Emma Glass's new novel is
Peach. One of her
ten top books about the body, as shared at the
Guardian:
The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender
Food is a powerful stirrer of emotions. (I have particular issues with custard. The smell alone makes me shudder with the memory of gloopy, cold school dinners.) But imagine discovering at a young age, as Rose does, an extrasensory ability to taste the emotions of others through the food that they prepare. The focus of this book is on the pain and sadness that comes with knowing too much about those you love. Rose copes by turning away from food that she can’t bear to swallow. She takes solace in heavily processed foods, where the emotions of the farmers and factories are diluted through time and space. Bender alludes to her protagonist’s unique physiology through the Brillat-Savarin quote: “Food is all those substances which, submitted to the action of the stomach, can be assimilated or changed into life by digestion, and can thus repair the losses which the human body suffers through the act of living.”
Read about
another book on the list.
--Marshal Zeringue
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