Ellen Guppy is the reluctant heroine of Ethel Wilson’s final novel, Love and Salt Water. Saddened by a painful childhood, Ellen has adopted a skeptical independence and learned too well to hold her heart in reserve. But, as the novel unfolds, Ellen undergoes something of a sea-change; learning to accept love along with the sorrow that is rarely far from love. First published in 1956, Love and Salt Water is a mature and, at times, disturbing synthesis of Ethel Wilson’s major themes: the independence of human lives, the strange alchemy of chance, and the healing illumination of love.
Ellen Guppy is the reluctant heroine of Ethel Wilson’s final novel,Love and Salt Water. Saddened by a painful childhood, Ellen has adopted a skeptical independence and learned too well to hold her heart in reserve. But, as the novel unfolds, Ellen undergoes something of a sea-change; learning to accept love along with the sorrow that is rarely far from love. First published in 1956,Love and Salt Wateris a mature and, at times, disturbing synthesis of Ethel Wilson’s major themes: the independence of human lives, the strange alchemy of chance, and the healing illumination of love.
Ethel Wilson is one of Canada's most important writers. This biography draws on archival material and interviews to describe, in detail, her early life as an orphan in England and Vancouver and her long writer's apprenticeship, spanning from the publication of some children's stories in 1919 to the appearance of "Hetty Dorval" in 1947. 2003.
Peter Bush, winner of the Ramon Llull Prize for Literary Translation, brings to English this most prolific and influential of Catalan writers. Dripping with a panache that can turn in a comic instant to the most conciliatory humility, Josep Pla's foray into the land and sea most familiar to him will plunge readers head-first into its mysterious (and often tasty!) depths. Here are adventures and shipwrecks, raspy storytellers and the fishy meals that sustain them. After describing the process of beating an octopus with branches to soften up its flesh, Pla writes, "These are dishes that must be seen as a last resort." Pla inflects the mundane with the hidden rhythms of power sculpting culture, so that a hot supper is never just food--it embodies economic precarity and environmental erosion along with its own peculiar flavor. A lifetime of reporting on current events gave Pla the necessary skills to describe the world in all its gritty, funny, invigorating detail.
A Best Book of 2020: Open Letters Review "Andrews’s writing is transportingly voluptuous, conjuring tastes and smells and sounds like her literary godmother, Edna O’Brien . . . What makes her novel sing is its universal themes: how a young woman tries to make sense of her world, and how she grows up." –Penelope Green, The New York Times Book Review This “luminous” (TheObserver) feminist coming-of-age novel captures in sensuous, blistering prose the richness and imperfection of the bond between a daughter and her mother It begins with our bodies . . . Safe together in the violet dark and yet already there are spaces beginning to open between us. From that first immaculate, fluid connection, through the ups and downs of a working-class childhood in northern England, the one constant in Lucy’s life has been her mother: comforting and mysterious, ferociously loving, tirelessly devoted, as much a part of Lucy as her own skin. Her mother's lessons in womanhood shape Lucy’s appreciation for desire, her sense of duty as a caretaker, her hunger for a better, perhaps reckless life. At university in glamorous London, Lucy’s background sets her apart. And then she is finished, graduated, adrift. She escapes to a tiny house in Donegal left empty by her grandfather, a place where her mother once found happiness. There she will take a lover, live inside art and the past, and track back through her memories and her mother’s stories to make sense of her place in the world. In “a stunning new voice in British literary fiction” (The Independent) that lays bare our raw, dark selves, Jessica Andrews’s debut honors the richness and imperfection of the bond between a daughter and her mother. Intricately woven in lyrical vignettes, Saltwater is a novel of becoming-- a woman, an artist-- and of finding a way forward by looking back.
Named by Garden & Gun as one of the best books of 2018, For the Love of the South captures the essence of Southern culture—a deep devotion to family, friends, and food—in a charming cookbook featuring delicious, comforting recipes, her recollections of growing up on the bayous of Louisiana, and more than 100 full-color and black-and-white photographs. Amber Wilson’s popular blog, For the Love of the South, reflects the generosity, cordiality, and sense of tradition that are the heart of Southern culture. In her engaging posts, she shares personal, entertaining stories about her childhood in the deep South, pays tribute to her heritage, and presents mouthwatering recipes that showcase the best of the region’s cooking, accompanied by gorgeous photos. In this first book, drawn from her popular website, she brings together 100 delectable, accessible, and easy-to-make recipes for Southern classics, and mixes them with delightful family anecdotes, which convey her love and respect for her roots. A terrific cook and captivating writer, Amber is also an accomplished photographer. For the Love of the South showcases 100 of her pictures—both black-and-white and color images of ingredient prep and finished dishes, as well as photos that evoke quintessential Southern life. No matter where in the country you live, no matter if you’ve barely used a stove or are an old hand around the kitchen, Amber teaches you how to master a host of Southern dishes, from starters to desserts. The recipes use inexpensive, readily available ingredients and come with instructive, encouraging directions. Learn to make a roux, perfect the popover, fry okra, lattice a piecrust, and create irresistible gumbos and jambalayas like a true Southerner. From Pain Perdu, Pimento Hushpuppies, Corn Bisque, and Spicy Oven-Roasted Okra to Tomato and Bacon Sandwich with Chipotle Mayonnaise, Nashville Hot Chicken, Cajun Jambalaya, and Bacon-Latticed Apple Pie, there’s something tasty for everyone. Amber offers a pantry-full of time- and money-saving kitchen tips—from storing and freezing bacon to prolonging fresh berries in the fridge, seasoning cast-iron skillets, and making vanilla extract—and provides helpful do-ahead and leftover-saving tips for many recipes as well. Grab a chair, sit down for a spell, and enjoy a taste of Southern life and food with For the Love of the South.
When Amy Andrews and Jessica Mesman Griffith met in a creative writing class in graduate school, they both confessed to writing about God. They bonded one night while reading the Book of Ruth and came to truly understand the unlikely friendship of Ruth and Naomi. In these two Old Testament women, they witnessed a beautiful spiritual friendship and a way of walking with one another toward God. But how could they travel this path together when they would be separated by distance and time and leading busy lives as they established marriages and careers? They decided to write letters to each other—at first, for each day of Lent, but those days extended into years. Their letters became a memoir in real time and reveal deeply personal and profound accounts of conversion, motherhood, and crushing tragedy; through it all, their faith and friendship sustained them. Told through the timeless medium of letters—in prose that is raw and intimate, humorous and poetic—Love & Salt is at its core the emotional struggle of how one spiritual friendship is formed and tested in tragedy, tempered and proven in hope.
CHOSEN BY MAGGIE O'FARRELL IN THE GUARDIAN AS ONE OF HER BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR 'It's a slice of a life . . . a complex, intelligent, beautiful, thoughtful, rather lyrical book' -Cathy Rentzenbrink, author of The Last Act of Love 'A moving treatise on inheritance, not just of a disease like cystic fibrosis, but of our attitudes to living and loving, our sense of cultural and familial landscape, and how these intangibles pass down through generations. Stevenson picks apart her life like a strand of DNA to uncover just how we become the sum of our parts' Daily Telegraph 'A beautiful memoir . . . [Stevenson] is a novelist and a translator and her memoir is about translation in the larger sense. Translating the world is what we all do but she reminds us that one can hope - with a mind as intricately well read and original as hers - to translate misfortune; to absorb and see beyond it . . . Stevenson makes of poetry, fiction and philosophy a protective shawl for her story . . . Although intense she has a carefree wit' Kate Kellaway, Observer 'Love Like Salt is a human triumph ... Ultimately, Love Like Salt follows in the hallowed footsteps of Helen MacDonald's brilliant H is for Hawk or Cathy Rentzenbrink's The Last Act of Love. These are not misery memoirs but reminders that life comes in all shades - that in the darkest moments, beauty and humour can be found' Francesca Brown, Stylist 'Did Clara taste salty when I kissed her? She did. She tasted of mermaids, of the sea.' Love Like Salt is a deeply affecting memoir, beautifully and intelligently written. It is about mothers and daughters, music and illness, genes and inheritance, writing and story-telling. It is about creating joy from the hand you've been dealt and following its lead - in this case to rural France, where the author and her family lived for seven years. And back again. 'I had always written, and until the birth of Clara I wrote for a living. Once I knew the Cystic Fibrosis gene had unfolded itself in our daughter's body, like a paper flower meeting water, I felt that to write, even if I had had time, or been able, would have been to squander a kind of power which was needed for tending and nurturing. Every moment became a moment in which I protected my baby. Some of it I did in secret, like a madwoman muttering spells. I thought of her as a candle, cupping my hand around her. A beautifully written memoir, in the vein of H is for Hawk and The Last Act of Love, about motherhood, music and living the best life you can, even in the shadow of illness.
