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Before Binh's decision is revealed, his mesmerizing narrative catapults us back to his youth in French-colonized Vietnam, his years as a galley hand at sea, and his days turning out fragrant repasts for the doyennes of the lost generation.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49514940104977,"sku":"CIN0618304002G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50296433017105,"sku":"CIN0618304002VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":50354947752209,"sku":"CIN0618304002A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52372575224081,"sku":"GOR002447620","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0618304002.jpg?v=1750943796"},{"product_id":"bitter-in-the-mouth-book-monique-truong-9780812981322","title":"Bitter in the Mouth","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eFrom the author of \u003ci\u003eThe Sweetest Fruits\u003c\/i\u003e, a brilliant, virtuosic novel about a young woman's search for identity and the true meaning of family.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eWhat I know about you, little girl, would break you in two\u003c\/i\u003e are the prophetic last words that Linda Hammerick's grandmother says to her. Growing up in small-town North Carolina in the 1970s and '80s, Linda already knows that she is profoundly different from everyone else, including the members of her own family. She can taste words. In this and in other ways, her body is a mystery to her. Linda's awkward girlhood is nonetheless enlivened and emboldened by her dancing great-uncle Harper, and Kelly, her letter-writing best friend. Linda makes her way north to college and then to New York City, trying her best to leave her past behind her like a pair of shoes that no longer fit. But when a family tragedy compels her to return home, Linda uncovers the startling secrets of her past. Monique Truong's acclaimed novel questions our assumptions about what it means to be a family and to be a friend, to be foreign and to be familiar, to be connected to and disconnected from our bodies, our histories, ourselves. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49525484126481,"sku":"CIN0812981324G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50140832530705,"sku":"CIN0812981324VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51008040632593,"sku":"NIN9780812981322","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":53477449302289,"sku":"CIN0812981324A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0812981324.jpg?v=1750946879"},{"product_id":"book-of-salt-book-monique-truong-9780618446889","title":"The Book of Salt","description":"He] came to us through an advertisement that I had in desperation put in the newspaper. 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Before Binh's decision is revealed, his mesmerizing narrative catapults us back to his youth in French-colonized Vietnam, his years as a galley hand at sea, and his days turning out fragrant repasts for the doyennes of the lost generation.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49551294824721,"sku":"GOR001889969","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49611758862609,"sku":"GOR005480657","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49616841736465,"sku":"CIN0618446885G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":50038837018897,"sku":"CIN0618446885A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50215594656017,"sku":"CIN0618446885VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":50983991083281,"sku":"NIN9780618446889","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ WELL_READ \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51247553544465,"sku":"GOR014208113","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0618446885.jpg?v=1767435100"},{"product_id":"bitter-in-the-mouth-book-monique-truong-9780099474746","title":"Bitter In The Mouth","description":"Growing up in Boiling Springs, North Carolina, in the '70s and '80s, Linda Hammerick knows that she is different. She has strong, almost paralysing associations between words and tastes; she doesn't look like everyone else; and she isn't popular at school. She finds her way through life with the help of her great uncle 'Baby' Harper, who loves her and loves to dance, and her best friend fat-thin-fat Kelly with whom she has been exchanging letters since they were seven. 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Paris, 1934, 'Thin Bin', as they call him, has accompanied his employers, Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, to the station for their departure to America. His own destination is unclear: will he go with 'the Steins', stay in France, or return to his native Vietnam? Binh fled his homeland in disgrace, leaving behind his malevolent charlatan of a father and his self-sacrificing mother. For five years, he has been the personal cook at the famous apartment on the rue de Fleurus. Before Binh's decision is revealed, we are catapulted back to his youth in French-colonized Indo China, where he learned to cook in the embassy kitchens, his years as a galley hand at sea, and his days turning out fragrant repasts for the doyennes of the Lost Generation. Binh knows far more than what the Steins eat: he knows their routines and intimacies, their food and follies. With wry insight, we see Stein and Toklas ensconced in rueful domesticity. But is Binh's account reliable? A lost soul, he is a late-night habitue of the Paris demi-monde, an exile and an alien, a man of musings, memories, and possibly lies, susceptible to drink and occasional self-mutilation with a kitchen knife...Love is the prize that has eluded him, from his family to the men he has sought out in his farflung journeys, often at his peril and more recently with risk to Stein's manuscript notebooks. Intricate, compelling, and witty, the novel weaves in historical characters, from Stein and Toklas to Paul Robeson and Ho Chi Minh, with remarkable originality. Tastes, oceans, sweat, tears -- The Book of Salt is an inspired novel about food and exile, love and betrayal.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49581102629137,"sku":"GOR004253324","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ WELL_READ \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49646745682193,"sku":"GOR003964762","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50818110062865,"sku":"GOR014085091","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0701175222.jpg?v=1750816563"},{"product_id":"sweetest-fruits-book-monique-truong-9780735221017","title":"The Sweetest Fruits","description":"\u003cb\u003e\u003cb\u003eA sublime, many-voiced novel of voyage and reinvention (Anthony Marra)\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003e Truong] imagines the extraordinary lives of three women who loved an extraordinary man  and] creates distinct, engaging voices for these women (\u003ci\u003eKirkus Reviews\u003c\/i\u003e)\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eA Greek woman tells of how she willed herself out of her father's cloistered house, married an Irish officer in the British Army, and came to Ireland with her two-year-old son in 1852, only to be forced to leave without him soon after. An African American woman, born into slavery on a Kentucky plantation, makes her way to Cincinnati after the Civil War to work as a boarding house cook, where in 1872 she meets and marries an up-and-coming newspaper reporter. In Matsue, Japan, in 1891, a former samurai's daughter is introduced to a newly arrived English teacher, and becomes the mother of his four children and his unsung literary collaborator. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThe lives of writers can often best be understood through the eyes of those who nurtured them and made their work possible. In \u003ci\u003eThe Sweetest Fruits\u003c\/i\u003e, these three women tell the story of their time with Lafcadio Hearn, a globetrotting writer best known for his books about Meiji-era Japan. In their own unorthodox ways, these women are also intrepid travelers and explorers. Their accounts witness Hearn's remarkable life but also seek to witness their own existence and luminous will to live unbounded by gender, race, and the mores of their time. Each is a gifted storyteller with her own precise reason for sharing her story, and together their voices offer a revealing, often contradictory portrait of Hearn. With brilliant sensitivity and an unstinting eye, Truong illuminates the women's tenacity and their struggles in a novel that circumnavigates the globe in the search for love, family, home, and belonging.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49584994812177,"sku":"GOR010856362","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49772521455889,"sku":"CIN0735221014G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50357640266001,"sku":"CIN0735221014VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":50359949000977,"sku":"CIN0735221014A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0735221014.jpg?v=1750880941"},{"product_id":"bitter-in-the-mouth-book-monique-truong-9780701177584","title":"Bitter In The Mouth","description":"'The truth about my family is that we disappointed one another. 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Truong draws on her own experience as a child of Vietnamese parents in a small Southern town to give us an intricate, irresistible novel about a young woman discovering who she is and where she belongs.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49619773423889,"sku":"GOR007141830","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51392125960465,"sku":"GOR002720681","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ WELL_READ \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52384377536785,"sku":"GOR012267919","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0701177586.jpg?v=1750944414"},{"product_id":"bitter-in-the-mouth-book-monique-truong-9781400069088","title":"Bitter in the Mouth","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eFrom the author of \u003ci\u003eThe Sweetest Fruits\u003c\/i\u003e, a brilliant, virtuosic novel about a young woman's search for identity and the true meaning of family.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eWhat I know about you, little girl, would break you in two\u003c\/i\u003e are the prophetic last words that Linda Hammerick's grandmother says to her. 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Their accounts witness Hearn's remarkable life but also seek to witness their own existence and luminous will to live unbounded by gender, race, and the mores of their time. Each is a gifted storyteller with her own precise reason for sharing her story, and together their voices offer a revealing, often contradictory portrait of Hearn. With brilliant sensitivity and an unstinting eye, Truong illuminates the women's tenacity and their struggles in a novel that circumnavigates the globe in the search for love, family, home, and belonging.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51416127504657,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51416128487697,"sku":"CIN0735221022G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":52812725813521,"sku":"CIN0735221022VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":53409457766673,"sku":"NIN9780735221024","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0735221022.jpg?v=1751232037"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/en-au\/collections\/author-books-by-monique-truong.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}