Some readers may wish the prose had a little more grit or character, but the book will surely appeal to Simmons’ many fans.
From the popular judge and host of Top Chef, a memoir of a life devoted to the romance of food and the business of restaurants.
To her credit, Simmons notes that she has led a fortunate life, in which her career “coincided, serendipitously, with a widespread boom in enthusiasm about the culinary world.” The author grew up as the child of South African and Canadian Jewish parents in Montreal, circumstances which instilled in her a cultural curiosity and desire to travel. Uncertain how to build a career as a food writer, Simmons began with local lifestyle magazines, and soon moved to New York, where she took the unusual step of attending cooking school, then worked briefly on the lines at renowned restaurants Le Cirque 2000 and Vong (which gave her authority later in the media world). She received fortuitous boosts from luminaries like Daniel Boulud and Jeffrey Steingarten, culminating in positions at Food & Wine, which led to her selection by Bravo for Top Chef. The show quickly became popular, as did the spin-off Just Desserts, which she hosts (an experience she describes as surprising in its challenges and 14-hour days). Simmons describes the shows in terms that are specific about the complexities and stress of their production, but not hugely revelatory otherwise—e.g., “On Top Chef, we typically only see chefs on their best behavior.” Although each chapter opens with an evocative description of food or a meal, her writing is straightforward and relaxed. Many famous chefs make appearances, but readers looking for dirt or sensuous flights of foodie detail will be disappointed, and the chapters that focus on Simmons recent personal life are less engaging. The book is most appealing as a professional overview of the dining industry’s explosive growth and public profile during the last decade, even during the recession.
Some readers may wish the prose had a little more grit or character, but the book will surely appeal to Simmons’ many fans.Pub Date: Feb. 21, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-4013-2450-6
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Hyperion
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
A wonderful page-turner written with humility, immediacy, and great style. Nothing came cheap and easy to McCandless, nor...
The excruciating story of a young man on a quest for knowledge and experience, a search that eventually cooked his goose, told with the flair of a seasoned investigative reporter by Outside magazine contributing editor Krakauer (Eiger Dreams, 1990).
Chris McCandless loved the road, the unadorned life, the Tolstoyan call to asceticism. After graduating college, he took off on another of his long destinationless journeys, this time cutting all contact with his family and changing his name to Alex Supertramp. He was a gent of strong opinions, and he shared them with those he met: "You must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life''; "be nomadic.'' Ultimately, in 1992, his terms got him into mortal trouble when he ran up against something—the Alaskan wild—that didn't give a hoot about Supertramp's worldview; his decomposed corpse was found 16 weeks after he entered the bush. Many people felt McCandless was just a hubris-laden jerk with a death wish (he had discarded his map before going into the wild and brought no food but a bag of rice). Krakauer thought not. Admitting an interest that bordered on obsession, he dug deep into McCandless's life. He found a willful, reckless, moody boyhood; an ugly little secret that sundered the relationship between father and son; a moral absolutism that agitated the young man's soul and drove him to extremes; but he was no more a nutcase than other pilgrims. Writing in supple, electric prose, Krakauer tries to make sense of McCandless (while scrupulously avoiding off-the-rack psychoanalysis): his risky behavior and the rites associated with it, his asceticism, his love of wide open spaces, the flights of his soul.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-42850-X
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Villard
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1995
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