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Small Fires Rebecca May Johnson

Small Fires By Rebecca May Johnson

Small Fires by Rebecca May Johnson


$12.37
Condition - Very Good
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Summary

New in paperback: Small Fires is the thrillingly original book that is shaking up the food writing scene and challenging how we think about cooking and the kitchen

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Small Fires Summary

Small Fires: An Epic in the Kitchen by Rebecca May Johnson

A BRACINGLY ORIGINAL, BOUNDARY BREAKING EXPLORATION OF COOKING AND THE KITCHEN, FROM A RISING STAR IN FOOD WRITING 'A manifesto for reclaiming cooking as an intellectual... a brave, honest book' SUNDAY TIMES 'An intense thought-provoking enquiry into the very nature of cooking, which stayed with me long after I finished reading it' NIGELLA LAWSON 'Rich in pleasure and revelation' OBSERVER Small Fires reinvents cooking - that simple act of rolling up our sleeves, wielding a knife, splattering red hot sauce on our books - as a way of experiencing ourselves and the world. Cooking is thinking: about the liberating constraint of tying apron strings; the meaning of appetite and bodily pleasure; the wild subversiveness of the recipe; the power of small fires burning everywhere. ________________ FURTHER PRAISE FOR SMALL FIRES 'Brave enough to hurt feelings, delicious enough for no one to care' New York Times'Smart, thoughtful, creative' Ruby Tandoh 'Destined to become essential reading... Bold, beautiful, daring' Rachel Roddy 'Possesses an intellectual fleet footedness and exuberance akin to the writing of Deborah Levy or Rebecca Solnit' I NEWS 'I loved this genre-busting book. Shows that cooking can be a wild kind of magic' Bee Wilson 'Liberating... a new way to write about food' Jonathan Nunn Vittles 'Revolutionary... wakes up the reader's senses' Times Literary Supplement At once relatable and mind-expanding' Vogue US 'One of the most original food books I've ever read, at once intelligent and sensuous, witty, provoking and truly delicious' Olivia Laing 'Tender, electric, intimately transformative' Nina Mingya Powles

Small Fires Reviews

Small Fires is... brave enough to hurt feelings, and delicious enough for no one to care. - The New York Times

In Small Fires, Johnson explores how the food we make and the ways we make it-and then the stories we tell about making it-shape who we are. . . . Mixing deeply personal anecdotes with more complex theory, Small Fires is at once relatable and mind-expanding. - Vogue

In this slim, spicy, genre-defining work, Rebecca May Johnson spatchcocks the division between intellectual and domestic labor... Blending humor and academic citation, poetic lineation, and personal reverie, this inquiry into the nature of cooking is as delightfully messy as the process itself-some serious food for thought. - Oprah Daily

A gorgeous book...I love to read about the body and I love to read about food, and this tender little book allowed me to do both. - Saba Sams, The Guardian

Small Fires is a manifesto for reclaiming cooking as an intellectual... a rewarding book that stayed with me - and, like all brilliant food writing, it made me think twice about what I choose to eat and who I eat it with... a brave, honest book. - Sunday Times

Rich in pleasure and revelation. - Observer

Small Fires possesses an intellectual fleet footedness and exuberance akin to the writing of Deborah Levy or Rebecca Solnit, as sentences skip between mischievous punning and impassioned agitation... the enthusiasm of the writing here is generous, embracing and emboldening. - i news

I recommend the book for its insightful, radical, beautiful essays - and for all the kitchen dancing. - The Guardian

An electrifying read. - Olive magazine

Revolutionary... this is a book that wakes up the reader's senses and delivers critical arguments spattered in oil, like the pages of a much-used recipe book, making them palatable. - Times Literary Supplement

Just incredible... a real revelation. - Sky Arts Book Club

An electrifying, genre-breaking mixture of food writing, memoir and philosophy, asking profound questions about desire, community, appetite and the body - Rebecca Tamas, Observer

An intense, thought-provoking enquiry into the very nature of cooking, which stayed with me long after I finished it. - Nigella Lawson

One of the most original food books I've ever read, at once intelligent and sensuous, witty, provoking and truly delicious, a radical feast of flavours and ideas. - Olivia Laing

Small Fires is a smart, creative and thoughtful book: it challenges us to think more about how and why we cook, and confounds our expectations of what food writing can be. - Ruby Tandoh

Liberating... a new way to write about food. - Jonathan Nunn

I loved this genre-busting book which made me look differently at every recipe that I cook. Through a mix of memoir and philosophy, Rebecca May Johnson shows that cooking can be a wild kind of magic. - Bee Wilson

Destined to become essential reading for anyone interested in writing about food... Bold, beautiful, daring... It is a book that changed me. - Rachel Roddy

Small Fires is a tender, electric, intimately transformative work. Rebecca May Johnson has written her own glowing epic, reshaping the notion of the recipe as a text alive with possibility. In her hands, recipes become memory objects, acts of translation, expansive spaces full of feeling. - Nina Mingya Powles, author of Small Bodies of Water

Rebecca May Johnson's scintillating soliloquy on cooking adds a whole new dimension to food-writing, and pulls the tablecloth out from beneath a lot of stale (and often male) assumptions about the nature and value of domestic labour. I'll never think of a 'recipe' in the same way again. - Fuchsia Dunlop

Small Fires is like nothing else I have read. Truly unique, truly unusual, it weaves together cooking, dancing, and the Odyssey in a riveting, and moving exploration of what counts as knowledge. It had me rethinking what a recipe is, what cooking is, what is 'I' and what is 'you'. It is a book that asks profound and serious questions while also being musical, erotic, and deeply pleasurable. Being in the company of Rebecca May Johnson's voice -- companionable, intimate, questioning -- was a sheer delight. I didn't want it to end. - Katherine Angel

The most compelling book about cooking I've read this year, perhaps ever. Rebecca is a writer of extraordinary intelligence and wit, and I would push this book with feverish enthusiasm into the hands of anyone who spends time in the kitchen. - Jackson Boxer's Christmas gift guide, Evening Standard

Brave, funny, thought-provoking, heart-warming, and like nothing else you will have ever read. - The best food books for Christmas, Club Oenologique

Cooking is thinking is the takeaway argument of Small Fires, and I can't tell you how good it felt to read those three words in succession without some kind of qualification. - Chantal Braganza, Hazlitt

The creative, bracing essays of Rebecca May Johnson's Small Fires redefine the act of cooking and elevate the value of domestic labor... with a combination of intellectual rigor and playfulness, they analyze the emotions, difficulty, and importance involved in offering food to others. - Foreword Reviews

In Small Fires, Johnson gives the [recipe] text the epic it deserves, looking at it every which way but prioritizing the living, breathing, hungry eye of the home cook - N+1 Magazine

A welcoming, challenging, original meditation on recipes and their use. - Los Angeles Review of Books

Keenly aware of the assumptions that have informed so much writing about food, Johnson seeks to restore cooking to its rightful place as a form of knowledge-one through which pleasure, desire, and resistance can be expressed. - The New Republic

Johnson peels back the layers, looking at what food, appetite and pleasure mean in a bold and imaginative way.
- Glamour (UK)

About Rebecca May Johnson

Rebecca May Johnson has published essays, reviews and nonfiction with Granta, the Times Literary Supplement and Daunt Books Publishing, among others, and is an editor at the trailblazing food publication Vittles. Small Fires is her first book.

Additional information

CIN1911590499VG
9781911590491
1911590499
Small Fires: An Epic in the Kitchen by Rebecca May Johnson
Used - Very Good
Paperback
Pushkin Press
20230901
208
N/A
Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
This is a used book - there is no escaping the fact it has been read by someone else and it will show signs of wear and previous use. Overall we expect it to be in very good condition, but if you are not entirely satisfied please get in touch with us

Customer Reviews - Small Fires