My New Book, Taste: A Book of Small Bites!
My second book of creative nonfiction, Taste: A Book of Small Bites, is out today. This collection was such a pleasure to write. Every part of the process, from drafting the proposal for Columbia University Press to the final stages of revision, were full of joy. It’s a lighthearted book (which occasionally explores dark subjects) that provided me with so much pleasure and comfort; I wrote it at the height of the pandemic, and the project often provided me with great solace.
When I first pitched the idea of Taste to the press, I wrote that the book “will be a lyric meditation on our sense of taste. Structured as a series of ‘small bites’—flavorful explorations of the sweet, the sour, the salty, the bitter, and the savory (or what I will refer to as umami)—the book will consider the ways that we ingest the world, how we come to know ourselves and others through the daily act of tasting.” And, amazingly, what I envisioned came to be. This was my first time writing a proposal and then writing the book itself; I didn’t know what to expect from the process, if I could deliver on what I was promising. I worried that the proposal would constrain me, stifle my creativity. Instead, I learned that–just as when working in fixed forms of poetry–the proposal’s constraints offered me opportunities for play and surprise.
So, I hope Taste and its many small bites will give readers pleasure, perhaps allowing them to examine the many tastes that have made up their own lives. The book isn’t intended to be comprehensive or exhaustive on the subject. Rather, it’s meant to be an idiosyncratic way of thinking about one of the five senses, the sense that perhaps many of us take for granted or neglect to treasure.
If you’re interested in the book, you can order it here, here, and here.