Number One Chinese Restaurant - Lillian Li

Staff Pick

I am very biased toward Number One Chinese Restaurant for reasons that have nothing to do with the book itself. It’s a debut novel by a writer from the DC area—plus, her name is very close to mine. Usually, when I’m biased toward a novel for such silly reasons, it then disappoints me.  Not this time! Number One Chinese Restaurant is a delight. Its food writing is as good as you want it to be, its characters are wonderful and wonderfully awful, and Li is expert at braiding together her high level of insight with her great sense of humor. Early in the book, one of her protagonists remembers ruefully, “Love came slowly, as weaknesses in the body often do.” As soon as I read that, I was sold.

Number One Chinese Restaurant: A Novel By Lillian Li Cover Image
$27.00
ISBN: 9781250141293
Availability: Special Order—Subject to Availability
Published: Henry Holt and Co. - June 19th, 2018

Motherhood - Sheila Heti

Staff Pick

Imagine Sheila Heti’s last book, How Should A Person Be?, mixed with Jenny Offill’s Dept. of Speculation and the I Ching, and you already know what reading Motherhood is like. Confusing, charming, and heartbreaking in equal measure, Heti’s maybe-a-novel takes us deep into the thoughts of a writer debating, you got it, motherhood. Whether she’s interpreting her dreams or holding a friend’s baby, flipping coins at her desk or smoking with strangers on book tour, the unnamed narrator is honest, relatable, and perfectly voiced. I loved spending time in her head.

Motherhood: A Novel By Sheila Heti Cover Image
$27.00
ISBN: 9781627790772
Availability: Special Order—Subject to Availability
Published: Henry Holt and Co. - May 1st, 2018

Something Old, Something New: Classic Recipes Revised - Tamar Adler

Staff Pick

Tamar Adler has had more of an impact on the way I eat than anyone but my mother. Her essays and books—first An Everlasting Meal, now Something Old, Something New—are all about taking pleasure in the fact of food. She can make celery root sound luxurious, kale stems seem fancy. She can make you long for stale bread, or, in Something Old, Something New, for Salisbury steak and lettuce soup. Her genius is re-framing, whether it’s turning stale bread into garlicky crumbs or a strange ‘50s clam recipe into perfect, modern clams casino. She’s a pleasure to read, and her recipes (and un-recipes) are a pleasure to cook. I cannot recommend her enough.

Something Old, Something New: Classic Recipes Revised By Tamar Adler, Mindy Dubin (Illustrator) Cover Image
By Tamar Adler, Mindy Dubin (Illustrator)
$27.00
ISBN: 9781476799612
Availability: Special Order—Subject to Availability
Published: Scribner - April 3rd, 2018

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