I’m on Family Confidential
The latest episode of Annie Fox’s podcast, Family Confidential, features me!
It’s a great interview, lots of laughs. Thanks, Annie!
Hungry Monkey
A Food-Loving Father’s Quest to Raise an Adventurous Eater
by Matthew Amster-Burton
New stuff tonight at B&N
Hi, everyone. Don’t forget to come see me tonight at 7:30pm at University Village Barnes & Noble (Seattle), where I’ll be reading from a “lost” chapter and doing other previously unaired material. It’s also the launch for my paperback, so you can pick up the book at paperback prices if you need a copy. Thanks!
Book club guide
Has your book club read Hungry Monkey? Why not? Is it because there’s no reader’s guide? Well, now there is:
I’d like to add a couple of questions:
In Hungry Monkey, the author uses the word “awesome” a lot. What word or phrase do you overuse? Could you enlist a friend to punch you in the arm every time you say it?
Would you buy a special edition hardcover of Hungry Monkey, with page edges made ragged from being encrusted with drool from babies at the Houghton Mifflin nursery? How much you would pay for it? $100? Would this punch in the arm change your mind?
Since the publication of the book, Takeru Kobayashi has lost his hot dog eating crown to an oversized American guy. What’s up with that?
Paperback is out
Hungry Monkey is now out in paper from Mariner Books. I’ve updated all the links in the sidebar to point to the paperback. It’s $15 or less. Someone you know probably had a baby in the last year, and babies love my book. The paperback is especially good for chewing and drooling on. It contains no new material, except for three pages in the front featuring all the nice things people said about the book since it came out. Thanks, everyone.
Linda Sue Park loves Hungry Monkey
Linda Sue Park is the author of the Newbery-winning book A Single Shard and the delicious picture book Bee-Bim-Bop. And she’s a Hungry Monkey fan. Check out her blog:
What I’m Reading – Hungry Monkey
It’s just delightful–funny, salient, and hunger-inducing, with more text than recipes, which is exactly what I like in a food book.
Now, maybe she only likes my book because I mentioned her book in it, but in that case, why haven’t I heard from Russell Hoban?
110 years of books
My favorite bookstore? Apologies to all the others, but that’s easy: University Bookstore in Seattle. I know of no other place with such a perfect balance of comfort and selection, plus they sell art supplies and computers, two sections I can’t keep myself out of. They also sold the hell out of Hungry Monkey.
University Bookstore turned 110 this year, and to commemorate the birthday, they asked 110 of their favorite local authors to each write a 110-word story for an anthology, 110|110. (I would have called it 12,100, but whatever.) I contributed a story, which is a huge honor, because you may have noticed we have a lot of authors in the Northwest. Some of the other writers in the book include Ivan Doig, Tom Robbins, Greg Bear, Garth Stein, and Robin Hobb. (You know, not 34-year-old hipsters with so-called memoirs, real authors.) My story is about pirates!
You can read the book free online, or get a free copy if you buy a book by any of the 110 authors.
The other day I was buying a book at UBS and the people in front of me in line were buying something that fit that criterion. The cashier gave them a copy of 110|110 and said, “It includes stories by some of our favorite local authors.”
“Including me!” I piped up. The customers reacted exactly as you’d expect. They ignored me.
Sur la table appearance tomorrow is canceled
If anyone was planning to come see me on December 18 at Sur La Table in Bellevue, that appearance is CANCELED. Please don’t show up! It’ll be rescheduled in a month or two.
Hungry Monkey in the Boston Globe
Hungry Monkey is all over this article from yesterday’s Boston Globe:
And it features two recipes from the book. You rock, Boston Globe.
BFW
The chapter “Picky-Picky” from Hungry Monkey has been selected for Best Food Writing 2009, which is available now. Makes a great gift.
You know, after the first four times I was selected for Best Food Writing, I thought it might be a fluke, but now I’m convinced that I’m pretty good.
This year’s collection also features many of my friends, who are really good, including Francis Lam, Kim Severson, Molly Wizenberg, Bethany Jean Clement, and Steven Shaw.
First German review
A couple of notes from Germany. First, the book has been renamed to Kulinarische Abenteuer mit einem Kleinkind, which translates as “Culinary Adventures with a Small Child.” The cover now features a photo by the excellent Lara Ferroni, who is currently writing a cookbook about doughnuts. Second, I got an enthusiastic review in Börsenblatt, a magazine for German booksellers:
According to my friend Gunther Schmidl, they call the book a “three star cookbook and personal story at the same time.” The included recipe, for frico (cheese wafers), is from the book.
I haven’t heard anything about doing a German book tour, but I bet I can speak German.
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