Here is The Anthony Bourdain Reader, a deeply curated selection of the man’s writing—fiction and non-fiction—over the years. Through it all, as Patrick Radden Keefe makes note of in his introduction, it’s abundantly clear that Bourdain always thought of himself as a writer. Everything else—chef, TV personality, drug addict—was secondary to his desire to write. …
HE HADN’T PREPARED me for the house, for how wildly inappropriate a dwelling it was for a man who was in a wheel-chair. Stacked like a tea-tray of sandwiches on a sopping wet hill in Queen Anne, it climbed higgledy-piggledy into a thicket of conifers, and somewhere, up there, among the shaggy, dripping green, was …
From the Atlas Obscura team, this beautiful book is variously a travel guide, an overview of what the world eats, and a history lesson. You can find something intriguing on every page. It doubles as food & travel porn and is the perfect gift for the hard-to-shop-for person on your list. –sweet pea, King’s Books, …
Last night I read this wonderful book. The story of a little boy in CT who grows up to be a restaurant critic in Paris, then at Gourmet magazine (oh how I miss that publication). If you love food & dining like I do, you will devour this in one sitting. James Beard, Julia Child, …
Important traveller tip: Dinner at the Bozeman airport after 5pm is either food at one or two unremarkable (and overly crowded) eateries or a microwaved Hot Pocket. We got the last two pockets. This is the sort of thing that Bourdain does not cover in his recent book. –Mark Teppo, A Good Book, Sumner, WA …
As a kid growing up in late 1950s and 1960s Seattle, imagined visits to foreign lands were a focus of my inner life, what with 707s (and later 747s) soaring over the city, and twice- or thrice-yearly sightings of ocean liners that actually traveled all the way around the world. As it turns out, I wasn’t …
In 1960, Steinbeck felt that he no longer intimately understood the country that he had been writing about for most of his life. Travels with Charley is his travelogue that came from his desire to see the country one last time before he died. It’s a rich perspective on America as only Steinbeck can tell it, as …
If you are a foodie and Francophile, or if you like a rags-to-riches story, you should arm yourself with a strong cup of coffee and a croissant, curl up in an armchair, and tuck into Craig Carlson’s memoir, Pancakes in Paris. A bit like Gabrielle Hamilton of Blood, Bones and Butter, Carlson starts life treading the …
