Abstract: This book explores the domestic activities of the residents of the Octagon, a Federal period house in Washington, DC, in the early nineteenth century through the display and social use of food. The author captures the unique quality of the Washington environment as reflected in its habits of etiquette, dining, and entertaining, which shaped many of America's social and cultural patterns. The high style life of the residents of the Octagon is set within the context of the daily experience of more ordinary people.
What looks like a consciously altruistic effort to encapsulate one woman's entire life into lessons for the benefit of womankind may be just that: after divulging every gruesome detail of her spiral into anorexia and subsequent self-discoveries in this memoir, Knapp died of lung cancer last June at age 42. Similar in tone to her previous Drinking: A Love Story, this work is candid and persuasive enough to reach many women with analogous problems. But it's more than one woman's tragic story; multitudinous interviews with women with eating disorders, excerpts from classic feminist texts and sociological statistics lend credence and categorize the book under cultural studies as much as self-help. Knapp hypothesizes that the feminists who came after the revolutionary 1960s, herself included, were stifled rather than empowered by the overwhelming choices before them. They gained ''the freedom to hunger and to satisfy hunger in all its varied forms.'' Unfortunately, writes Knapp, size-obsessed fashion magazines and other social messages contradict a woman's right to desire, contributing to the rise in eating disorders and other illnesses. Knapp observes an aspect of the backlash against the feminist movement: when ''women were demanding the right to take up more space in the world,'' they were being told by a still patriarchal society ''to grow physically smaller.'' Though Knapp admits it's ''easier to worry about the body than the soul,'' she hopes creating a dialogue about anorexia will enable all women to nourish both.
Appetites and Aspirations in Vietnam explores how people in Vietnam used food and drink to strengthen their social position during the "long" nineteenth century, from the 1790s to the 1920s.
Pulitzer Prize in General Nonfiction finalist Winner of the 2014 National Book Award in nonfiction. As the Beijing correspondent for The New Yorker, Evan Osnos was on the ground in China for years, witness to profound political, economic, and cultural upheaval. Age of Ambition provides a vibrant, colorful, and revelatory inner history of China during a moment of profound transformation. From abroad, we often see China as a caricature: a nation of pragmatic plutocrats and ruthlessly dedicated students destined to rule the global economy-or an addled Goliath, riddled with corruption and on the edge of stagnation. What we don't see is how both powerful and ordinary people are remaking their lives as their country dramatically changes. In Age of Ambition, Osnos describes the greatest collision taking place in that country: the clash between the rise of the individual and the Communist Party's struggle to retain control. He asks probing questions: Why does a government with more success lifting people from poverty than any civilization in history choose to put strict restraints on freedom of expression? Why do millions of young Chinese professionals-fluent in English and devoted to Western pop culture-consider themselves "angry youth," dedicated to resisting the West's influence? How are Chinese from all strata finding meaning after two decades of the relentless pursuit of wealth? Writing with great narrative verve and a keen sense of irony, Osnos follows the moving stories of everyday people and reveals life in the new China to be a battleground between aspiration and authoritarianism, in which only one can prevail. An Economist Best Book of 2014. Winner of the bronze medal for the Council on Foreign Relations’ 2015 Arthur Ross Book Award
In Carnal Appetites, Elspeth Probyn charts the explosion of interest in food - from the cults that spring up around celebrity chefs, to our love/hate relationship with fast food, our fetishization of food and sex, and the impact of our modes of consumption on our identities. 'You are what you eat' the saying goes, but is the tenet truer than ever? As the range of food options proliferates in the West, our food choices become inextricably linked with our lives and lifestyles. Probyn also tackles issues that trouble society, asking questions about the nature of appetite, desire, greed and pleasure, and shedding light on subjects including: fast food, vegetarianism, food sex, cannibalism, forced feeding, and fat politics.
Quinn Foster is a restaurant critic with a discerning palate for fine food, and an equally discerning eye for the beauty of African American chef Jameka Rollins. A deliberate mix up of a review for Jameka's restaurant, The Bayou Bistro, causes some severe misunderstandings between the two singles.Helping this mix-up along is a work rival of Quinn's, Stan Turner. Jealous of Quinn's success and status at work, and of his growing romance with the lovely Jameka, Stan sets out with a plan to discredit Quinn and win Jameka away from the man. But as is the way with best laid plans, they often go awry, and can, in fact, get downright dangerous.
