Recommendation: “Frostbite”
A history of refrigeration is cool in all the right ways, a little chilling in others
It’s like striking gold when I find a faithfully executed, well-researched, and superbly written science book aimed at serious lay readers. Nicola Twilley’s Frostbite: How Refrigeration Changed Our Food, Our Planet, and Ourselves is one such book.
In addition to all those great traits, Frostbite elucidates something we take for granted but which has utterly changed the world — refrigeration.
- The book is more than a year old, but what better topic to have good shelf life?
The book launches fast, and Twilley keeps the twists and turns coming. From bananas to bagged salads, apples to avocados, and even a remarkable refrigerated tuna flight, the stories and characters — from scientists to entrepreneurs — spin along with fluid ease. Societal impacts are outlined again and again — how the refrigerator became a centerpiece of homes, changed urban and suburban landscapes, made corporate farming a reality, and created new ways to judge one another.
The supermarket will never look the same, nor will your fridge or chest freezer.
Since its publication, Frostbite has won scads of awards — deservedly so, I’d attest.
If this book sounds like your glass of iced tea, I’m going to let Twilley work her magic and not appropriate any more via a review. This is a straight-out recommendation — for you, or as a gift this season.
If you or someone you love will enjoy good science writing, grab a copy.
Highly Recommended.