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Welcome to our books of the month for November. This month we're featuring No Reservations by Anthony Bourdain, Zugzwang by Ronan Bennett, My Last Supper by Melanie Dunea, and The Human, the Orchid, and the Octopus by Jaques Cousteau and Susan Schiefelbein

NO RESERVATIONS
by Anthony Bourdain

An illustrated, behind-the-scenes travel journal of the beloved chef’s global adventures.

More than just a companion to the hugely popular Travel Channel show, No Reservations is Bourdain’s fully illustrated journal of his far-flung travels. The book traces his trips from New Zealand to New Jersey and everywhere in between, mixing beautiful, never-before-seen photos and mementos with Bourdain’s outrageous commentary on what really happens when you give a bad-boy chef an open ticket to the world. Want to know where to get good fatty crab in Rangoon? How to order your reindeer medium rare? How to tell a Frenchman that his baguette is invading your personal space?

This is your book. For any Bourdain fan, this is an indispensable opportunity to hit the road with the man himself.

Buy No Reservations here


ZUGZWANG
By Ronan Bennett

The breakout book from a celebrated literary writer: a thriller set in St. Petersburg in 1914 amid an international chess tournament and a series of mysterious murders.

Ronan Bennett’s new masterpiece of literary suspense unfolds in a city on the verge of revolution. On a blustery April day, a respected St. Petersburg newspaper editor is murdered in front of a shocked crowd. Five days later, Dr. Otto Spethmann, the celebrated psychoanalyst, receives a visit from the police. There has been another murder in the city—and somehow he is implicated. The doctor is mystified and deeply worried, as much for his young, spirited daughter as for himself.

Meanwhile, he finds himself preoccupied by two new patients: Anna Petrovna, a society beauty plagued with nightmares with whom he is inappropriately falling in love, and the troubled genius Rozental, a brilliant but fragile chess master on the verge of a complete breakdown. As Dr. Spethmann is drawn deeper into the murderous intrigue, he finds that he, his patients, and his daughter may all be pawns in a game larger in scope than anything he could have imagined.

Punctuated with board-by-board illustrations of a chess match that plays out through the book, Zugzwang is a masterfully written novel packed with cliffhangers, romance, unforgettable characters, and a plot that keeps readers guessing to the very end.

Buy Zugzwang here.


MY LAST SUPPER
By Melanie Dunea

Annie Leibovitz meets Heat in this award-winning photographer’s stunning celebration of world-famous chefs and their final meals.

Chefs have been playing the “My Last Supper” game among themselves for decades, if not centuries, but it had always been kept within the profession—until now. Melanie Dunea came up with the ingenious idea to ask fifty of the world’s famous chefs to let her in on this insider’s game and tell her what their final meals would be. My Last Supper showcases their fascinating answers alongside stunning Vanity Fair—style portraits. Their responses are surprising, refreshing, and as distinct from each other as the chefs themselves. The portraits—gorgeous, intimate, and playful—are informed by their answers and reveal the passions and personalities of the most respected names in the business. Lastly, one recipe from each landmark meal is included in the back of the book.

With My Last Supper, Dunea found a way into the typically harried, hidden minds of the people who have turned preparing food into an art. Who wouldn’t want to know where Alain Ducasse would like his last supper to be? And who would prepare Daniel Boulud’s final meal? What would Anthony Bourdain’s guest list look like? As the clock ticked, what album would Gordon Ramsay be listening to? And just what would Mario Batali eat for the last time?

Buy My Last Supper here.

THE HUMAN, THE ORCHID AND THE OCTOPUS
by Jaques Cousteau and Susan Schiefelbein

Part adventure story, part manifesto, the legendary ocean explorer’s passionate plea for sustaining life on earth.

Explorer, diving pioneer, filmmaker, inventor, and activist, Jacques Cousteau was blessed from his childhood with boundless curiosity about the natural world. As the leader of fascinating, often dangerous expeditions all over the planet, he discovered firsthand the complexity and beauty of life on earth and undersea—and watched the toll taken by human activity in the twentieth century.

In this magnificent last book, finally available for the first time in the United States, Cousteau describes his deeply informed philosophy about protecting our world for future generations. Weaving gripping stories of his adventures throughout, he and coauthor Susan Schiefelbein address the risks we take with human health, the overfishing and sacking of the world’s oceans, the hazards of nuclear proliferation, and the environmental responsibility of scientists, politicians, and people of faith. Cousteau’s lyrical, passionate call for action to protect our earth and seas and their myriad life forms is even more relevant today than when this book was completed in 1996. Written over the last ten years of his life with frequent collaborator Schiefelbein, who also introduces the text and provides an update on environmental developments in the decade since Cousteau’s death, this prescient, clear-sighted book is a remarkable testament to the life and work of one of our greatest modern adventurers.

Buy The Human, the Orchid, and the Octopus here