false http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172366210m/169510.jpg 169510 18 A gorgeous, dark, and sensuous book that is part cookbook, part novel, part eccentric philosophical treatise, reminiscent of perhaps the greatest of all books on food, Jean-Anthelme Brillat Savarin's The Physiology of Taste. Join Tarquin Winot as he embarks on a journey of the senses, regaling us with his wickedly funny, poisonously opinionated meditations on everything from the erotics of dislike to the psychology of a menu, from the perverse history of the peach to the brutalization of the palate, from cheese as "the corpse of milk" to the binding action of blood. 163686 book 1996 The Debt to Pleasure: A Novel total:339|5:93|4:94|3:101|2:34|1:17| 339 1229 570 70 1 2 false false Wed Nov 26 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Wed Nov 12 11:34:40 -0800 2008 Sun Nov 30 09:18:28 -0800 2008 1 more...]]> 5 2 false false Tue Sep 25 12:33:27 -0700 2007 Wed Sep 26 20:05:00 -0700 2007 more...]]> 5 1 false false Thu Sep 01 00:00:00 -0700 2005 Sun Sep 30 13:35:42 -0700 2007 Sun Sep 30 13:48:17 -0700 2007 more...]]> 3 1 false false Sun Feb 17 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Tue Mar 04 14:22:03 -0800 2008 Tue Mar 04 14:31:19 -0800 2008 more...]]> 5 1 false false Wed May 01 00:00:00 -0700 1996 Wed Jul 11 00:38:34 -0700 2007 Wed Jul 11 00:50:53 -0700 2007 The Physiology of Taste) crossed with Nabokov's Charles Kinbote and you may come up with someone like Tarquin Winot, Francophile food editor and fabulously insane narrator of this deliciously evil little gem. I envy the aficionado of comic fiction who...more...]]> 4 1 false false Sun Mar 01 00:00:00 -0800 1998 Sun Sep 02 13:06:13 -0700 2007 Sun Sep 02 13:06:13 -0700 2007 2 0 false false Sun Feb 01 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Fri Feb 06 17:39:22 -0800 2009 Fri Feb 06 17:44:52 -0800 2009
The *author* is not a bad writer, and has been quite clever, piling conceit upon conceit. But the narrator's bloated pretentious writing style--though it informs the reader's understanding of his character--...more...]]> 5 1 false false Sat Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2000 Wed Apr 30 10:24:08 -0700 2008 Wed Apr 30 10:24:47 -0700 2008 5 0 false false Fri Sep 19 07:12:41 -0700 2008 Fri Sep 19 07:13:00 -0700 2008 more...]]> 3 0 false false Thu Jul 19 03:44:24 -0700 2007 Tue Jul 24 12:28:57 -0700 2007 more...]]> 3 0 false false Mon Feb 23 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Wed Feb 18 06:16:56 -0800 2009 Thu Feb 26 06:33:15 -0800 2009
This ended up being more along the lines of a Proustian meander down memory lane - most of the side tracking inspired by various menus, although certainly not all. As the stroll pr...more...]]> 1 0 false false Sun Mar 01 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Mon Oct 19 23:06:25 -0700 2009 Mon Oct 19 23:06:49 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false false Wed Aug 19 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Tue Aug 18 13:50:06 -0700 2009 Sat Aug 22 17:54:56 -0700 2009 more...]]> 0 0 false false Wed Apr 08 18:16:11 -0700 2009 Wed Apr 08 18:16:11 -0700 2009 Pure wicked literary pleasure. Well received when published, but not nearly as well read as deserved. Ghostly progenitor: Nabokov’s Pale Fire.

-- Ron Rosenbaum, "The Best Novels You've Never Read," New York Magazinemore...]]> 4 0 false false Wed Apr 23 06:52:27 -0700 2008 Thu May 22 11:34:02 -0700 2008
Written in the voice of the world's most singularly egotistical self-proclaimed gourmand, ostensibly writing his own memoirs-cum-cookbook, the book appears to be a satiric take on self-absorbed culinary autobiographies. It is, ...more...]]> 4 0 false false Fri Jan 23 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Wed Jan 21 12:37:56 -0800 2009 Thu Jan 29 12:19:22 -0800 2009 1 0 false false Sat Oct 10 07:09:52 -0700 2009 Sat Oct 10 07:12:43 -0700 2009 5 0 false false Mon Jan 26 07:21:29 -0800 2009 Mon Jan 26 07:24:29 -0800 2009 3 0 false false Mon Oct 05 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Wed Nov 14 12:18:23 -0800 2007 Mon Oct 05 09:28:53 -0700 2009 The Collector by John Fowles. But instead of loving it, I continued to stumble over the super-ego of the narrator and the overwhel...more...]]> 4 0 false true Tue Sep 02 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Thu Oct 18 10:41:26 -0700 2007 Wed Sep 03 11:47:54 -0700 2008 more...]]> http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=169510