Paley, Grace in The Books Store

This reissue of Grace Paley’s classic collection—a finalist for the National Book Award—demonstrates her rich use of language as well as her extraordinary insight into and compassion for her characters, moving from the hilarious to the tragic and back again. Whether writing about the love (and conflict) between parents and children or between husband and wife, or about the struggles of aging single mothers or disheartened political organizers to make sense of the world, she brings the same unerring ear for the rhythm of life as it is actually lived.

In this collection of short stories, originally published in 1974, Grace Paley "makes the novel as a form seem virtually redundant" (Angela Carter, London Review of Books). Her stories here capture "the itch of the city, love between parents and children" and "the cutting edge of combat" (Lis Harris, The New York Times Book Review). In this collection of seventeen stories, she creates a "solid and vital fictional world, cross-referenced and dense with life" (Walter Clemons, Newsweek).

Food and Booze celebrates seven years of delicious writing culled from Tin House’s “Readable Feast” and “Blithe Spirit” departments. The pieces, contributed by some of the finest fiction and nonfiction writers working today, range from the humorous to the lyrical, recipes to rhapsodies, the historic to the personal, and from humble to haute cuisine. All share one common feature: the superb writing readers have come to expect from the magazine, the only literary journal with its own martini recipe.