You've Ever Tried to Recreate a Restaurant Meal

Are concerned about new AI tools or are following Harvey Weinstein's retrial

Hi book lovers,

Hope you had a nice weekend. My book club had a “Bridgerton” viewing party, where I caught episode four, without having watched the first three installments. If you binged the Netflix show and are now looking for more historical romance, I rounded up eight books for the Washington Post.

Quick programming note: Because of the Memorial Day holiday, next week’s newsletter will come out on Tuesday, with this year’s Summer Reading Bingo card. Get ready.

And, now, what to read if…

There’s a Meal You Can’t Get Out of Your Head

The Kamogawa Food Detectives by Hisashi Kashiwai, translated by Jesse Kirkwood

A friend and I went out to dinner last week and had the most delicious stuffed avocado salad. I immediately started thinking about how I could recreate it at home. But there was a catch — the mysterious Barbie-pink dressing on top. Was it some sort of beet vinaigrette? A daikon radish dressing? After some sleuthing, I determined it was a hibiscus dressing. (Sidebar: if you know where to buy dried hibiscus flowers and/or hibiscus syrup, please let me know.) The whole experience reminded me of The Kamogawa Food Detectives, one of the most charming novels I’ve read in ages.

The Kamogawa Food Detectives, written by Hisashi Kashiwai and recently translated into English by Jesse Kirkwood, follows a father and daughter who run a restaurant that specializes in recreating the dishes people dream of eating again. Visitors describe their meal — where they ate it, what it tasted like, when they enjoyed it — to Koishi and then her father Nagare, a former police detective, investigates until he feels confident he has the recipe down.

The book features a half-dozen or so interconnected stories, each following the same formula. A client describes their predicament, Nagare solves the case, and then as the customer eats, we understand why — beyond taste — this particular meal was so important to them.

I loved the way The Kamogawa Food Detectives shows that, often, food isn’t just food. It’s so intertwined with love, memory, friends and family. A delicious, chef’s kiss of a book.

You’re Worried About Our New AI Overlords

Burn Book by Kara Swisher

If you Googled something late last week, you might have noticed your results look a little different than usual. The search giant started including AI summaries of search results above its typical list of links to some queries. USA TODAY has a great explainer.

Sample AI overview (courtesy of Google)

If you’re looking for something that breaks down the role of tech behemoths in our lives, check out Burn Book by Kara Swisher.

Burn Book is a cross between a history of the internet and a memoir of how Swisher became one of the top tech reporters of our time (who famously made Mark Zuckerberg break out into a sweat online). She never intended to be a journalist and hoped to join the CIA, but, as an out lesbian, gave up that dream because of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. Later, working at the Washington Post, she confused her coworkers by turning down the chance to cover politics and instead taking on the nascent internet beat. From there, she got caught up in the promise of Silicon Valley and transformative tech, even launching her own startup.

But, Swisher ended up disillusioned with Big Tech, concerned about weak content moderation policies, irresponsible data/privacy practices and more. It’s that transformation that kept me interested as I listened to Burn Book. The last section of the book, where Swisher assesses how she became a “creature” of Silicon Valley, is one of its best. Burn Book is as brash and compelling as its author.

You’re Following the Harvey Weinstein Retrial

Complicit by Winnie Li

 Harvey Weinstein has been in a New York jail since his conviction there was overturned in April, as he waits for a retrial. A New York Court vacated his convictions for sexual assault after finding “the trial judge prejudiced Weinstein with improper rulings, including by letting other women testify about allegations he wasn’t charged with.” Weinstein, a former film mogul, was also convicted in California and may be extradited there to serve out that sentence. If the news has you thinking about the #MeToo movement, consider reading Winnie Li’s Complicit.

Sarah Lai, once a rising star in Hollywood, now teaches screenwriting at a tiny college. She thinks she’s put her past — and her dreams — behind her until a journalist reaches out to ask about her experience with mega-producer Hugo North. Recognizing this might be her last chance to share her story and maybe exact some revenge, Sarah agrees to an interview. But as she recounts her tale, she’s forced to acknowledge her role in a series of dark episodes.

Li, a screenwriter, has a gift for building tension. I was stressed while reading Complicit, compulsively flipping pages to see where it would go next. Her time spent working in the industry ensures it’s a well-observed novel and I appreciated that, like the best of the spate of #MeToo books, it shows there are wide ranges of complicity and wrong-doing. As Alex Segura, author of Secret Identity, said “Winnie M Li explores the dark corners of entrenched power dynamics to shed a light on society as a whole, and she does it masterfully and with precision. A magnificent book.”

Reminder rec: Alison Hart’s The Work Wife, another searing #MeToo novel, was one of my favorites of 2023.

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Thanks, as always, for reading! Get excited for summer reading bingo.

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