Here are 36 books that Monet's Table fans have personally recommended if you like
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I’m the author of the short story collection I Meant It Once. I often say it’s a book about being a mess in your twenties, but to speak more personally, writing it was a necessity, a way to make sense of both the intensity and mundanity of my own experiences. I love a book where you can palpably feel the author working to make sense of their own life, through language—and, in turn, sorting out what it is for any of us to be a person. Books like these are essential reading when life feels thorny, beautiful, and impossible to make sense of, and all you can do is try to write it down.
I still remember, in the year 2010, reaching the end of the essay "Goodbye to All That" where the date of publication is noted—1967—and how startled I was to realize something that feels so contemporary and alive had been written decades earlier. As in so much of her work, in this collection Didion offers vivid details from her life and brings her extraordinary powers of analysis to understanding their meaning.
As she once put it herself—in another essay, "Why I Write"—"Had I been blessed with even limited access to my own mind there would have been no reason to write. I write entirely to find out what I'm thinking, what I'm looking at, what I see and what it means.”
Joan Didion's savage masterpiece, which, since first publication in 1968, has been acknowledged as an unparalleled report on the state of America during the upheaval of the Sixties Revolution.
We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget. We forget the loves and the betrayals alike, forget what we whispered and what we screamed, forget who we were
In her non-fiction work, Joan Didion not only describes the subject at hand - her younger self loving and leaving New York, the murderous housewife, the little girl trailing the rock group, the millionaire bunkered in his mansion…
I am an author, film composer, guitarist, multimedia artist, and perfumer. As a music journalist, I’ve written extensively for many major U.S. and international guitar publications before launching the website, The Guitar. My music has been featured on National Public Radio and worldwide at major U.S. and international art and design museum festivals. Part of being a writer is about expressing one’s curiosity through constant delving and engaging in the ongoing process of discovery. What compels me is the attempt to understand the inspiration that drives an artist to create a distinctively beautiful melody, fragrance, or artwork—one that grabs your attention with a mesmerizing, transfixing, and soulful quality.
Gary Lucas is best known for his guitar wizardry in Captain Beefheart and for his dazzling guitar riffs that create the spine for Jeff Buckley’s hits, “Grace” and “Mojo Pin,” but I know him personally as an intelligent, highly-observant raconteur who has a mordant way of conveying the absurdity that exists within the music business. He deftly captures the lifeblood and pulse that comes with writing, collaborating creating music, which, itself, is always the joy. Touched by Grace offers a glimpse into his unforgettable collaboration with the charismatic singer Jeff Buckley in his band Gods & Monsters, from their first performance together in 1991 on through the stunning news of the singer’s tragic drowning in Memphis in 1997.
We're going to do this tribute in St Ann's Church in Brooklyn - a wonderful space. Oh, by the way, we've been contacted by Tim Buckley's son, Jeff. Touched By Grace is an up-close-and-personal account by the legendary guitarist and songwriter Gary Lucas of the time he spent with his friend and collaborator, Jeff Buckley, during Jeff's early days in New York City. It describes their magical performance together at the Greetings From Tim Buckley concert at the Church of St Ann in 1991 - the event that first introduced Jeff to the world at large; the creation of their…
I am an author, film composer, guitarist, multimedia artist, and perfumer. As a music journalist, I’ve written extensively for many major U.S. and international guitar publications before launching the website, The Guitar. My music has been featured on National Public Radio and worldwide at major U.S. and international art and design museum festivals. Part of being a writer is about expressing one’s curiosity through constant delving and engaging in the ongoing process of discovery. What compels me is the attempt to understand the inspiration that drives an artist to create a distinctively beautiful melody, fragrance, or artwork—one that grabs your attention with a mesmerizing, transfixing, and soulful quality.
Frey’s book is a vivid account of the fin-de-siecle French painter who was born into aristocracy but did not fit in, due to hereditary dwarfism. Lautrec devoted himself to studying painting in Paris, where he fell in with the cabaret theatre and dancehall crowd, along with its contingent, shadier side of sundry misfits, whom he embraced wholly. In the milieu that permitted a laundress (La Goulue) to become a can-can star, Lautrec put himself on the map with his spectacular cabaret posters. I chose this book because though I do not draw portraits, I can relate to my enjoyment of capturing artistic photographs of musicians.
Debauched aristocrat, cabaret painter or accidental dwarf: Julia Frey's definitive biography uses meticulous research to strip away the myth of Toulouse-Lautrec and reveal for the first time the tortured man beneath. 'The book deals seriously and sensitively with Lautrec's progress as an artist, his academic training and the audacious use he put it to. Equally, readers in search of the ooh-la-la side of Paris during the Belle Epoque won't feel short-changed. Almost everyone from Manet to the young Picasso crosses the stage. It is of course a tragic story, but a triumphant one also' George Melly, Mail on Sunday
Tap Dancing on Everest, part coming-of-age memoir, part true-survival adventure story, is about a young medical student, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor raised in N.Y.C., who battles self-doubt to serve as the doctor—and only woman—on a remote Everest climb in Tibet.
I am an author, film composer, guitarist, multimedia artist, and perfumer. As a music journalist, I’ve written extensively for many major U.S. and international guitar publications before launching the website, The Guitar. My music has been featured on National Public Radio and worldwide at major U.S. and international art and design museum festivals. Part of being a writer is about expressing one’s curiosity through constant delving and engaging in the ongoing process of discovery. What compels me is the attempt to understand the inspiration that drives an artist to create a distinctively beautiful melody, fragrance, or artwork—one that grabs your attention with a mesmerizing, transfixing, and soulful quality.
Mazzeo’s book provides fascinating insight into a perfume that has enjoyed insane sales longevity when most tend to fade from the market. The book offers a portrait of the orphaned young woman’s convent upbringing to her days as a chanteuse and milliner to her rise in society as a fashion designer. Some say Chanel No. 5 resulted from a happy fluke of dumping too much aliphatic aldehydes into the juice, yet it became instantly iconic as the first clean, modern perfume, one that did not fall into the established vamp/ingenue fragrance categories of the day. It reached iconic status during WWII as a tax-free product sold in military commissaries around the world. Not all smells sweet: Coco proved to be a Nazi sympathizer in a failed attempt to regain control of her business.
With its rich golden hue, art deco-inspired bottle, and timeless, musky scent, Chanel Number 5 is the world's bestselling perfume. Reverently known among industry insiders as "le monstre" - the monster - it is arguably the most coveted consumer luxury product of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Yet how did this pioneering celebrity fragrance, introduced in the early 1920s, eventually take on a life of its own, becoming a cultural monument celebrated by millions of devoted consumers? "The Secret of Chanel Number 5" is Tilar J. Mazzeo's far-ranging and fascinating search beyond the stuff of legend to uncover the full…
I am an independent research scholar, food writer, and cook who won the James Beard Cookbook of the Year award and the Beard Award for the Best Writing on Food in 2000 for A Mediterranean Feast. I have written 19 books, 17 of which are cookbooks, and two on politics and history. I wrote all the food entries for Columbia University's Encyclopedia of the Modern Middle East and the entry for tiramisu and other sweets in the Oxford Companion to Sweets. I have written articles on politics, military affairs, foreign policy, history, and botany.
David was one of the most famous food writers in post-World War II Europe and she introduced English readers to the cuisine that exists beyond the celebrated kitchens of the top chefs of Paris. Although the recipes are written in a more abbreviated style than one sees today, her personable stories enliven the dishes she includes so you the reader will excitedly jump right to the kitchen and get cooking.
First published in 1962, Elizabeth David's culinary odyssey through provincial France forever changed the way we think about food. With elegant simplicity, David explores the authentic flavors and textures of time-honored cuisines from such provinces as Alsace, Provence, Brittany, and the Savoie. Full of cooking ideas and recipes, French Provincial Cooking is a scholarly yet straightforward celebration of the traditions of French regional cooking.
For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and…
I started hosting pretend tea parties for my stuffed animals when I was just a little girl. I made mud pies in the backyard and created huge messes in the kitchen as I taught myself to cook. I’ve always been enthralled by the warm feeling of being cared for, the love you feel deep in your heart when someone puts a plate of hot scrambled eggs in front of you after a long day. Now, as a cookbook author, I get to share that feeling with others through my own recipes and via my newsletter, Recipe of the Month. I hope you love these cookbooks as much as I do!
There is no other cookbook that has had a greater influence on me as a writer. Suzanne’s recipes and menus for elegant yet unfussy dinner parties remain endlessly inspirational. After reading this book, I wrote a letter to Suzanne telling her how much I admired her cookbook and basically begging for a job. We ended up working together and I even got married at her restaurant.
Few chefs in America have won more acclaim than Suzanne Goin, owner of Lucques restaurant. A chef of impeccable pedigree, she got her start cooking at some of the best restaurants in the world–L’Arpège. Olives, and Chez Panisse, to name a few–places where she acquired top-notch skills to match her already flawless culinary instincts. “A great many cooks have come through the kitchen at Chez Panisse,” observes the legendary Alice Waters, “But Suzanne Goin was a stand-out. We all knew immediately that one day she would have a restaurant of her own, and that other cooks would be coming to…
I am an independent research scholar, food writer, and cook who won the James Beard Cookbook of the Year award and the Beard Award for the Best Writing on Food in 2000 for A Mediterranean Feast. I have written 19 books, 17 of which are cookbooks, and two on politics and history. I wrote all the food entries for Columbia University's Encyclopedia of the Modern Middle East and the entry for tiramisu and other sweets in the Oxford Companion to Sweets. I have written articles on politics, military affairs, foreign policy, history, and botany.
Wolfert made her name with her book Couscous and Other Food of Morocco, first published in 1973. This groundbreaking book was not only the first time an American writer’s topic was North African food but Wolfert explored for the first time its culinary anthropology. This book on southwest France might even be better than her couscous book. Its depth of understanding and explanation is amazing. Its thoroughness is unparalleled. Its fastidiousness might annoy some readers, but one will never claim there wasn’t enough detail. Follow this book and you will be able to make confit de canard to use in your equally authentic cassoulet of southwest France.
Paula Wolfert is one of America's most highly respected food writers, and the author of Moroccan Cuisine which Grub Street reissued to much critical acclaim in 1998. Her highly respected book on South West France, unavailable for 15 years, is now appearing in paperback. This reissue could not be more timely with the opening of restaurants such as Club Gascon in West Spitalfields which has had unanimous plaudits from all the national restaurant critics praising its delicious South Western French classic dishes. The food of this region could well become one of the popular causes of the next year as…
Since first stepping off a train at Nice I've felt an affinity with southern France, but it was a chance encounter with the local shepherd who, speaking a version of the Provençal language, alerted me to the proud past of this region and its individual identity. (I've written about this time in my book Wild Asparagus, Wild Strawberries.) A serendipitous opportunity to study ancien Provençal led me down a meandering path to a PhD that eventually became The Original Mediterranean Cuisine, and on to a career researching and teaching culinary history. My next book looks at the roots of Provençal cuisine in the eighteenth century.
Of that group of 1970 expats, only Richard Olney made France his home. Settling in Provence, he enjoyed Lulu's legendary hospitality at the Peyraud family vineyard Domaine Tempier, at nearby Bandol, and spent many hours in her kitchen recording her recipes and culinary tips ('lots of garlic'). To me, Lulu's recipes represent the heart and soul of gastronomic Provence, with direct lineage to the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, such as her Daube à la Provençale with its obligatory accompaniment of macaroni. Essentially simple, her cuisine revels in the robust accents of anchovies and garlic, thyme and savory as it celebrates seasonal and local—if not quite so local as her own backyard, like our landlady on the cherry orchard near Carpentras.
A food writer and editor of the Time-Life cooking series shares stories and recipes from his friendship with a legendary Provençal chef and vineyard owner.
Of all of the culinary treasures that Richard Olney brought home from France for his American audience, the spritely and commanding Lulu Peyraud is perhaps the most memorable. A second-generation proprietor of Provence’s noted vineyard Domaine Tempier, and producer of some of the region’s best wines and meals, Lulu has for more than fifty years been Provence’s best-kept secret. Mother of seven, Lulu still owns and operates Domaine Tempier with her family, serving up wit…
I am an independent research scholar, food writer, and cook who won the James Beard Cookbook of the Year award and the Beard Award for the Best Writing on Food in 2000 for A Mediterranean Feast. I have written 19 books, 17 of which are cookbooks, and two on politics and history. I wrote all the food entries for Columbia University's Encyclopedia of the Modern Middle East and the entry for tiramisu and other sweets in the Oxford Companion to Sweets. I have written articles on politics, military affairs, foreign policy, history, and botany.
The Time-Life Foods of the World series first published in the 1960s is hands down, to this day, the best books on the various cuisines of the world. Every book in the series is top-notch but the one on provincial French cooking was edited by the famous food writer M. F. K. Fisher. The book, as all in the series, is not written from a chef's point of view, but for the home cook. The recipes are classics and easily do-able by an even slightly competent home cook. They were originally sold as a box set consisting of a large book of text with several recipes and alluring photographs and a smaller spiral-bound book of recipes.
An Italian Feast celebrates the cuisines of the Italian provinces from Como to Palermo. A culinary guide and book of ready reference meant to be the most comprehensive book on Italian cuisine, and it includes over 800 recipes from the 109 provinces of Italy's 20 regions.
I am an independent research scholar, food writer, and cook who won the James Beard Cookbook of the Year award and the Beard Award for the Best Writing on Food in 2000 for A Mediterranean Feast. I have written 19 books, 17 of which are cookbooks, and two on politics and history. I wrote all the food entries for Columbia University's Encyclopedia of the Modern Middle East and the entry for tiramisu and other sweets in the Oxford Companion to Sweets. I have written articles on politics, military affairs, foreign policy, history, and botany.
Willan is an Englishwoman who lived most of her life in France where she founded and ran the École de Cuisine La Varenne, in Paris and Burgundy. All her books are great, but this book is superlative, and I would put it in the same ranks as the Time-Life book. Its depth of knowledge and breadth is wonderful and there is much to explore and learn. The recipes are gems and work every time.
In this cookbook series, every stage of each recipe is photographed in close-up detail, from assembling the ingredients and necessary equipment, through every step of the preparation to the finished dish. This book covers French country cookery.