I found this advance reader's copy softcover in this Little Free Library in Nashua NH while dropping off some books of my own. I've enjoyed other works by Reichl including Tender at the Bone and Garlic and Sapphires, and was delighted to find this one. It's her memoir of her ten-year stint as editor in chief of the late, lamented Gourmet magazine, and opens with her recalling her first childhood discovery of back issues of the magazine. She reports on the writers whose work was featured there, from M. F. K. Fisher to Annie Proulx to Ray Bradbury (his Dandelion Wine was expanded from a short story that first appeared in the magazine) - and bemoans the way the magazine changed from its early incarnation to the somewhat stodgy version it had become by the time she was offered the job.

Knowing the magazine's eventual fate made the book bittersweet for me, as the hard work and various ups and downs Reichl and her staff experienced was doomed to end, but the details of the publishing business and the food-related work were still interesting.

I left this book in the Little Free Library; hope someone enjoys it!

[See other recent releases in NH here.]

*** Released for the 2020 Wine+Food challenge. ***