June 19th, 2025
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Sunshine, secrets, and swoon-worthy stories—June's featured reads are your perfect summer escape.

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He doesn�t need a woman in his life; she knows he can�t live without her.


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A promise rekindled. A secret revealed. A second chance at the family they never had.


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A cowboy with a second chance. A waitress with a hidden gift. And a small town where love paints a brand-new beginning.


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She�s racing for a prize. He�s dodging romance. Together, they might just cross the finish line to love.


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She steals from the mob for justice. He�s the FBI agent who could take her down�or fall for her instead.


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He�s her only protection. She�s carrying his child. Together, they must outwit a killer before time runs out.


The Big Oyster by Mark Kurlansky

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Also by Mark Kurlansky:

Cheesecake, May 2025
Hardcover / e-Book
International Night, August 2014
Hardcover / e-Book
Ready For A Brand New Beat, July 2013
Hardcover
Birdseye, May 2012
Hardcover / e-Book
The Eastern Stars, April 2010
Hardcover
The Food of a Younger Land, May 2009
Hardcover
Nonviolence, September 2006
Hardcover
The Big Oyster, March 2006
Hardcover
1968, January 2005
Trade Size

The Big Oyster
Mark Kurlansky

History on the Half Shell

Ballantine
March 2006
320 pages
ISBN: 0345476387
Hardcover
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Historical

Before New York City was the Big Apple, it could have been called the Big Oyster. Now award-winning author Mark Kurlansky tells the remarkable story of New York by following the trajectory of one of its most fascinating inhabitants�the oyster, whose influence on the great metropolis remains unparalleled.

For centuries New York was famous for its oysters, which until the early 1900s played such a dominant a role in the city�s economy, gastronomy, and ecology that the abundant bivalves were Gotham�s most celebrated export, a staple food for the wealthy, the poor, and tourists alike, and the primary natural defense against pollution for the city�s congested waterways.

Filled with cultural, historical, and culinary insight�along with historic recipes, maps, drawings, and photos�this dynamic narrative sweeps readers from the island hunting ground of the Lenape Indians to the death of the oyster beds and the rise of America�s environmentalist movement, from the oyster cellars of the rough-and-tumble Five Points slums to Manhattan�s Gilded Age dining chambers.

Kurlansky brings characters vividly to life while recounting dramatic incidents that changed the course of New York history. Here are the stories behind Peter Stuyvesant�s peg leg and Robert Fulton�s �Folly�; the oyster merchant and pioneering African American leader Thomas Downing; the birth of the business lunch at Delmonico�s; early feminist Fanny Fern, one of the highest-paid newspaper writers in the city; even �Diamond� Jim Brady, who we discover was not the gourmand of popular legend.

With The Big Oyster, Mark Kurlansky serves up history at its most engrossing, entertaining, and delicious.

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