Sabrina
by Nick Drnaso
To say, as Zadie Smith has, that Sabrina is "the best book I have read about our current moment" makes our current moment seem quite grim. (Understandably.) A story of random murder, conspiracy theory... (Tom)
The New Family Cookbook
by America's Test Kitchen
In our kitchen we have a shelf for our most-used cookbooks. And on this shelf there is one cookbook that is (clearly) the most used of all: the previous edition of America's Test Kitchen's Family Cook... (Tom)
Writers as Readers
by now, there are few parts of the literary ecosystem I like better than the reclamation of lost classics, and for forty years, the UK's Virago Modern Classics has been doing just that for women writers in particular, with a list of authors that's thrillingly packed with masters of fiction. This lovely volume (which we've recently brought in from the UK) collects forty introductions to those editions, and they make a kind of conversation, of writers writing about the writers they love. (In a few cases, a writer who celebrates one author is then celebrated herself: Angela Carter introduces Charlotte Brontë, then Carmen Callil introduces Carter.) I usually try not to read an introduction before I read the book itself, but this is something else entirely: forty doors opening on writers familiar to me (Zora Neale Hurston, Edith Wharton) and unfamiliar (Antonia White, Bessie Head). I could wander these halls for quite some time. —Tom
As regular readers may know by now, there are few parts of the literary ecosystem I like better than the reclamation of lost classics, and for forty years, the UK's Virago Modern Classics has been doi... (Tom)