Custodians of wonder : ancient customs, profound traditions, and the last people keeping them alive / Eliot Stein.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Stein, Eliot, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Cultural property--Protection.

Cultural property.

Manners and customs.

Rites and ceremonies.

customs (social concepts).

Physical Description:

325 pages ; 25 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Other Title:

Ancient customs, profound traditions, and the last people keeping them alive

Place of Publication:

New York : St. Martin's Press, 2024.

Summary:

"A vivid look at the ten key people who are maintaining some of the world's oldest and rarest cultural traditions. Eliot Stein has traveled the globe in search of remarkable people who are preserving some of our rarest cultural rites. In Custodians of Wonder: Ancient Customs, Profound Traditions, and the Last People Keeping Them Alive, Stein introduces readers to a man saving the secret ingredient in Japan's 700-year-old original soy sauce recipe. In Italy, he learns how to make the world's rarest pasta from one of the only women alive who knows how to make it. And in India, he discovers a family rumored to make a mysterious metal mirror believed to reveal your truest self. From shadowing Scandinavia's last night watchman to meeting a 27th-generation West African griot to seeking out Cuba's last official cigar factory "readers" more than a century after they spearheaded the fight for Cuban independence, Stein uncovers an almost lost world. Climbing through Peru's southern highlands, he encounters the last Inca bridge master who rebuilds a grass-woven bridge from the fabled Inca Road System. He befriends a British beekeeper who maintains a touching custom of "telling the bees" important news of the day and crunches through a German forest to find the official mailman of the only tree in the world with its own address - to which countless people all over the world have written in hopes of finding love. These are just some of the last people on Earth still in touch with quickly vanishing rites. Let Eliot Stein introduce you to all of them"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

The living libraries of West Africa

Scandinavia's last night watchman

The last Inca Bridge master

The world's rarest pasta

The mirror that reveals your truest self

Asia's last film poster painter

Where bees are a part of the family

The only democratic job in Cuba

The man trying to save Japanese food

The most romantic job in Europe.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Local Notes:

Athenaeum copy: Weiner fund bookplate.

ISBN:

9781250281098

1250281091

OCLC:

1452233257