Reading in Reykjavík

Originally published in October 2004, on my original 52 Books blog. Author: Anthony Bourdain Year published: 2001 Pages: 274 Genre: Travel, food Where got: Public library I’ve wanted to see the TV series ever since I read about it on a cooking website, but for now I will have to make do with the book. This is the story of Bourdain’s round-the-world journey in search of interesting food and eating situations. This was first just supposed to be a travel-foodie book, but then Television got involved, and he ended up traveling around with a TV crew in tow. Some of the visits yielded plenty of delicious food, like the visit to The French Laundry in California, others were nostalgic and unfulfilling like the trip to France, and still others pointless, like the journey to Pailin in Cambodia. The dining experiences were sometimes exotic, often delicious, at other times scary or just horrible. Some brought the intrepid chef face to face with his food, still on the hoof, or swimm...

Book 4 in my first 52 books challenge. Originally published in several parts on February 16-21, 2004. Part 1: Author : Anthony Bourdain Published : 2000 Where got : Public library Genre : Autobiography I first got wind of this book shortly after it was published in 2000, when, browsing on Salon.com, I came across an excerpt from it. I liked the style which is refreshingly honest and has great descriptions of people, and I immediately decided I wanted to read it. Below is a link to that excerpt: Kitchen god Parts 2-3: Kitchen Confidential extract Interview with Bourdain Anthony Bourdain’s top 10 books about food Part 4: Kitchen Confidential is for the most part a memoir, but one which is interspersed with anecdotes and advise and littered with profanity. This funny and entertaining account of Anthony Bourdain's progress from dishwasher to chef is written in a tough and macho tone and sprinkled with inventive vulgarisms that might offend some readers and make others laugh out lo...

Year published: 1997 Genre: Crime, thriller, comic Setting & time: (mostly) the Caribbean island of Saint Martin; 1990s. The Story: Between hits, laid-back professional assassin Henry lives an idyllic life on the Caribbean island of Saint Martin with his wife Frances, but things get complicated when an assignment goes wrong and one of the intended victims survives. The injured capo agrees to bear witness against his former Mafia associates and is moved to Saint Martin by the authorities to keep him out of harm's way. However, their idyll is about to be disturbed because the mafioso who ordered the hit has sent out people to track down the capo and Henry and kill them both. Technique and rating: This is a better put-together book than the previous thriller I read by Bourdain ( Bone in the Throat ) in that it focuses on fewer characters and there are no extraneous storylines here that interfere with the main story, making it more focused and streamlined. It is loosely connecte...

Here’s another review I wrote shortly after I read the book (in 2007), and then forgot to post. Discovering it has reminded me that I still have the sequel left to read. Year published: 1995 Genre: Crime, thriller, comic Setting & time: New York, USA; 1990s The Story: The book tells the story through the eyes of several characters, but the protagonist is Tommy Pagano, a young sous-chef at a restaurant he doesn’t know is a front for the FBI who are using it to trap some loan-mongering crooks, one of whom is Tommy’s uncle. Other characters include the tragic figure of the drug-addicted chef, the restaurant boss who is trying to keep both the FBI and the mafia happy so he can keep running his restaurant as long as possible, and a couple of FBI men who are trying to do their jobs. Tommy’s world begins to crumble around him when he witnesses a gruesome crime but can’t report it because it would lead to his own death. The chef gets into trouble over his addiction and tries to quit, a...