Books

Breadcrumb Trail Links Life Eating & Drinking Culture Books 'The kitchen is the worst room in the house if you are disabled,' says the commercial food photographer, writer and advocate. With his cookbook debut, he is on a mission to change that Get the latest from Laura Brehaut straight to your inbox Sign Up Published Jul 28, 2023  •  Last updated 5 minutes ago  •  6 minute read Inspired by Urvashi Pitre, butter chicken was one of the first dishes Jules Sherred made in…

Colson Whitehead’s vivid, noirish Harlem Shuffle – whose sequel, Crook Manifesto, arrives in print this month – features Ray Carney, a wise-cracking, hard-working furniture salesman with connections to New York’s criminal underworld.Carney, whose story is told over three acts, is the son of a long-deceased local hoodlum and is “only slightly bent when it comes to being crooked”. As the proprietor of Carney’s Furniture, he serves the black clientele in his neighbourhood, selling “gently used” items with a generous credit…

I was browsing through the many charity shops in Epsom when I chanced upon a three-piece Peter Rabbit dinnerware set ideal for nursery-age children. There were no kittens in pinafores or toads in dinner jackets on this tableware; instead, Peter Rabbit, resplendent in a blue jacket with brass buttons, grabbed the spotlight. PREMIUM Author and illustrator Beatrix Potter (28 July 1866-22 December 1943) (HT Photo) Peter Rabbit took me back way into the past, to a time when I was a child and was gifted an…

My earliest reading memoryThe Magic Faraway Tree by Enid Blyton was my first book without pictures; I was seven, at school in England. What hooked me was a concept: a ladder poked through the clouds at the top of a tree. Above was a world where laws and norms were different, where you could cavort like an innocent – but after a time, an unsettled wind blew in and swept the land away. I still find this describes our passage through seasons of life.My favourite book growing upOne that strangely haunted me was Arthur…

The celebrity mountain lion known as P-22 was trapped and euthanised because of illness last year, after more than a decade stalking Los Angeles. P-22 was a metaphorical powerhouse: the American dream, human rapaciousness, immigration, fame, Hollywood masculinity – was there anything he couldn’t stand in for? His memorial service sold out in minutes; he kept many US journalists in gainful, precarious employment; and a version of him stars in Henry Hoke’s Open Throat.In Hollywood, cats have pronouns and this one’s are…

An invention which wreaks unspeakable suffering vs an invention upon which unspeakable suffering has been wrought by children the world over. A theoretical physicist gazing into a burnt-orange mushroom cloud spelling the dead-end for humankind vs a dress-up doll whose bubble-gum cotton-candy fantasy is disrupted by thoughts about the human (and female) condition. Cillian Murphy’s sharp jawline and shellshocked eyes vs Margot Robbie’s megawatt smile and wavy blonde hair. Welcome to Barbenheimer. The same-day release of…

Japan’s bestselling living novelist Haruki Murakami started writing aged 30 and became a literary sensation in 1987 when his fifth novel Norwegian Wood was published. His mixture of realistic and dreamlike narratives has earned him a dedicated fanbase, and his name is often floated as a contender for the Nobel prize in literature. If you’re new to him, or want to re-read his greatest hits, Katie Goh suggests some places to start.The entry pointMurakami’s novels can be crudely separated into two categories: the fantastic…

In medieval Europe, poor people cheered themselves up by telling stories about the land of Cockaigne, where rivers flowed with wine, churches were made of puddings and it rained delicious fluffy cheese. Here was a fantasy of sensual excess, a caricature of the peasant dream of material abundance to keep you going through the dark ages.Not all utopias have been quite so big on the pleasures of the belly. Indeed, as Niall Kishtainy demonstrates in this glorious book, the dreamers and schemers who conjure up ideal future…

In Violent Fraternity, Shruti Kapila examines the interaction of political ideas and political leaders in the larger context of India’s anti-colonial struggle and the making of post-colonial India. The theoretical analysis is mainly based on the ideas and views of figures such as Gandhi, Ambedkar, Nehru, Mohammad Iqbal, BG Tilak, Sardar Patel and others. The driving idea seems to be to locate political ideas generated in India in their rightful place within the rich tapestry of global political thought. Clearly, the…

There are historical novels, and then there are fancy dress novels – though these often pass as historical novels. The historical novelist will try to get every detail right. Food, clothing and vocabulary have to be verifiably period. The writer of fancy dress fiction, by contrast, is more concerned with capturing the general vibe of the world they’re aiming to reinhabit. Attitude is everything.The same holds for historical dramas on TV and film. A recent example of a triumphantly fancy dress movie is Marie Kreutzer’s…