Whether you want to read up on life-changing meals, most
memorable concerts, or pretty much any other topic you can imagine,
there's an essay collection for you. Here's
a stack to get you started:
About What Was Lost: Twenty Writers on
Miscarriage, Healing, and Hope (Plume, $15), edited by
Jessica Berger Gross
Death by Pad Thai: And Other Unforgettable
Meals (Three Rivers Press, $14), edited by Douglas Bauer
The Honeymoon's Over: True Stories of Love,
Marriage, and Divorce (Warner Books, $25), edited by Andrea
Chapin and Sally Wofford-Girand
How I Learned to Cook: Culinary Educations
from the World's Greatest Chefs (Bloomsbury USA, $25),
edited by Kimberley Witherspoon and Peter Meehan
I Married My Mother-in-Law: And Other Tales
of In-Laws We Can't Live With - and Can't Live Without
(Riverhead Books, $14), edited by Ilena Silverman
It's a Wonderful Lie: 26 Truths about Life
in Your Twenties (5 Spot, $13), edited by Emily Franklin
Modern Love: 50 True and Extraordinary Tales
of Desire, Deceit, and Devotion (Three Rivers Press, $15),
edited by Daniel Jones
Mr. Wrong: Real-Life Stories about the Men
We Used to Love (Ballantine Books, $25), edited by Harriet
Brown
Alice Waters and Chez Panisse: The Romantic, Impractical,
Often Eccentric, Ultimately Brilliant Making of a Food
Revolution
By Thomas McNamee (Penguin Press, $28)
Chez Panisse opened in 1971 in
Berkeley,
California. The brainchild
of Alice Waters, then 27 years old, the restaurant became famous
for its great food, offbeat charm, and devotion to using homegrown,
high-quality ingredients. For his book, author Thomas McNamee
received untrammeled access to Waters and to her family, friends,
business partners, and employees to produce a chatty, authorized
tome. It is a biography of Waters and her restaurant, but it is
also a primer on how to make a restaurant successful despite
seemingly overwhelming odds. For foodies, not incidentally, the
book also contains recipes scattered throughout, often placed next
to a text reference to a specific dish.
Waters grew up in
New Jersey, in a financially comfortable family.
Her father's insurance job moved the family to California, where
Waters attended high school and then stayed for college.
Intelligent, popular, petite, and attractive, she breezed through
life. Food did not figure prominently in that life, however, until
1965, when the undergraduate Waters traveled to
France for
education and enjoyment. With a friend from college, she learned
the French language, enjoyed the culture, and fell in love with the
restaurant food. Returning to Berkeley, a University of California
campus in political turmoil, Waters found peace and enjoyment by
cooking French meals. Her reputation as a talented amateur chef
grew. She had a satisfying career teaching at the Berkeley
Montessori School, but she knew she wanted to cook professionally,
so she began figuring out how that might happen, plotting what kind
of restaurant she wanted to open. As the 1970s began, Waters
located just enough financing and just the right existing building
to follow her dream.
McNamee organizes the book chronologically. Readers who care little
about the business of running a restaurant might find portions of
the book boring, because the month-by-month detail is, well,
detailed. But anybody who enjoys eating superb food in a restaurant
setting is quite likely to consume every word. The tension within
the book is minimal. Feuds with chefs and co-owners arise,
certainly, and a fire closes the kitchen for a few weeks, yet
readers know the restaurant will survive into 2007. Because the
dramatic arc is weak, the book is best read slowly, savored a
chapter a day, in much the way a Chez Panisse meal is eaten, course
by course. - Steve Weinberg
Shout, Sister, Shout! The Untold Story of Rock-and-Roll
Trailblazer Sister Rosetta Tharpe
By Gayle F. Wald (Beacon Press, $26)
Sister Rosetta Tharpe was, in the words of the great Dixie
Hummingbirds singer Ira Tucker, "a ball of energy." A gospel star
that transcended the genre, Tharpe didn't fit the stereotype of a
prim churchgoer moaning solemn songs of worship. Rather, she was a
virtuosic electric-guitar player and a fervent spiritual vocalist
whose onstage theatrics would inspire a generation of rock-and-roll
and R&B stars. Author Gayle F. Wald's immaculately researched
biography unpacks the complex and often contradictory life and
legacy of Tharpe, from her earliest efforts as a child performer to
her influence on everyone from Elvis Presley to
Isaac Hayes. Born
Rosetta Atkins in
Arkansas in 1915, Tharpe was a naturally gifted
musician (she once referred to herself as an autodidact) who, in
the late 1930s, became the first significant gospel recording star;
her brand of tent-revival charm appealed to church and secular
audiences. While her crossover to the pop market and nightclub
society made her an anathema among religious purists, Tharpe
insisted on keeping one foot in each world, delighting audiences
with her flamboyant sense of showmanship. Performing in sequined
dresses and with a flashy guitar-picking style, she knew what the
public - including the 20,000 or so paying guests who filled a
Washington, D.C., stadium to witness her third wedding ceremony and
subsequent concert in 1951 - wanted. Although her fortunes waxed
and waned over her five-decade career, Tharpe's passion never
dimmed. Disabled in her final years, she continued to work until
she died of a stroke in 1973. Her talent and charisma inspired
musicians, critics, and fans who rank her among the most formative
figures in the history of both rock and roll and modern gospel.
Wald, a professor of English at George Washington University,
doesn't rely on a dry academic approach in her narrative, but lets
Tharpe's blazing trail of recordings and performances come alive
across the pages. Having previously penned an insightful essay for
a 2003 Tharpe tribute disc, Wald synthesizes a mix of new
interviews and archival resources to craft a biography that's as
thrilling as its subject. - Bob Bozorgmehr