The Lost Art of Mixing | Book Chatter

Guess what I have? I have a copy of The Lost Art of Mixing by Erica Bauermeister to giveaway to one of my readers! This is the book that followed The School of Essential Ingredients and I reviewed it here. Today is the release date. I can’t think of a better way to celebrate.

GIVEAWAY INFORMATION

This giveaway is for one copy of The Lost Art of Mixing and is open to the US and Canada. A winner will be chosen randomly by me. The book will come directly from the publisher. Only one entry per person. Giveaway closes on January 31, 2013 (pacific). I will contact the winner for his/her mailing address.

To enter the giveaway, please click here.

Source: Giveaway copy provided by the publisher via TLC Book Tours.

The Lost Art of Mixing
By Erica Bauermeister
(Putnam Adult, Hardcover, 9780399162114, January 24, 2013, 288pp.)

The Short of It:

A literary treat for the senses.

The Rest of It:

If you haven’t read a book by this author yet, you are really missing out.

In The Lost Art of Mixing, Bauermeister returns to Lillian’s restaurant, first featured in The School of Essential Ingredients. Lillian’s restaurant is known for bringing people together. It’s a place to rediscover yourself and the pleasures around you. Through her carefully prepared meals and the cooking classes she offers, her simple acts of kindness provide the much-needed tonic that these folks have been searching for.

Included are some familiar characters from the first book, but we also meet Al, an accountant whose marriage has left him pondering who he is. Finnegan, nineteen years-old and orphaned at a young age, he finds solace when he gets a job as a dishwasher for the restaurant. Isabelle, who is struggling with dementia but finds a friend in Chloe, who you might remember from the first book and then finally Louise, Al’s wife who doesn’t seem to know her husband at all, but at the same time, seems to know everything about him.

The first book was filled with the smells of cooking. I literally drooled my way through it and then did not have any food in the house which was bad planning on my part. It was hard for me to believe that a book could evoke such feelings of comfort, but it really did. This time around, there is a lot less cooking, but more going on with the characters. They are complex and intricately layered with real-life problems that readers can relate to. I found the characters to be endlessly fascinating.

Additionally, there is something wonderful that happens when you return to familiar territory and I loved visiting with these characters again. The Lost Art of Mixing is a fabulous complement to The School of Essential Ingredients. Although you can read this one as a stand-alone, I encourage you to read her other book first. The writing is wonderful in both and trust me, you’ll want to extend your visit once you are done reading them.

Release Note: This wonderful book does not hit the shelves until January 24, 2013! If you can hold out, I promise to host a giveaway once the book is released.