Friday 3 May 2013

Cooked by Michael Pollan

This week for Book Beginnings on Fridays and The Friday 56 I've selected Cooked by Michael Pollan.


Beginning:
"The divine scent of wood smoke and roasting pig finds you as soon as you make the turn onto South Lee Street, the main artery threading this faded little town, even though the GPS says its source is still half a mile away."

Mmmmmmmm a salivating start!



Page 56:"Cooking, according to the hypothesis, is not merely a metaphor for the creation of culture, as Levi-Strauss proposed; it is its evolutionary prerequisite and biological foundation."

I'm also curious how decisions are made about book covers.

I understand that different countries have different covers if a different publishing house gets the rights for the book.

The US cover provides consistency between Pollan's backlist - they all feature the white cover with a piece of food artistically arranged in the middle.

I'm not sure why we have a different cover in Australia.

Do eggs speak more to us culturally than pasta?
Are Allen Lane planning on re-releasing Pollan's backlist with new covers to match Cooked?
Why does the Australian cover give such prominence to the 'New York Times No 1 Bestseller' tag, but the US one doesn't mention it all?

I wonder....

7 comments:

  1. That is quite a start to the book! The concept of the book sounds interesting too, thanks for sharing this =)

    My Friday Book Memes

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  2. That is an intriguing snippet....it definitely sounds like an engaging book.

    Here's MY FRIDAY MEMES POST

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  3. I really like the beginning... made my mouth water!

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  4. Yep...you have me curious now!

    We have posted ours for this week on Harlie's Books and hope you will drop by!!

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  5. I'm interested to read this one, and more of Pollan generally. I have no idea why they do different covers in different countries- the white one is so much more striking.

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  6. This is on my Foodies Reads TBR. I love everything about this book! Btw, I like the stylized cover as much as the other.

    cheers,
    aloi

    http://guiltlessreading.blogspot.ca/2013/05/friday56-bookbeginnings-tiger-babies.html

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  7. Okay, now I am hungry. ;) But they are indeed interesting tidbits!

    I am now posting for my blog, SnifferWalk Books and hope you will come by and see mine! ;)

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