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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The Splendor of Portugal
With the great, great author Antonio Lobo Antunes. (far left) His "Splendor of Portugal" is a Monster of a book!
Restaurant Man
Book "Restaurant Man" by @Jbastianich a terrific trench level primer on the biz. He knows where all the bodies are buried!
Blood, Bones and Butter
Gabrielle Hamilton's "Blood Bones and Butter" MUCH better than any of my books. Must Read!
Thrown
A good time to mention that @KerryHowley book, THROWN is an absolutely wonderful exploration of the poorly understood sport of #MMA
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
Punks, Poets & Provocateurs
Love this book. A lot of familiar faces from the. Good old/ bad old days
Ripley's Game
Elegant, deliciously immoral entry in series of sociopath as hero. Basis for the Wim Wenders film, the American Friend.
Between Meals
'Food writing' at its very, very best. Never surpassed. What all writing about eating should be.
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.
A Collection of Essays
The font of all wisdom. Orwell is right about nearly everything.
The Quiet American
Drama, romance, tragic history in SE Asia? I'm there! I re-read it frequently. Particularly when visiting Vietnam.
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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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.
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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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.
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.
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.
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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