Books recommended by Anthony Bourdain

Anthony Bourdain Book List - 25 Book Recommendations


Anthony Bourdain

Anthony Bourdain loved to read and encouraged everybody to join him in his passion for books. This list is a collection of 25 books from Anthony Bourdain's library that he recommended to read.
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Books from Anthony Bourdain

The Splendor of Portugal

With the great, great author Antonio Lobo Antunes. (far left) His "Splendor of Portugal" is a Monster of a book!
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Books from Anthony Bourdain

Restaurant Man

Book "Restaurant Man" by @Jbastianich a terrific trench level primer on the biz. He knows where all the bodies are buried!
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Books from Anthony Bourdain

Blood, Bones and Butter

Gabrielle Hamilton's "Blood Bones and Butter" MUCH better than any of my books. Must Read!
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Books from Anthony Bourdain

Thrown

A good time to mention that @KerryHowley book, THROWN is an absolutely wonderful exploration of the poorly understood sport of #MMA
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Books from Anthony Bourdain

Once in a Great City

Our upcoming series for CNN is based on David Marranis excellent book : ONCE IN A GREAT CITY : A Detroit Story. #1963
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Books from Anthony Bourdain

Rice, Noodle, Fish

Get in the Game! First amazing book from @RoadsKingdoms
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Books from Anthony Bourdain

Politics and the English Language

It is well past time to read this. Or re again.
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Books from Anthony Bourdain

Punks, Poets & Provocateurs

Love this book. A lot of familiar faces from the. Good old/ bad old days
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Books from Anthony Bourdain

Ripley's Game

Elegant, deliciously immoral entry in series of sociopath as hero. Basis for the Wim Wenders film, the American Friend.
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Books from Anthony Bourdain

Between Meals

'Food writing' at its very, very best. Never surpassed. What all writing about eating should be.
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Books from Anthony Bourdain

Naked Lunch

Filthy, dangerous, depraved groundbreaking. And funny as Hell. Not an ideal role model, I grant you. But a writer I very much looked up to and wanted, for better or worse, to emulate.
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Books from Anthony Bourdain

A Collection of Essays

The font of all wisdom. Orwell is right about nearly everything.
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Books from Anthony Bourdain

The White Album

I wish I could write like Joan Didion.
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Books from Anthony Bourdain

The Quiet American

Drama, romance, tragic history in SE Asia? I'm there! I re-read it frequently. Particularly when visiting Vietnam.
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Books from Anthony Bourdain

Down and Out in Paris and London

In George Orwell's 'Down and Out in Paris and London' – one of Bourdain's favorite books and a model for 'Kitchen Confidential' – Orwell writes about his time doing scullery work in a Parisian restaurant, noting that "the power of swallowing quarts of wine, and then sweating it out before it can do much damage, is one of the compensations of [this] life."
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Books from Anthony Bourdain

Lolita

Simply the great American novel, and the most precise use of the English language ever. Beautiful sentences, difficult material, razor-sharp satire—and a romantic tragedy by a master at the peak of his powers.
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Books from Anthony Bourdain

The Friends of Eddie Coyle

The perfect crime novel. Told almost entirely through dialogue—and with spare description—it was the first crime novel where crooks really talked like crooks... Uncompromising, brutally realistic, funny, and frightening—it’s the truest of its genre. [on B&N] The best, most realistic crime novel ever. Best dialogue in a crime novel ever.
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Books from Anthony Bourdain

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

This book changed my young life. Its mixture of passion, cynicism, hyperbole, and diatribe—and its take on the failures of the ’60s—mirrored my own worldview. Thompson’s language, his sentences, his lurid, violent, evocative prose inspired me—and clearly influenced my own work. [on B&N] The book that probably influenced me more than any other. A prose stylist and a personality who changed my life
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True Grit

I truly believe that everyone who loves books should read Charles Portis's True Grit, a novel I believe to be as great and as fundamentally, uniquely American a work of literature as Huckleberry Finn.
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Books from Anthony Bourdain

True Confessions

I'm on a John Gregory Dunne jag. All of it. Dutch Shea Junior, Jr., True Confessions, his non-fiction. He deserves a whole new readership.
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Books from Anthony Bourdain

Hard Rain Falling

Don Carpenter's Hard Rain Falling is amazing. Just got on board.
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Books from Anthony Bourdain

Dutch Shea, Jr.

I'm on a John Gregory Dunne jag. All of it. Dutch Shea Junior, Jr., True Confessions, his non-fiction. He deserves a whole new readership.
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Books from Anthony Bourdain

Daniel: My French Cuisine

Daniel Boulud's My French Cuisine is pretty incredible. It's personal. It's filled with breathtaking photographs. And it covers cherished, old school, classic dishes that no other chef would even attempt. It's instant history.
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Books from Anthony Bourdain

Crash

Violent. Twisted. Hilarious and beautiful.
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