Intermezzo is the latest status galley, joining a relatively small club of books (like Emma Cline’s The Guest and Alexandra Tanner’s Worry) that shot to Internet fame before they were even published. The problem with the status galley is this: With all its hype and early praise from the chosen few who get a copy, the book becomes a token of cultural currency, a status symbol. These books, hot in the hands of celebrities and Internet personalities alike, prove just how susceptible we are to clever marketing, and just how hungry people are to be in the know among the literary elite. These status galleys often turn into best sellers once they actually hit shelves, but one has to wonder: Are the books even that good? And, perhaps more important, do readers care?
The muddy trail levels out and we stop to catch our breath. Which is good, because hiking with my eyes covered has been a pain in the ass. A voice says: “You can take your blindfold off now.” I squint as I get my bearings. Then, after a bit more hiking and some bushwhacking, I finally see it. The prize. The thing no one is supposed to know the location of, at least for another few weeks. A golden treasure.
I have to fight a lizard-brain instinct to reach for it. No. If all goes to plan, the treasure will soon belong to someone else—to the winner of a wild treasure hunt dreamed up by two of the guys leading me through this remote wilderness. One is a musician named Tom Bailey. The other is Jason Rohrer, the mastermind. Rohrer has designed some of the brainiest, highest-concept video games of the 21st century. Now there’s this: not a video game, but Rohrer’s first game set in the real world.
An inmate in the California prison system for nearly 30 years of his life, he was used to cooking with hamburger meat and white rice as part of the chow hall crew. But 17 years into his sentence, he realized his newfound passion for baking and made it his goal to pursue that aspiration upon his release.
A month into his new job, Thomas is humbled at the opportunity to work four days a week at such an esteemed restaurant as Flour + Water. Because now, he’s cooking as a free man.
Readers used to a quicker pace in their fantasy fiction, characters engaged in a battle between good and evil, and redemption arcs for wayward protagonists should set aside those expectations before diving into Blackheart Man. Hopkinson knows exactly what she’s doing, and all we have to do is trust her and go along for the ride.
What makes the anchovy so special? A Twist in the Tail, Christopher Beckman’s delightfully obsessive account of the anchovy in western cuisine, is here to explain. Arguably, it can be reduced to one word: umami. Anchovies, however they are preserved, have some of the highest levels of umami – really, an amino acid called glutamate – of any food on the planet. It’s an addictive pleasure. When Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, abdicated in 1556 and retired to the monastery of Yuste in western Spain, he demanded a ready supply. So addicted to them was he that on one occasion his doctor had to remonstrate with him to stop him starting on a barrelful that had putrefied in transit.