Praise for Here Let Us Feast "The anthology doesn''t miss a beat. And that cover! You''ll need to find prominent real estate, be it the kitchen or the bookshelf, with a cover like that." --Women.com, 1 of 10 Books with Covers So Beautiful You Can Judge Them "[M.F.K. Fisher''s] latest excursion into the art or science of gastronomy is more an anthology of the finest writing on the subject than strictly a text of her own composition. Here are extensive excerpts from such widely diversified writers as Edgar Saltus, Petronius Arbiter, Tobias Smollett, Lucius Apuleius, Ovid, Rabelais, Plato and others.
Mrs. Fisher begins her book with the introductory verse to the King James Version of the Bible: ''In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.'' And she concludes with long excerpts from gastronomic Americana, ranging from Washington Irving to Ernest Hemingway. Spread thickly in between is a royal feast, indeed!" -- The New York Times "Her erudite prose slices through myriad time periods and cultures, spanning the globe--and beyond--in fact and fantasy . Feast is a taste well worth acquiring. You''ll get your intellectual fill." --VEER Magazine "Extensively revised by the author, this enlightening cornucopia of writings toasts the pleasures of food, drink and celebration in literature. It also marks the first time in years that the complete works of Fisher, an authority on gastronomy and an elegant crafter of prose, are available.
Eleven chapters present selections varying in length from a few paragraphs to several pages that begin with the ancient Chinese and Greeks and the Bible and progress to the pioneers of America, while pausing to linger in the literatures of England, France, Germany, Russia (among others). This is a refreshing, nourishing and fulfilling sampler from a connoisseur of a genre she has created." -- Publishers Weekly "This is unique. a collection of excerpts from world literature, concerned with eating and drinking. [Fisher] ranges from Chinese literature, ancient and modern; Richard Burton, T. E. Lawrence, Marco Polo, adventurers all; Smollett, Rabelais, Boccaccio, Shakespeare, Pepys, Scott, Thackeray, Dickens, to the moderns, via the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the 19th century. Period- country- the story of a nation''s life is charted by its gastronomy, she claims.
There are bits from fiction, from letters, there are proverbs, there are recipes. There are the famous chefs whose names have come down,- Brillat-Savarin, Escoffier, Ritz. There''s gastronomy in fantasy and nonsense, in history of pioneering, in regional writing, in studies of manners. And always- in her inimitable way- there is M. F. K. Fisher. Very specialized.
" -- Kirkus Reviews Praise for M.F.K. Fisher "M.F.K. Fisher . brings onstage a peach or a brace of quail and shows us history, cities, fantasies, memories, emotions.
" -Patricia Storace, The New York Review of Books "Food is what she wrote about, although to leave it at that is reductionist in the extreme. What she really wrote about was the passion, the importance of living boldly instead of cautiously; oh, what scorn she had for timid eaters, timid lovers, people who took timid stands, or none at all, on matters of principle." -- San Francisco Examiner "I do not know of anyone in the United States who writes better prose." --W.H. Auden, author of The Age of Anxiety "M.F.K.
Fisher is our greatest food writer because she puts food in the mount, the mind and the imagination all at the same time. Beyond the gastronomical bravura, she is a passionate woman; food is her metaphor." --Shana Alexander, New York Times bestselling author of Nutcracker "Poet of the appetites." --John Updike, author of Rabbit, Run "She writes about fleeting tastes and feasts vividly, excitingly, sensuously, exquisitely. There is almost a wicked thrill in following her uninhibited track through the glories of the good life." --James Beard, author of The James Beard Cookbook "She writes about food as others do about love, but rather better." --Clifton Fadiman, author of Lifetime Reading Plan "If I were still teaching high-school English, I''d use [Fisher''s] books to show how to write simply, how to enjoy food and drink but, most of all, how to enjoy life. Her books and letters are one feast after another.
" --Frank McCourt, Pulitzer Prize winning author of Angela''s Ashes Praise for M.F.K. Fisher''s Provence "Fisher''s lyrical prose and scenes of everyday grace caught by Ah-Tye''s lens will remind readers of the cultural gentility that is France. The effort will leave you refreshed and inspired." -- Christian Science Monitor Praise for Culinary Delights "Fisher was scarcely the first writer to connect the pleasures of food and sex, but she is among the cleverest to do so." -- Booklist Praise for A Stew or A Story "There are some sprightly riffs with menus. a finely drawn evocation of life at a small California boarding school for girls, much like the ones she attended and where she briefly taught, is as real and touching as her time with Chexbres.
Lovers of Fisher should have A Stew or A Story on their shelves for those pieces alone." -- New York Times "Fisher''s food writing was ahead of its time. As these enjoyable pieces show, she was also a witty writer who offered astute observations along with the occasional recipe." -- Library Journal Praise for With Bold Knife and Fork "[Fisher] writes as one intelligent adult to another--practically, often profoundly, and always beautifully. If eating means more to you than steak drowned in bottled sauces, then she''s what you''ve been looking for." -- San Francisco Examiner Praise for M.F.K.
Fisher "It is a special pleasure to open a book of nearly 500 pages and hear on each one of them the distinctive, quirky, personable, contradictory and altogether artful Fisher voice." -- New York Times Book Review Praise for The Traitor''s Niche 1 of 19 Translated Books to Add to Your Reading List This Summer (Signature Reads) "Finally (and very elegantly) translated . Riveting." -- The New York Times Book Review "The novel relentlessly exposes the impact of authoritarianism, showing how it crushes the human spirit--including, perhaps most perniciously, the souls of those who aspire to be autocrats. Reading the book today, one can understand the response it provoked from the communist censors, since its critique, though displaced in time, is clearly directed at Hoxha''s regime. Yet the story is also a more encompassing parable of authoritarianism that is relevant far beyond its immediate historical moment . Kadare also shows a unique talent at peering inside the mind of a tyrant . In The Traitor''s Niche , as in all his best works, Kadare powerfully evokes--and critiques--the sheer, irascible strangeness of unchecked power.
" -- Los Angeles Review of Books "Kadare''s Traitor''s Niche is a short, rich, thickly described indictment of empire, nationalism, and the state, a timely meditation on the violences of bureaucracy, corruption, and the injustice of justice." --PopMatters "If A Girl in Exile , with its reckoning of the moral compromises made under totalitarianism, is typical of Mr. Kadare''s post-Communist writing, The Traitor''s Niche (Counterpoint, 200 pages, $25) exemplifies the remarkable multilayered fiction he created during Hoxha''s rule . Like A Girl in Exile , the translation is by John Hodgson, who has superbly captured Mr. Kadare''s mixture of stark expository writing and sudden swerves into hallucinatory imagery . The book''s political intentions are shrewd and unmistakable. By depicting the corruption and whimsical cruelty of the Ottoman Empire, Mr. Kadare smuggles in a damning appraisal of Albanian Communism .
Its evocation of the past feels both contemporary (tourists flock to Istanbul to gawk at the severed head, and you can almost imagine them taking cellphone photos) and outside of time. Mr. Kadare has more in common with William Faulkner, a writer who spins mythology out of regional legends. This, too, is a moral project as well as an artistic one. In The Traitor''s Niche , Mr. Kadare delineates the Ottoman Empire''s efforts to vouchsafe subservience by expunging Albania of its language and customs. This unforgettable novel adds to his lifelong work of cultural reclamation. The past is uncannily present in his books--a phantom that walks among the living, or a severed head that seems to lock you in its gaze.
" -- The Wall Street Journal "This is a mesmerising story filled with rapidly drawn, memorable characters and vivid descriptions of architecture and desolate landscapes. It is a fable while also a portrait of subjugation." -- The Financial Times "Although on the surface this is a deeply compelling historical novel, its scope is wider. At heart, what Kadare seeks to demonstrate is the terrible nature of a world in which every human element is suborned to the state. Kadare well deserves his growing European audience." -- Daily Telegraph "An extraordinary and complex novel whose time has come. 40 years after its initial publication [in Albanian.]" -- Herald "The baroque madness of the Ottoman bureaucracy is beautifully drawn, and the characters are s.