefully this will be a good basis for discussion with my book club later this week.
...more

Was it just me, or was this a little dry? (No pun intended, I promise!)
Perhaps it's because I have read a book on coffee and a book on rum that covered material presented in this book.
Interestingly enough I found the most interesting chapter to be the epilogue about the '7th' glass, water.
Still, it's an interesting read. ...more
Perhaps it's because I have read a book on coffee and a book on rum that covered material presented in this book.
Interestingly enough I found the most interesting chapter to be the epilogue about the '7th' glass, water.
Still, it's an interesting read. ...more

Sep 25, 2007
akaellen
marked it as to-read


Nov 18, 2009
CrystalIsReading on StoryGraph
marked it as to-read

Apr 13, 2011
Rachel
marked it as to-read

Dec 05, 2011
Melissa
marked it as to-read

Sep 03, 2012
Rich
marked it as to-read

Oct 20, 2012
Alison
marked it as to-read

Jun 28, 2013
lisa_emily
added it

Aug 05, 2013
Christian
marked it as to-read

Feb 16, 2014
Caitlin H
marked it as to-read

Jun 06, 2015
Isabel
marked it as to-read

Oct 24, 2015
Jillian
marked it as to-read

Feb 13, 2016
Nadine in NY Jones
marked it as to-read

Dec 28, 2017
Kristen
marked it as to-read

Feb 05, 2019
Adjrun
marked it as to-read

Sep 13, 2020
Elizabeth
rated it
really liked it
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
nonfiction,
adult,
audio,
would-recommend,
e-book,
nonfiction-adult,
more-than-32-pages,
overdrive,
hoopla,
2020

Dec 20, 2021
pianogal
marked it as to-read