Noma
by Réné Redzepi
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Though it’s been only six months since Copenhagen’s Noma was named in an annual poll as the best restaurant in the world, this “coffee-table paean” clearly has been in the works for years, said Rebekah Denn in The Christian Science Monitor. Don’t expect to cook from it: Most readers will be hard-pressed to find various ingredients—“bulrushes, sea buckthorn”—that chef Réné Redzepi uses in his Nordic fare. But the essays, recipes, and photographs gathered here provide a lovely window into a marvelous restaurant.
Boozehound
by Jason Wilson
(Ten Speed, $23)
Jason Wilson has combined his “sea legs” as a travel writer with his passion for booze to create a smart globe-hopping tour behind the scenes of the current “cocktail revolution,” said Jon Bonné in the San Francisco Chronicle. Hunting down “some of the world’s more talented distillers,” he celebrates those who are serious about their craft. But he’s also more than willing to let the blowhards “hoist themselves on the petard of their own silliness.”
Dethroning the King
by Julie MacIntosh
(Wiley, $28)
Some fans of Budweiser beer will want to read this account of the 2008 takeover of Anheuser-Busch as “a murder mystery,” said Todd C. Frankel in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. They won’t be disappointed. The Financial Times’ Julie MacIntosh scored several scoops when the Belgian-Brazilian brewer InBev made its hostile bid to swallow “the King of Beers,” and she’s dug deep to identify former CEO August Busch III as the inside player who pushed hardest for fellow shareholders to take InBev’s money and run.
Palmento
by Robert V. Camuto
(Univ. of Nebraska, $25)
Robert Camuto has made a career of “deftly and entertainingly” demonstrating the central role wine plays in culture, said Eric Asimov in The New York Times. He did it two years ago in his book about French country wines. And he does it again in Palmento, “bringing to life the characters, conflicts, and family dynamics that define” the culture and wines of craggy, tradition-bound Sicily. “It’s a beautiful, enthralling work.”
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Also of interest...in picture books for grown-upsfeature How About Never—Is Never Good for You?; The Undertaking of Lily Chen; Meanwhile, in San Francisco; The Portlandia Activity Book
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Author of the week: Karen Russell
feature Karen Russell could use a rest.
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The Double Life of Paul de Man by Evelyn Barish
feature Evelyn Barish “has an amazing tale to tell” about the Belgian-born intellectual who enthralled a generation of students and academic colleagues.
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Book of the week: Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt by Michael Lewis
feature Michael Lewis's description of how high-frequency traders use lightning-fast computers to their advantage is “guaranteed to make blood boil.”
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Also of interest...in creative rebellion
feature A Man Called Destruction; Rebel Music; American Fun; The Scarlet Sisters
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Author of the week: Susanna Kaysen
feature For a famous memoirist, Susanna Kaysen is highly ambivalent about sharing details about her life.
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You Must Remember This: Life and Style in Hollywood’s Golden Age by Robert Wagner
feature Robert Wagner “seems to have known anybody who was anybody in Hollywood.”
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Book of the week: Astoria: John Jacob Astor and Thomas Jefferson’s Lost Pacific Empire by Peter Stark
feature The tale of Astoria’s rise and fall turns out to be “as exciting as anything in American history.”