Who’s really behind America’s appetite for foods from around the globe? This group biography from an electric new voice in food writing honors seven extraordinary women, all immigrants, who left an indelible mark on the way Americans eat today. Taste Makers stretches from World War II to the present, with absorbing and deeply researched portraits of figures including Mexican-born Elena Zelayeta, a blind chef; Marcella Hazan, the deity of Italian cuisine; and Norma Shirley, a champ...

**An NPR Best Book of the YearA New York Times Editors’ Choice pickWall Street Journal’s Who Read What: Favorite Books of 2021Longlisted for the 2022 Brooklyn Public Library Book PrizeObserver Food Monthly’s 50 Things We Love in the World of Food Right NowNamed a best book for the holidays by Wall Street Journal, Vogue, Oprah’s O Quarterly, Globe & Mail, and the Food NetworkNamed a best...

**One of Town & Country's Best Books to Read This AprilA drama-packed, format-busting tribute to the soap opera in all its messy, meaningful glory.**Part cultural analysis, part backstage tour, Love in the Afternoon, and Evening is a love letter to a misunderstood, often-dismissed American genre. Critics, friends, and soap obsessives Charlotte Druckman and Mayukh Sen invite readers into a conversation that ranges from topics both serious (race, reproductiv...

Winner of the James Beard Award for Best Book in Food Issues and AdvocacyImmigrants have left their mark on the great melting pot of American cuisine, and they have continued working hard to keep America’s kitchens running, even during times of crisis like the COVID-19 pandemic. For some immigrant cooks, the pandemic brought home the lack of protection for essential workers in the American food system. For others, cooking was a way of reconnecting with homelands th...

Merle Oberon made history when she was announced as a nominee for the Best Actress Oscar in 1936. Her nomination marked the first time the Academy recognized a performer of color. Oberon, born to a South Asian mother and white father, broke through a racial barrier—but no one knew it. Oberon was "passing" for white.In the first biography of Oberon in more than forty years, Mayukh Sen draws on family interviews and untapped archival material to capture the life of an oft-forgotten t...

Finalist for the 2025 National Book Critics Circle Award for BiographyOne of Publishers Weekly and Booklist's Best Books of 2025**“[An] extraordinary account of the hardship and rampant racism Oberon…faced during Hollywood’s golden age.” —New York Times Book ReviewA beautiful reclamation of a pioneering South Asian actress captures her glittering, complicated life and lasting impact on Hollywood.**...

A celebration of the quirks, intricacies, and hallmarks of a beloved but culturally undervalued art form: the American soap opera.Adored by battalions of devotees and maligned by others for melodramatic twists and turns, soap operas have had an outsized impact on American culture, prefiguring the rise of today's reality television and character-driven prestige dramas. In Love in the Afternoon . . . and Evening, cultural critics Charlotte Druckman and Mayuk...