Cooking and Stealing: The Tin House Nonfiction Reader

by Win McCormack (Editor)

Edited by the same team responsible for 2003's popular Tin House fiction anthology Bestial Noise, this selection of dazzling nonfiction encapsulates everything readers love about Tin House: the magazine's lively intelligence, wide-ranging curiosity, and sense of fun. Here is the best of the first twenty issues, including Jeffrey Eugenides on living above a Nazi bunker in Berlin, Jo Ann Beard on the life and death of one of Jack Kevorkian's last patients, Russell Banks on adapting novels to the screen, and Czeslaw Milosz on fellow poet Joseph Brodsky. Celebrating both Tin House's themed issues (Sex, Hollywood, Music, Lies) and the magazine's various regular departments-Readable Feasts, Pilgrimages, Lost and Found books-Cooking and Stealing gathers remarkable essays on diverse subjects from some of today's most compelling writers, confirming why the Village Voice has declared: "Tin House may very well represent the future of literary magazines."

Genres: Essays, Nonfiction, Anthologies, Short Stories

320 pages, Paperback

First published September 28, 2004

About the author

Win McCormack is an American publisher and editor from Oregon.

He is editor-in-chief of Tin House magazine and Tin House Books, the former publisher of Oregon Magazine, and founder and treasurer of MediAmerica, Inc. He serves on the board of directors of the journal New Perspectives Quarterly. His political and social writings have appeared in Oregon Humanities, Tin House, The Nation, The Oregonian, and Oregon Magazine. McCormack's investigative coverage of the Rajneeshee movement was awarded a William Allen White Commendation from the University of Kansas and the City and Regional Magazine Association. His latest book, You Don’t Know Me: A Citizen's Guide to Republican Family Values, examines the sex scandals of Republican politicians who espouse "moral values."

As a political activist, McCormack served as Chair of the Oregon Steering Committee for Gary Hart's 1984 presidential campaign. He is chair of the Democratic Party of Oregon's President's Council and a member of the Obama for President Oregon Finance Committee. McCormack was also chosen as Alternate Delegate to the 2008 Democratic National Convention. He currently serves on the Oregon Council for the Humanities and the Oregon Tourism Commission. Additionally, McCormack sits on the Board of Overseers for Emerson College, and is a co-founder of the Los Angeles-based Liberty Hill Foundation

Reviews

[Erin Tuzuner · Rating 5 out of 5]

This should be required reading for any visitors to our planet wanting to gather the richness, wit, warmth, sorrow, and mordant humor of lives made complicated by circumstance, change, and loss. As many humans identify as aliens in their own terra, they should read this too. From furries to recluses, history and memoir conspire to illustrate the kaleidoscopic nature of human experience. I'm not sure if my eyes were blurry from the range of colors, or the tears of emotional purging, but either way, my sight has been restored.

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

Uneven, but the pieces I enjoyed, I enjoyed very much.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

just reread this because of
The Lonely Doll (Jean Nathan)about kidlit writer dare wright
The Magnificent Frigate Bird (Abigail Thomas) about loving someone w/alzheimer's
Webb Pierce's "There Stands the Glass" (Ken Tucker) abouth the power of a single song
After You (Christopher Merrill) about poet shahid ali
Violation (Sallie Tisdale) about the thruth, interpetation and interuption of autobiography.

all powerful essays perfectly written.

[Patricia · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love the genre nonfiction/ personal essay. I enjoyed: Katie Roiphe's travelogue of Graham Green's Vietnam; Sara Roahen's essay Drinking my Inheritance; and Sally Tisdale's Violation. Russell Bank's essay No, But I saw the Movie was a hoot. Most of the other essays were OK, but a few were so weird, I skipped them after the first couple of pages.

[Beth]

"Undertaker Please Drive Slow" by Jo Ann Beard is awesome. The last paragraph... holy moly.

[Bonnie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyed these stories, especially "Violation" by Sallie Tisdale.

[Dee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jo Anne Beard's "Undertaker Please Drive Slow"

[Alyssa Knickerbocker · Rating 3 out of 5]

The genre-bending essay by Jo Ann Beard, "Undertaker Please Drive Slow," is worth the price of the whole anthology.

[Rand]

*sigh*

[Chris]

Advance reading copy, plain cover