A recommendation from Preeta :If you're looking for more good nonfiction to read, consider this collection of essays called Alone In The Kitchen With An Eggplant-- I'll come clean and confess that a good friend edited it and that another has an essay in the book, but I still wouldn't be telling you to read it if I thought you wouldn't love it. It has essays by Murakami, Ann Patchett, plus a bunch of other lesser-known but equally talented writers, all on the subject of cooking and eating alone -- in the end it is more a book about solitude than about food, though food provides the perfect lens through which to study solitude. It isn't a cookbook (though there are a couple of recipes here and there) -- the essays are thought-provoking and literary and many of them manage to be fun as well.
And I do think many of your readers would enjoy the book. If you want more background information or a brief description of the book, you can find it at Jenni's lovely website .
*Sigh* I've done a lot of cooking and eating alone in my life, so I have to read this. (Delia - thanks for being my savior!)Preeta also pointed me in the direction of an excellent website she thinks you will enjoy : Fiction Writers Review run by :
... a community of emerging writers dedicated to reviewing, recommending, and discussing quality fiction—how it works and why it mattersThere are reviews, essays, interviews and a blog.
7 comments:
Sound like the book for me.
Is it available in our Malaysian bookstores yet? I'm thinking I MUST have this before the year is over.
Chet -- I haven't seen the book in Malaysian bookstores yet, but I can find out for you if there are plans to distribute it there. Currently, it is of course available on Amazon.com but also from independent booksellers online, such as Powells (www.powells.com), which definitely ships internationally, and The Harvard Bookstore (www.Harvard.com), which might ship internationally, I'm not sure. If you do decide to order it online, please consider an independent bookseller who ships internationally. Yes, it costs a little more and I know books are already expensive, but the publishing industry is in trouble because of what large corporations have done to it. So *if at all* you can afford the extra expense, consider it a donation to the cause of literature.
-- Preeta
The small publishers are in trouble because they failed to adapt to changing times. They will die whether or not anyone supports them, because most people are poor. In any country, the majority is poor or middle-class. A very small percentage are rich. It follows then that only a very small percentage can afford to support small-time booksellers (why do you call them "independent", are large book chains not independent?)
Because of this they are pretty much doomed, because it's not like bookstores (even large ones) make a lot of money.
Anonymous @ 6:58: your comment is nonsensical from beginning to end. First of all, small publishers are not the same as independent booksellers. Secondly, if you really want to talk about small publishers, they are alive and well in the non-English-speaking parts of Europe (as are independent booksellers), which proves that it's perfectly possible for them to survive with enough support. Thirdly, "they will die whether or not anyone supports them" is quaintly defeatist, but anyone with a modicum of common sense can see that if everyone supported independent booksellers the way they support Amazon right now, independent booksellers would be doing just fine. And fourthly, of COURSE large book chains are not independent. They are owned by the same large conglomerates that own everything from Fox News in the US to Pepsi to Kraft. They are therefore not independent in any way: in capital, in agenda, in philosophy. You speak as though I personally coined this term "independent booksellers" to amuse myself -- go look it up on the internet.
-- Preeta
Er.. Amazon isn't "independent"? who owns them and what else do they own? The small booksellers or publishers in non-English speaking areas only survive because the large ones aren't that interested in a larger share of that pie. If they did, then they'd be in trouble as well. If you swim with sharks and you are not smarter than the sharks, you get eaten. You just have to find your own niche, find ways to do things better or differently from them, because you can't compete with them head-to-head and toe-to-toe. I can't be expending any sympathy on a small guy who thinks he can beat a big guy in a straight fight.
"The small booksellers or publishers in non-English speaking areas only survive because the large ones aren't that interested in a larger share of that pie."
Actually, no. In France, for example, small bookshops survive because there are price controls on books, so that no one is allowed to do what Tesco does in the UK. I can already guess what you're going to say to that, dear Anonymous, but it's a system that protects authors and has the happy result of a much more diverse literary landscape and a much more well-read public than I've ever seen elsewhere (I'm told that Germany rivals it, but I've never lived there). France still values intellectualism, because it has managed to fend off the Tesco culture that is driving publishers in the UK and US to despair.
I await your highly predictable response with not-so-bated breath :-) .
-- Preeta
Sharon! What happened to my reply to Anonymous? Did you idiot-filter me out? :-(
-- Preeta
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