As we mourn the loss of Anthony Bourdain, the Los Angeles Times remembers his impact on the literary world and the ways in which the literary establishment wanted him to ‘shape up’. A well-read chef and writer, Bourdain’s most well-known book was Kitchen Confidential. Pair with this essay on food writing.
Bourdain & Books
Salton Sea as Holy Land
“Every journal is a confessional. If it’s in the first person, it cannot help but be. Unless the author of it lies to himself—and that makes it even more of a confessional. For some reason, travel brings out confessions one would never make at home. I am trying to draw the rake of my journal over the landscape. Perhaps I will uncover something.” Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s new collection of travel journals, Writing Across the Landscape, is out now. Travel on back to The Millions for Kate McCahill’s essay on traveling with books.
For Auld Lang Syne
“A perfect example of what the short story can do when the form is at its best: containing as much of an emotional blow as that of a 800-page novel, regardless of its brevity.” The Guardian awards its 4th Estate BAME short story prize to "Auld Lang Syne" by Lisa Smith. The prize was launched in 2015 in response to a report “which found that black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) writers struggled both to get published and against stereotypes imposed by the UK’s overwhelmingly white publishing industry.”
“Great pendulous melons dangled like gods”
Recommended Reading: “The Pumpkin Tree” by Robert Wrigley.
●
●
Join David Bowie’s Book Club
David Bowie was quite the avid reader. In his honor, his son, Duncan Jones, has launched an online book club that will focus on books Bowie enjoyed. The first book is Hawksmoor and the discussion is on February 1st. Will you be participating?