UNCOMMON GROUNDS (NEW EDITION)

Mark Prendergrast has got a good record as an author and this book is no exception. It's somewhat US-centric, although given the global reach of subjects as various American jazz and Starbucks, both of which feature, that isn't a huge problem given the topic. It covers the full range of the coffee story - production, trade and drinking - and features many lively and eccentric characters on the way. This all makes for a good solid history of the topic.

An excellent overview of the history of coffee. However, it is very USA-centric and this reduces the interest for non-American readers in my opinion.

Recipient seemed pleased with the book, plenty of information about the new hobby and was looking forward to trying out allt he different coffees from around the world.

It looks at the subject purely from the USA, which was disappointing as a UK reader, however some interesting content

This book assumes you don't know what the word guano means and you are incapable of using a dictionary. So one example among the many bits of the book that are maybe pitched at too low a reading level for the US audience - skip the long rambling bit in the middle about the US coffee advertising in the 30s and 40s, nothing of interest there. Its flaw is its geocentric bias but someone obviously mentioned this to him at some point as after the huge swathes of guff about Folgers or something there'll be a morsel about Germany or Peru something squashed on the end of the chapter. You'd be surprised Nestle even existed, that tiny little European coffee supplier. Otherwise, it was an ok read, it's most definitely not challenging, bits of it are interesting.