Book Bag: Meet Angelina, get a bee’s-eye view of honey, and discover the meaning of honor

Reviews by Sharon L. Shervington

The Honey Trail: In Pursuit of Liquid Gold and Vanishing Bees
Written by Grace Pundyk

Prized for its symphony of flavors and textures, and for its medicinal properties, honey commands both money and passion around the globe. So very enchanted by this commodity is Ms. Pundyk that she has spent many months, if not years, visiting countries from New Zealand and Australia to China (the world’s largest producer), Yemen, the United States, Turkey, the U.K. and other distinctive producers of this liquid gold. And far from being all sweetness and honey-colored light, the author faced down sometimes dire travel conditions, especially in the Middle East, as well as eagle-eyed customs inspectors who were sometimes willing and able to confiscate her hard-won treasure.

Though she does not appear to be wealthy, on several occasions, she informs us, she has spent over $150 on a jar of honey.

Here we meet mom-and pop beekeepers, as well as giants of the industry,
and others who raise only queens. At length, the book describes just how
critical bees are as an integral factor in the production of crops and
the subsequent threat posed by Colony Collapse Disorder. She
particularly cites the almond crop’s reliance on bees in the United
States as an example. The disappearance of bees and colonies has been
linked to both pests and pesticides, and even tied directly to chemical
manufacturers.

This book is also a crash course in honey politics, notably on
antidumping tariffs on Chinese honey (in the wake of a contamination
scandal) here in the U.S. Hard to categorize, this book is part
travelogue, part science, and very — perhaps a bit too — personal.

The Honey Trail: In Pursuit of Liquid Gold and Vanishing Bees, by Grace Pundyk; St. Martin’s Press; $27.99; 337 pages

The Honor Code: How Moral Revolutions Happen
Written by Kwame Anthony Appiah

Most of us do not necessarily
think of life’s practicalities when we think about philosophy. And yet
that is exactly what Mr. Appiah, the internationally known philosopher,
attempts in this gripping and highly readable volume.

He manages to bring an immediacy and relevance to philosophy that just
might help change the world by making us think more deeply about the
meaning of honor. He does this by looking at three practices and, in
each case, its surprisingly swift demise.

In the cases of dueling among the aristocracy in Britain, foot-binding
in China (in which upper-class girls were mutilated as toddlers and
young children for a thousand years), and the abolition of slavery
throughout the British Empire, he argues that it was much more than the
conviction that these acts were morally wrong, that the honor of
individuals combined with the honor of nations and thus led to massive
action that finally eradicated these evils.

Finally, Mr. Appiah talks about so-called honor killing of women and
girls by their own families throughout the Middle East and Pakistan. His
account of this atrocity, which sadly has made its way to our shores,
is alone worth the price of the book.

The Honor Code: How Moral Revolutions Happen, by Kwame Anthony Appiah; Norton; $25.95; 264 pages

Angelina; an Unauthorized Biography
Written by Andrew Morton

Like an occasional candy fix,
celebrity journalism, to my mind, is palatable only in small doses. And I
confess that I am fascinated by Angelina Jolie. Not only do I find her a
riveting and highly original actress, but she exhibits an air of
mystery and danger that today’s stars generally lack. I also enjoyed,
years ago, Mr. Morton’s Diana: Her True Story.

In Angelina, we meet the actress as a love-starved child of a
charismatic actor father and desperately needy mother (Marcia Lynne
became Marcheline) who chose to live largely through her daughter. Her
efforts to facilitate a marriage between her daughter and Mick Jagger
give new meaning to the stage-mother persona. At the same time she
struggled with her father, Jon Voigt, who left the family when she was
small, though he still remained a strong father figure.

Ultimately, though, amid the background of marriages, relationships and
the crazy reality of Hollywood, this is a story of hard-won redemption
and the transformation of a lonely child becoming her own woman as an
artist, philanthropist, and mother.

Angelina; an Unauthorized Biography, written by Andrew Morton; St. Martin’s Press; $26.99; 328 pages

Honey Bees: Letters From the Hive, a History of Bees and Honey
Written by Stephen Buchmann

Mr. Buchmann, a beekeeper and
associate professor of entomology at the University of Arizona has
written an altogether accessible and fascinating book about bees and
honey from antiquity to the present. Medicinal uses for honey were
written about since about 200 B.C., but unfortunately during the Dark
and Middle Ages this knowledge appears to have been forgotten. Now, the
antibacterial properties of honey and its efficacy in healing especially
difficult wounds are being rediscovered — to the point that
honey-impregnated dressings are now used frequently in countries such as
Australia and the Netherlands.

This is a light-hearted yet deeply informative bee’s-eye view of their
anatomy, lifestyles, diet, depictions in art and myth, and much, much
more. It is filled with practical knowledge for the novice, or even the
more advanced honey lover. There are recipes, a list of mail-order
specialty honey purveyors, and even sources for honey processing and
bee-keeping equipment. Oh yes: what should you do when a bee wants to
make your acquaintance? Hint: Don’t start waving your arms.

Honey Bees: Letters From the Hive, a History of Bees and Honey, written by Stephen Buchmann; Delacorte Press; $16.99; 212 pages