Save Me the Plums: My Gourmet Memoir
Ruth Reichl
Ruth Reichl ranks among the best food writers alive, which is why I gasped when my friend Lilly — a fantastic cook and ardent reader — hadn’t read her memoir. Save Me the Plums chronicles Reichl’s ten-year run as Gourmet Magazine editor-in-chief: the lunches, the feuds, the glorious excess of Condé Nast when the money still flowed. Lilly named it one of the best books she read last year.
Buy on Bookshop.org ↗If you liked this, try…
Garlic and Sapphires: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise
Ruth Reichl
Reichl reviewing New York restaurants in elaborate disguises so no one would recognize the critic. The food writing alone will make you starving.
★ 5The Correspondent
Virginia Evans
The protagonist of this beautiful novel is a 73-year-old woman processing her life — and regrets — through letters. It’s poignant but not saccharine, specific but universally appealing. I dare you not to cry.
Tom Lake
Ann Patchett
An older woman tells her daughters about the summer she spent performing alongside — and falling in love with — a now-famous actor. My friend Anna said her husband adored this book just as much as she did — impressive, considering he typically reads business non-fiction.
★ 5Whistler
Ann Patchett
Ann Patchett is one of my favorite authors for a reason; I couldn't put this down.
Strangers: A Memoir of Marriage
Belle Burden
Belle and her seemingly perfect family flee COVID to their gorgeous Martha’s Vineyard home. Abruptly, her husband of two decades tells her he’s no longer in love and leaves. I first mentioned this book in January, and since then, multiple friends have told me they finished it in one session.