What are you reading these days?

[fresco]

Jaz, thanks. I'll look for it. As I recall from ABT, Stein and Toklas did have a Vietnamese cook at one point.

Edited July 14, 2003 by fresco (log)

[Flocko]

"Olives", by Mort Rosenblum, and "The Founding Fish", by John McPhee.

[MatthewB]

Eugenides, "Middlesex"

[maggiethecat]

"Whistler's Mother's Cookbook." Not only was she a cook, she was a saint.

[guajolote]

Ian Rankin - Set in Darkness

He's a friend of Bourdain's

[MatthewB]

Not only was she a cook, she was a saint.

Change the pronoun & I have the pithy saying for my headstone.

[pingarina]

I'm finally reading John & Matt Thorne's "Serious Pig." Barely finished Franzen's "The Corrections" before starting this far more satisfying book. I may cook more in winter, but all summer I dream of what I'll make on that first cool day. Something about "Serious Pig" is so cozy and soothing. I get lost just reading about the debate amongst Maine natives over which bean is the best for baking...

Ahhh, I can't wait to get home to it tonight.

[mcdowell]

I'm finally reading John & Matt Thorne's "Serious Pig."

It's funny, but whenever I'm down, the day is rainy, whatever, I pick that book up (or "Outlaw Cook", but not as good, in my opinion) off my shelf and open it to a random spot and just read. It never fails to improve my day.

[pingarina]

Yeah, mcdowell, that's what I'm talking about. I've read piles of food writing, but there a certain je ne sais quoi in Thorne's style. It's transporting.

[bergerka]

I'm very glad to find this thread, since I'm in need of new reading material right now. Just blew through the new (and, IMNSHO, best yet) Harry Potter in about a 24-hour period, then made the mistake (?) of picking up "Passage," by Connie Willis. It was disturbing, thrilling, upsetting, and contains a big huge screaming shocker of a twist about 500 pages in--I was up till 4 am and am still having bizarre nightmares about it. DON'T read it if you've recently lost someone close. Awesome book - I usually avoid what I call "chick" sci-fi, because it tends to be a tad feelgood and new-agey for my taste (YMMV). I should've known better with Willis...her "The Doomsday Book" was also engrossing & upsetting.

Before those two, it was "Mortal Prey" by John Sandford, and now I'm biting my nails in anticipation of the next one.

If I can find where the SO put it, I'll read "The Man Who Ate Everything" next.

K

[fresco]

At the risk of sounding like an Amazon.com clone, if you like John Sandford, you might want to try Thomas Perry"s Jane Whitefield series (Vanishing Act and several more.)

Your basic caper serial, but reasonably well executed.

[A Scottish Chef]

The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists by Robert Tressell is not foody.

Le Repertoire De La Cuisine by Louis Saulnier most definately is.

[fresco]

Just about to plunge into The Kitchen and the Cook, English edition of the food musings of Nicholas Freeling, the mystery writer. Cover blurb courtesy of one Anthony Bourdain:

"The book that inspired me to write Kitchen Confidential."

[Richard Kilgore]

Among others in my current stack:

Davidson's Wilder Shores of Gastronomy

Wolke's What Einstein Told His Cook

Alton Brown's I'm Just Here For The Food

Rose Levy Beranbaum's The Pie and Pastry Bible

Lewis & Peacock's The Gift of Southern Cooking

Unrelated

Harrison & Kooser's Braided Creek: A Conversation In Poetry

Sherman Alexie's Ten Little Indians

[birder53]

"Olives", by Mort Rosenblum, and "The Founding Fish", by John McPhee.

Another vote for McPhee's "The Founding Fish".

[hotle]

some interesting ones here - got some good recommendations!

food-related:

just re-read through gray/rogers two river cafe cookbooks.

andrea immer's 'great tastes made simple'

now, the shallow stuff (i travel a lot, so i read a lot):

lake house - james patterson (the follow-on to one of my top-5 books of all-time, 'when the wind blows')

bare bones - kathy reichs

still life with crows - child/preston, and its predecessor, 'cabinet of curiosities'

naked prey (sandford's latest - read ALL of those)!

shrink rap - robert parker

the last detective - robert crais

for another of my favorites that uses food and drink as a means of enhancing the setting, try alice borchardt's (she's anne rice's sister) 'silver wolf' - a story of a shape-shifter in hadrian rome. didn't like the two follow-ons as much, but i've read this one about 20 times.

yeah, i read trash, mostly!

matt

edited: jeez, i can't spell!

Edited July 17, 2003 by hotle (log)

[JAZ]

Not food related (except in a very tangential way -- see below):

HappinessTM by Will Ferguson. The story of a low-level editor who receives the manuscript for a "self-help" book that actually works. Hysterically funny if you're at all familiar with publishing; very funny even if you aren't.

And you have to love this subplot: the mindless boss of the protagonist, having read several unrelated articles about pork belly futures, the popularity of canola oil, and the statistics on women trying to lose weight, has decided that the book of the year will combine them into the fried-pork weight-loss program (title: Eat Pork! Be Happy!).

[KNorthrup]

This is a nonprofit thing so I guess I'm not shilling even if I was affiliated, which I'm not. But it's a nifty set up and it means free books.

bookcrossing.com

[tanabutler]

Book lovers would also love Readerville.com, which also has its own magazine. Round tables there included a visit from Tony Bourdain, and a trio visit with Russ Parsons, John Thorne and Rick Bayless.

The last two books I read were food books:

Anthony Bourdain's A Cook's Tour and Ruth Reichl's Comfort Me with Apples. Both had me laughing and both had me crying. And I loaned both to my best friend (a former caterer, as I am) and she'd ditto here if she could. Absolutely fantastic writers, both of them. Tony's chapter on the vegan dinner in California made me howl with laughter, and also squirm (guilt through proximity? Talk amongst yaselves).

I'm gearing up for Katharine Weber's Objects in the Mirror Are Closer than They Appear and Dinner with Persephone: Travels in Greece by Patricia Storace.

Edited August 13, 2003 by tanabutler (log)

[mikeycook]

The Apprentice: My Life In The Kitchen -- by Jacques Pepin

J.R. -- by William Gaddis

The Fable -- by William Faulkner

On Food and Cooking -- by Harold McGee

[mcdowell]

On Food and Cooking -- by Harold McGee

You're reading McGee, straight through? Good for you. Seriously.

I tried that once, about three years ago. I stopped when I hit page 350, unable to go on. I was a little better educated, and my brain a lot more numb, than when I began that trek. Now it sits there, this book, waiting for me to have a question so that it can be opened. It's never on the shelf long enough to gather dust, and eventually I'll have read every page.

But straight through? No way.

My night-stand pile of books is surprisingly food-free these days.

Currently reading Bellocq's Women, by Peter Everett, fictionalized account of EJ Bellocq's life in Storyville. I'm reading this because I am passionate about photography, New Orleans, and, occasionally, hookers.

Last food-related book I read was It must've been something I ate by Steingarten. Highly recommended.

[bloviatrix]

Yesterday I finished reading The Venetian Affair by Andrea di Robilant (it's excerpted in the new issue of The New Yorker). Using letters and other sources, di Robilant re-created the passionate love affair of his great x 5-grandfather in early 18th c. Venice. Pretty interesting. Although the primary focus is the love affair between Andrea Memmo and Giustiniana Wynne and you get a sense of upper class life in 18th c Europe as well as all that led to the decline of the Venetian Republic.

Since I can't go long without a book in a progress, I promptly started Mary McCarthy's The Group. I've seen in referenced so often, I figured I should read it.

[Raynickben]

Unless by Carol Shields: had a lot of "a-ha!" moments for me, you know...light bulb going off.

Under the Banner of Heaven by John Krakauer: Can't put it down (except to read egullet), Fascinating!!

[KNorthrup]

Just finished Year of Wonders - A Novel of the Plague by Geraldine Brooks. Also Forever Summer, the latest Nigella Lawson, and the Fables - Legends in Exile trade paperback.

[fifi]

Let's see... I am rereading Steingarten's books just because I enjoy the way he puts words together.

I did read McGee all the way through. I considered it a real page turner. But then, I am a geek.

Still working my way through Nero Wolfe mysteries.