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NPR Plug for BEAT THIS!

On NPR’s All Things Considered, novelist Elizabeth Berg recommended the cookbook Beat This! by Ann Hodgman, along with its companion, Beat That!, propelling the books to #124 and #128 on Amazon. However, they’re 1999 titles that are currently out of stock; no word yet from the publisher on whether or not they will reprint, but we’ll let you know what we hear.  At least 127 libraries have Beat This! and 272 libraries have Beat That!, according to World Cat.

Berg said she has probably recommended Beat This! more often than any other book, calling it “a humor book and a self-help book and a security blanket and a kind of bible.” The bulk of the recipes are for “familiar and beloved foods,” but Hodgman “makes them better,” she explains. Plus Hodgman has wit, according to Berg: when it comes to her buttercrunch, Hodgman says, “Master this recipe, and you control the world.”

Berg even manages to get in some further book recommendations when she offers the following recipe: 1. Buy Beat This! 2. Go to page 64, and make that roast chicken. 3. While it’s in the oven, lie on the sofa and read Susan Fletcher’s exquisite novel Oystercatchers. Or Flaubert’s Madame Bovary. Or any short story by Alice Munro. Or Rita Dove’s poetry. Or E.B. White’s essays.

Beat This! Cookbook
Ann Hodgman
Retail Price: $16.00
Paperback: 208 pages
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt – (1999-10-07)
ISBN / EAN: 0395971772 / 9780395971772

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Beat That! Cookbook
Ann Hodgman
Retail Price: $15.00
Paperback: 208 pages
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt – (1999-10-07)
ISBN / EAN: 0395971780 / 9780395971789

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 4th, 2009 at 3:42 pm and is filed under Cookbooks. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

One Response to “NPR Plug for BEAT THIS!”

  1. Catherine Seiberling Pond Says:
    August 4th, 2009 at 11:19 pm

    Best cookbooks ever and somewhere I even have a stash that I bought, remaindered, to give to friends. They’re that good.

    I even blogged about them on our bookgroup blog at http://www.TalkingCupcakes.blogspot.com the day before the NPR piece aired. How weird is that?

    Catherine Seiberling Pond

    http://www.CatherinePond.com
    http://www.InthePantry.blogspot.com
    http://www.TalkingCupcakes.blogspot.com