Inspired by twenty-six fruits, the essayist, poet, and pie lady Kate Lebo expertly blends natural, culinary, medical, and personal history.
Join us Monday, April 5th at 6pm for a multi-bookstore virtual release extravaganza! Auntie's, Third Place Books, Village Books, and Browser's books are teaming up to bring you an evening with Kate Lebo and Kim Addonizio celebrating the release of Kate's new collection, The Book of Difficult Fruit.
Use this link to attend: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/kate-lebo-in-conversation-with-kim-addonizio-the-book-of-difficult-fruit-tickets-145573573477
This event is free, but the first 20 pre-orders will receive a gift of Madagascar vanilla bean, sourced Jones & Co., a purveyor of world vanillas that specializes in small growers and lesser known terroirs
About the book:
A is for Aronia, berry member of the apple family, clothes-stainer, superfruit with reputed healing power. D is for Durian, endowed with a dramatic rind and a shifty odor--peaches, old garlic. M is for Medlar, name-checked by Shakespeare for its crude shape, beloved by gardeners for its flowers. Q is for Quince, which, fresh, gives off the scent of roses and citrus and rich women's perfume but if eaten raw is so astringent it wicks the juice from one's mouth.
In this work of unique invention, these and other difficult fruits serve as the central ingredients of twenty-six lyrical essays (and recipes!) that range from deeply personal to botanical, from culinary to medical, from humorous to philosophical. The entries are associative, often poetic, taking unexpected turns and giving sideways insights into life, relationships, self-care, modern medicine, and more. What if the primary way you show love is to bake, but your partner suffers from celiac disease? Why leave in the pits for Willa Cather's Plum Jam? How can we rely on bodies as fragile as the fruits that nourish them?
Lebo's unquenchable curiosity leads us to intimate, sensuous, enlightening contemplations. The Book of Difficult Fruit is the very best of food writing: graceful, surprising, and ecstatic.
About Kate Lebo:
Kate Lebo is the author of the cookbook Pie School and the poetry chapbook Seven Prayers to Cathy McMorris Rodgers, and coeditor with Samuel Ligon of Pie & Whiskey: Writers Under the Influence of Butter and Booze. Her essay about listening through hearing loss, “The Loudproof Room,” originally published in New England Review, was anthologized in Best American Essays 2015. She lives in Spokane, Washington, where she is an apprenticed cheesemaker to Lora Lea Misterly of Quillisascut Farm.
About Kim Addonizio:
Kim Addonizio is the author of seven poetry collections, two novels, two story collections, and two books on writing poetry: The Poet’s Companion (with Dorianne Laux) and Ordinary Genius. Her poetry collection Tell Me was a finalist for the National Book Award. She also has two word/music CDS. Addonizio’s awards include two fellowships from the NEA, a Guggenheim, two Pushcart Prizes, and other honors. Her latest books are a poetry collection, Mortal Trash, and a memoir, Bukowski in a Sundress: Confessions from a Writing Life. A new book of poems, Now We’re Getting Somewhere, is forthcoming.
Named a Best Book of the Year by The Atlantic, New York magazine and NPR
"Dazzling." —Samin Nosrat, The New York Times Magazine
Inspired by twenty-six fruits, the essayist, poet, and pie lady Kate Lebo expertly blends natural, culinary, medical, and personal history.
Backordered Title, Not on our shelves: Call to check availability.
A dark, no-holds-barred, and often hilarious collection from a prize-winning poet, veering between the poles of self and world.
"an anthology that’s ... eclectic, drunk and delicious." —The New York Times
If you love pie, whiskey, and good writing, this collection of funny and heartbreaking stories, poems, and recipes serves up a plethora of pleasure.