I have recommended this one in Books You'll Just Have to Talk To Someone About, What Makes a Great Book Club Novel, and other places. I picked this one up when Michael Pollan raved about it, saying it “embodied the spirit of slow food and life.” Paterniti had me from the words Zingerman’s Delicatessen. The story artfully weaves itself right into the heart of Catelonian Spain, but then it becomes muddled and confused. The reader can decide if this is weakness, or metaphor. Book club highlight: the ending. Is it altogether unsatisfying, or completely perfect?

Longlisted for the National Book Award. In this inventive collection of essays and short stories, journalist Paterniti discusses diverse topics such as driving across America with Einstein's brain in his trunk (true), the imagined circumstances surrounding and devastating aftershocks subsequent to the crash of a passenger plane bound for Geneva (fiction), and molecular gastronomy in a famed Spanish restaurant (true). An incredible collection.