Cathy's gabbygourmet.com Column

In the time honored tradition of the French and psychiatrists I was tempted to take August off and rather than writing about books just retreat to the mountains and read read read. Well, this is not France and I am not a psychiatrist, and anyway I hate to miss an opportunity to spread the word about great books that have just hit the shelves of the Tattered Cover. This is a prime time of year for paperback releases and I've chosen a selection that have just come out for your reading pleasure.

Starting with our always beloved food theme we have Denver's answer to Anthony Bourdain.
Cooking Dirty: A Story of Life, Sex, Love and Death in the Kitchen
By Jason Sheehan
Jason was Westword's food writer and COOKING DIRTY is his account of a career spent largely at what he calls 'the low end of the culinary world'. Very funny, and, like Bourdain, takes you places that you may not want to go but can't look away.

Frank Bruni is more focused on the front of the house and the size of his waistline.
Born Round: The Secret History of a Full Time Eater By Frank Bruni
Bruni was the New York Times restaurant critic from 2004 to 2009. His wonderfully rendered memoir talks about his lifelong struggle with his weight and his subsequent love hate relationship with food and how he was able to manage all that in one of the most prominent jobs for a foodie imaginable.

Brad Kessler takes us to the source.
Goat Song: A Seasonal Life, a Short History of Herding, and the Art of Making Cheese By Brad Kessler
Acclaimed novelist Brad Kessler lived in New York City but longed for a life on the land where he could grow his own food. After years of searching for a home, he and his wife, photographer Dona Ann McAdams, found a mountain farmhouse on a dead-end road, with seventy-five acres of land. One day, when Dona returned home with fresh goat milk from a neighbor's farm, Kessler made a fresh chèvre, and their lives changed forever. They decided to raise dairy goats and make cheese. This is their story about living intimately with animals and by nature's rules.

I can't resit a quick list of some of my recent favorites in paperback fiction:

Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver
In her most accomplished novel, Barbara Kingsolver takes us on an epic journey from the Mexico City of artists Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo to the America of Pearl Harbor, FDR, and J. Edgar Hoover. The Lacuna is a poignant story of a man pulled between two nations as they invent their modern identities.

In the Heart of the Canyon By Elisabeth Hyde
From the author of The Abortionist's Daughter, a gripping novel about a rafting trip through the Grand Canyon that changes the lives of everyone on board. And as my good friend, bookseller Joe Foster has said, when you are on a trip like this there is at least one total jerk in the group. If you haven't identified the jerk then it's probably you. As you expect, the trip takes a turn for the worst and we see how the cast of characters deals with adversity.


This Is Where I Leave You By Jonathan Tropper
This is very funny novel. An estranged family is forced to sit shiva to fulfill the wish of their departed patriarch. The close quarters and high pitched emotions lead to the unpeeling of a bag onions worth of layers of betrayal and secrets. And it's still funny!



Her Fearful Symmetry By Audrey Niffenegger
From the author of Time Traveler's Wife, a modern day ghost story set in Highgate Cemetery in London, where American twins take up residence in their dead but not quite departed Aunt's flat.




One Day By David Nicholls
This trade paperback original was a huge bestseller in the UK and leaped onto our list before the printer's ink was dry. Movie in the making. Hot! It's 1988 and Dexter Mayhew and Emma Morley have only just met. They both know that the
next day, after college graduation, they must go their separate ways. But after only one day together, they cannot stop thinking about one another. As the years go by, Dex and Em begin to lead separate lives-lives very different from the people they once dreamed they'd become. And yet, unable to let go of that special something that grabbed onto them that first night, an extraordinary relationship develops between the two.

Over twenty years, snapshots of that relationship are revealed on the same day-July 15th-of each year. Dex and Em face squabbles and fights, hopes and missed opportunities, laughter and tears. And as the true meaning of this one crucial day is revealed, they must come to grips with the nature of love and life itself.