Is This a Cookbook?

  

I received a copy of this release from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Title: Is This a Cookbook?

Author: Heston Blumenthal 

Publisher: Bloomsbury

Release Date: 11.29.22

Publisher’s Summary 

A culinary adventure from three-time James Beard Award-winning, Michelin-starred chef Heston Blumenthal—but is it a cookbook?

Well, it’s full of Heston’s typically marvelous recipes like pea and ham soup-in-a-sandwich and bacon and egg porridge, popcorn popcorn chicken and (r)ice cream. But in Heston’s kitchen, to cook is to embark on a journey of quantum gastronomy: exploring the palate, feeding the inner child, and plunging headfirst through the plate and into the soul.

Each of the 70 simple, straightforward recipes is accompanied by Heston’s stories, insights, and hacks, turning each cooking session into a journey—and revealing a whole world of culinary possibilities and fresh perspectives. Brought to life by the incredible illustrations by Dave McKean, Heston's long-term collaborator and one of the greatest illustrators at work today, Is This A Cookbook? is the next best thing to having Heston as your sous-chef.
Why not take him along as your adventure partner, too?

My Review

Fun! Fun! Fun! Fun! Fun!

I usually want a beautiful glossy photo to accompany every recipe in a cookbook, but this isn't a cookbook--or is it? Instead, this hefty volume includes quirky, messy, and loveable illustrations on almost every page. This element creates a fun and approachable vibe around cooking, versus the strict and stressful nature of some recipe collections. I loved the twists on classics, but chapters on fermentation and alternative edibles were my favorite. 

The Personal Assistant

 

 I received a copy of this release from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Title: The Personal Assistant

Author: Kimberly Belle

Publisher: Park Row

Release Date: 11.29.22

Publisher’s Summary 

USA TODAY bestselling author Kimberly Belle returns with a deeply addictive thriller exploring the dark side of the digital world when a mommy-blogger’s assistant goes missing.

When Alex first began posting unscripted family moments and motivational messages online, she had no intention of becoming an influencer. Overnight it seemed she’d amassed a huge following, and her hobby became a full-time job—one that was impossible to manage without her sharp-as-a-tack personal assistant, AC.

But all the good-will of her followers turns toxic when one controversial post goes viral in the worst possible way. Alex reaches out to AC for damage control, but her assistant has gone silent. This young woman Alex trusted with all her secrets, who had access to her personal information and front row seats to the pressure points in her marriage and family life, is now missing and the police are looking to Alex and her husband for answers. As Alex digs into AC’s identity – and a woman is found murdered – she’ll find the greatest threat isn’t online, but in her own living room.

Written in alternating perspectives between Alex, her husband, and the mysterious AC, this juicy cat and mouse story will keep you guessing till the very end.

My Review

I have given up on contemporary mysteries and thrillers because they are just so terrible, but there are a few authors who can really deliver. I really enjoyed Kimberly Belle's Stranger in the Lake (review here) and I'm pretty into "the dark side of social media" reads lately so I thought I'd give this one a shot. First of all, I really loved the Atlanta area setting and the generous inclusion of local details. Second, I was immersed in the story the entire time. With most current "mysteries" I can usually figure everything out within the first couple of chapters (pages sometimes 🙄 but I was mentally rearranging the pieces right up until the end. That is a rarity and earns The Personal Assistant my recommendation to readers who love true mysteries/thrillers, with an added bonus if they consider themselves fairly knowledgeable about social media.

Portable Magic

  

I received a copy of this release from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Title: Portable Magic 

Author: Emma Smith

Publisher: Knopf

Release Date: 11.15.22

Publisher’s Summary 

Most of what we say about books is really about the words inside them: the rosy nostalgic glow for childhood reading, the lifetime companionship of a much-loved novel. But books are things as well as words, objects in our lives as well as worlds in our heads. And just as we crack their spines, loosen their leaves and write in their margins, so they disrupt and disorder us in turn. All books are, as Stephen King put it, 'a uniquely portable magic'. Here, Emma Smith shows us why.

Portable Magic unfurls an exciting and iconoclastic new story of the book in human hands, exploring when, why and how it acquired its particular hold over us. Gathering together a millennium's worth of pivotal encounters with volumes big and small, Smith reveals that, as much as their contents, it is books' physical form - their 'bookhood' - that lends them their distinctive and sometimes dangerous magic. From the Diamond Sutra to Jilly Cooper's Riders, to a book made of wrapped slices of cheese, this composite artisanal object has, for centuries, embodied and extended relationships between readers, nations, ideologies and cultures, in significant and unpredictable ways.

Exploring the unexpected and unseen consequences of our love affair with books, Portable Magic hails the rise of the mass-market paperback, and dismantles the myth that print began with Gutenberg; it reveals how our reading habits have been shaped by American soldiers, and proposes new definitions of a 'classic'-and even of the book itself. Ultimately, it illuminates the ways in which our relationship with the written word is more reciprocal - and more turbulent - than we tend to imagine.

My Review

A book about books--one of my favorite genres. This was the perfect gem of a book to get me out of a recent reading slump and a series of DNFs. If you strongly identify as "a reader" you are sure to love this book. 

Table of Contents

Introduction: Magic books

1. Beginnings: East, West, and Gutenberg 
2. Queen Victoria in the trenches 
3. Christmas, gift books, and abolition 
4. Shelfies: Anne, Marilyn, and Madame de Pompadour 
5. Silent Spring and the making of a classic 
6. The Titanic and book traffic 
7. Religions of the book 
8. May 10, 1933: burning books 
9. Library books, camp, and malicious damage 
10. Censored books: "237 goddams, 58 bastards, 31 Chrissakes, and 1 fart" 
11. Mein Kampf: freedom to publish?
12. Talismanic books 
13. Skin in the game: bookbinding and African American poetry 
14. Choose Your Own Adventure: readers' work
15. 15 The Empire writes back
16. What is a book?

Epilogue: Books and transformation

Aesthetica by Allie Rowbottom

  

I received a copy of this release from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Title: Aesthetica 

Author: Allie Rowbottom

Publisher: Soho Press

Release Date: 11.22.22

Publisher’s Summary 

In a debut novel as radiant as it is caustic, a former influencer confronts her past—and takes inventory of the damages that underpin the surface-glamour of social media.

At 19, she was an Instagram celebrity. Now, at 35, she works behind the cosmetic counter at the “black and white store,” peddling anti-aging products to women seeking physical and spiritual transformation. She too is seeking rebirth. She’s about to undergo the high-risk, elective surgery Aesthetica™, a procedure will reverse all her past plastic surgery procedures, returning her, she hopes, to a truer self. Provided she survives the knife.

But on the eve of the surgery, her traumatic past resurfaces when she is asked to participate in the public takedown of her former manager/boyfriend, who has rebranded himself as a paragon of “woke” masculinity in the post-#MeToo world. With the hours ticking down to her life-threatening surgery, she must confront the ugly truth about her experiences on and off the Instagram grid.

Propulsive, dark, and moving, Aesthetica is a Veronica for the age of “Instagram face,” delivering a fresh, nuanced examination of feminism, #metoo, and mother-daughter relationships, all while confronting our collective addiction to followers, filters, and faux realities.

My Review

Rarely when I read about "behind the scenes" work for influencers or the adverse effects of social media on body image, am I shocked or surprised. I can psychoanalyze and apply rational thought through personal experiences, education, and years of work as a social media manager. However, I am aware my outlook and vision are vastly different now versus if I would have been dealing with social media as a teen or twentysomething. This is why Aesthetica really hit the mark for me. I saw myself in Anna and her desire to present herself in a particular way. I also felt her emptiness and the ease at which she made what can be labeled by many as "bad" choices in order to fill that void. 

I could write an entire thesis on the topics of this novel (especially feminism's generational divides) and go on and on about each of the characters, but instead of reading more paragraphs of my writing, I highly suggest you read this book. 

5 stars all the way. 

11.15.22 Releases

 

As Gods by Matthew Cobb

A Ghost of Caribou by Alice Henderson

Portable Magic 

Control by Adam Rutherford

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (Hercule Poirot #3)

 

 I received a copy of this release from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Title: The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (Hercule Poirot #3)

Author: Agatha Christie

Publisher: Pushkin Vertigo

Release Date: First published June 7, 1926

Publisher’s Summary 

Considered to be one of Agatha Christie's greatest, and also most controversial mysteries, 'The Murder Of Roger Ackroyd' breaks the rules of traditional mystery.

The peaceful English village of King’s Abbot is stunned. The widow Ferrars dies from an overdose of Veronal. Not twenty-four hours later, Roger Ackroyd—the man she had planned to marry—is murdered. It is a baffling case involving blackmail and death that taxes Hercule Poirot’s “little grey cells” before he reaches one of the most startling conclusions of his career.

My Review

I downloaded this random "read now" / "auto-approved" copy out of curiosity. Agatha Christie is highly revered but I've only read one other mystery by her (Murder on the Orient Express) and I wasn't impressed. Unfortunately, The Murder of Robert Ackroyd did not change my opinion. I understand and respect how her style revolutionized an entire genre but her storytelling is so roundabout and full of red herrings that I just both murders to be solved so the books would be over. If you love reading older books or classics you may like Christie's style of writing, but I felt like I was slogging over something for a college course--analyzing style rather than enjoying the text. 

Dinner in Rome

  

I received a copy of this release from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Title: Dinner in Rome

Author: Andreas Viestad

Publisher: Reaktion Books

Release Date: 11.1.22

Publisher’s Summary 

With a celebrated food writer as host, a delectable history of Roman cuisine and the world—served one dish at a time.

“There is more history in a bowl of pasta than in the Colosseum,” writes Andreas Viestad in Dinner in Rome. From the table of a classic Roman restaurant, Viestad takes us on a fascinating culinary exploration of the Eternal City and global civilization. Food, he argues, is history’s secret driving force. Viestad finds deeper meanings in his meal: He uses the bread that begins his dinner to trace the origins of wheat and its role in Rome’s rise as well as its downfall. With his fried artichoke antipasto, he explains olive oil’s part in the religious conflict of sixteenth-century Europe. And, from his sorbet dessert, he recounts how lemons featured in the history of the Mafia in the nineteenth century and how the hunger for sugar fueled the slave trade. Viestad’s dinner may be local, but his story is universal. His “culinary archaeology” is an entertaining, flavorful journey across the dinner table and time. Readers will never look at spaghetti carbonara the same way again.

My Review

Perfect for an armchair traveler or as a bit of homework before your own Roman adventures, Dinner in Rome provides plenty of history alongside some contemporary dining suggestions. 

Chapters:

The Center of the Universe

Bread

Antipasto 

Oil

Salt 

Pasta

Pepper

Wine

Meat

Fire

Lemon

The Book Store Sisters

  

Title: The Bookstore Sisters

Author: Alice Hoffman

Publisher: Amazon Original Stories

Release Date: 11.1.22

Publisher’s Summary 

From New York Times bestselling author Alice Hoffman comes a heartfelt short story about family, independence, and finding your place in the world.

Isabel Gibson has all but perfected the art of forgetting. She’s a New Yorker now, with nothing left to tie her to Brinkley’s Island, Maine. Her parents are gone, the family bookstore is all but bankrupt, and her sister, Sophie, will probably never speak to her again.

But when a mysterious letter arrives in her mailbox, Isabel feels herself drawn to the past. After years of fighting for her independence, she dreads the thought of going back to the island. What she finds there may forever alter her path—and change everything she thought she knew about her family, her home, and herself.

My Review

I love Alice Hoffman and was so excited that this short story was offered free to Amazon Prime members last month. I don't usually read short stories but this was the perfect quick read to put me in a cozy, autumn mood.  

Sweet Land of Liberty

  

I received a copy of this release from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Title: Sweet Land of Liberty: A History of America in 11 Pies

Author: Rossi Anastopoulo

Publisher: ABRAMS

Release Date: 10.25.22

Publisher’s Summary 

A delicious and delightful narrative history of pie in America, from the colonial era through the civil rights movement and beyond

From the pumpkin pie gracing the Thanksgiving table to the apple pie at the Fourth of July picnic, nearly every American shares a certain nostalgia for a simple circle of crust and filling. But America’s history with pie has not always been so sweet. After all, it was a slice of cherry pie at the Woolworth’s lunch counter on a cool February afternoon that helped to spark the Greensboro sit-ins and ignited a wave of anti-segregation protests across the South during the civil rights movement. Molasses pie, meanwhile, captures the legacies of racial trauma and oppression passed down from America's history of slavery, and Jell-O pie exemplifies the pressures and contradictions of gender roles in an evolving modern society. We all know the warm comfort of the so-called “All-American” apple pie . . . but just how did pie become the symbol of a nation?

In Sweet Land of Liberty: A History of America in 11 Pies, food writer Rossi Anastopoulo cracks open our relationship to pie with wit and good humor. For centuries, pie has been a malleable icon, co-opted for new social and political purposes. Here, Anastopoulo traces the pies woven into our history, following the evolution of our country across centuries of innovation and change. With corresponding recipes for each chapter and sidebars of quirky facts throughout, Sweet Land of Liberty is an entertaining, informative, and utterly charming food history for bakers, dessert lovers, and history aficionados alike. Ultimately, the story of pie is the story of America itself, and it’s time to dig in.

My Review

If you want to know a bit of history about that pie you're getting ready to serve this holiday season, Sweet Land of Liberty has got you covered...but don't be fooled by the sweet slice of pie on the cover. Rossi Anastopoulo draws a correlation between some of our most beloved pies and some tumultuous aspects of American history. However, my favorite chapter (chapter 11: Tofu Cream Pie) didn't focus on one particular pie, it detailed the political act of pie-throwing. I loved and learned so much from that chapter alone and am looking forward to reading some of the handbooks and manifestos mentioned.