Reviews of business, biography, current events, self-help, memoir, and lifestyle books.
Nonfiction Book Reviews: 11/2/2009 11/02/2009
Stars for Elif Batuman's The Possessed, Michelle Alexander's The New Jim Crow, Sean Carroll's From Eternity to Here, Raj Patel's The Value of Nothing, Lee Smith's The Strong Horse, and Andrew Friedman's Knives at Dawn. More
Assouline Finds Upscale Niche by Judith Rosen - 11/02/2009
When Wall Street faltered last October, so did the demand for luxury goods. Even so, 15-year-old Assouline Publishing, founded in France by Martine and Prosper Assouline, has managed to maintain its footing by publishing books that are intended to be just as much a luxury brand as watches at Cartier.
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Lorena Jones New Publishing Director at Chronicle By Lynn Andriani - 10/28/2009
Chronicle Books announced yesterday that former Ten Speed Press publisher Lorena Jones has taken over as publishing director. In her new role, Jones will initiate a digital food and drink publishing program, and oversee Chronicle’s food and drink list as a whole.
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Short Order: October 26 By Lynn Andriani - 10/26/2009
This week, pics of Mark Peel celebrating at Campanile in L.A., Alicia Silverstone signing copies of her new book at the NYC Wine & Food Festival, Alton Brown answering questions at a B&N in Manhattan, John Besh partying in New Orleans, and Sarah Levy toasting her new baking book in Chicago. Also: news about HarperCollins picking up the self-published culinary novel The Recipe Club, and ATK founder Chris Kimball talks to PW about the Kindle.
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Cooking the Books with Ann Mah By Lynn Andriani - 10/26/2009
Former Viking assistant editor Ann Mah left New York for Beijing, took a job as the dining editor for the English-language magazine That’s Beijing, and wrote a novel about a young Chinese-American woman who moves to Beijing in the midst of an identity crisis. Mah spoke to PW from Paris, where she now lives, about Kitchen Chinese: A Novel about Food, Family, and Finding Yourself, which Avon will publish as a paperback original in February.
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Make Room for Books on Cheese By Lynn Andriani - 10/26/2009
It's a big season for books about cheese. The coming months will see the publication of books on making cheese at home, building and running a small dairy, and cooking with cheese. There are books about people who’ve devoted their lives to cheese, and even a memoir by one of them. And, of course, there are reference books (which are necessary, since there are some 700 kinds of cheese in existence). Here's a summary of what's coming up.
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Gourmet Today Benefits from Magazine's Closing By Lynn Andriani - 10/26/2009 Gourmet Today had a lot going for it before the magazine folded on October 5. But now that Gourmet’s final issue is on newsstands, sales of the book have jumped. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt has seen sales increase since the magazine closed—which was only two weeks after the book went on sale—and former editor-in-chief Ruth Reichl, who’d committed to touring to promote the book months ago, has been a hotter than usual ticket in light of recent events.
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Nonfiction Book Reviews: 10/26/2009 10/26/2009
Stars for Alice Wood's Wealth Watchers and How They See Us, edited by James Atlas. Also featured: Steven Solomon, Alanna Nash, P.D. James, Frank Kermode, Alison Weir, Shankar Vedantam, and more.
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