From the Desk Recommends... Forthcoming Books!
New books to be excited about, reminders on Salon Series and workshops, and the monthly culture roundup.
I’ve been awash in forthcoming books. Anna Sulan Masing and Mayukh Sen—this Sunday!—have been part of my new Salon Series, and those interviews will be transcribed and available for paid subscribers in due time, but I wanted to shout out some of the books I haven’t been able to give a big splashy moment. It’s a bizarre time for writers and book promotion, and so I want to make sure these are on your radar. A pre-order helps writers and it also gives you a little surprise in the mail or a fun reason to pop into your local indie bookshop.
Disclaimer: I’m not including cookbooks here because they’re a different beast, and I’ve been sending them to New York, where I won’t be for another few weeks. I promise to round up cool cookbooks that are really worthwhile additions to your kitchens. If a paper galley has been sent out of other books, I will get to those, too, when I’m back home.
Chinese and Any Other Asian: Exploring South and South East Asian Identity in Britain by Anna Sulan Masing
Out September 25, 2025 in the U.S. but can be purchased from UK retailers
A rigorously researched and wildly entertaining critique of the “boxes” the state and borders enforce, with moments of breathtaking poetry within the prose. Food has its own chapter but is threaded throughout.
Love, Queenie: Merle Oberon, Hollywood's First South Asian Star by Mayukh Sen
Out March 4, 2025
Sen is a master of the biography as a form. I’m so thrilled to see him inhabit this talent in service to film, his true love, rather than food, and I think he will find new readers while still delighting the old.
Dirty Kitchen: A Memoir of Food and Family by Jill Damatac
Out May 6, 2025
A stunning memoir of undocumented life, the colonial history of the Philippines, and the role of food and recipes in shaping one’s self despite violence by government and intimates.
An A-Z of Chinese Food (Recipes Not Included) by Jenny Lau
Out now in the UK
This is a sort of anti-glossary that complicates and personalizes Chinese cuisine, which Lau has seen be commodified into near-meaninglessness. Here, she writes the meanings anew.
Trauma Plot: A Life by Jamie Hood
Out March 25, 2025
Like Damatac in Dirty Kitchen, Hood reclaims the reality of trauma from those who have begun to roll their eyes at the chronicling of violence—as though it’s the survivor who should be silenced into shame. It is an enraging, affecting, stunning work and wildly inventive in its form by shifting the perspective, displaying the kind of honesty and literary rigor one would have come to expect from reading Hood’s short-form work.
Cellar Rat: My Life in the Restaurant Underbelly by Hannah Selinger
Out March 25, 2025
Selinger chronicles her time at restaurants both illustrious and not, and how she fell in love with the work despite the abusive men who tend to be in charge.
Queers at the Table: An Illustrated Guide to Queer Food (with Recipes) by Drs. Alexandra Ketchum and Megan Elias
Out October 7, 2025
This isn’t the only forthcoming book on queer food—John Birdsall’s What Is Queer Food? How We Served a Revolution is one of those books waiting for me—but it’s a really inventive illustrated anthology cookbook with essays and short pieces that make topics in academic food studies accessible to a popular audience.
The Desk Salon Series
This Sunday, I’ll be in conversation with Mayukh Sen about Love, Queenie and all attendees will also be able to ask him questions about his work. I look forward to seeing you all! Sign up here: It’s $10 for non-subscribers and free for paying subscribers, using the code in the email header.
What Is Food Writing? Workshop
On Tuesday, February 11, join me for a writing workshop that will include close reading of an array of essays and a talk on the history of food writing since M.F.K. Fisher’s emergence on the scene. I’ll break down styles of food writing, and we’ll discuss how the future of the genre is shaping up. The code for the paid subscriber discount is in the email header.
