At the beginning of the summer, I put a few books on hold at my local library. I wasn’t quite expecting nearly all of them to show up at the same time! I’ve finally gotten out of my reading slump, so I took it as a sign to make even more time for reading this summer. My most recent finished book is Save Me the Plums by Ruth Reichl.
Save Me the Plums a memoir about Ruth’s time at Gourmet magazine. Of course, I’ve always known about Gourmet magazine but I’ve never read it. The magazine was closed before I really got into food magazines, so I knew virtually nothing about the magazine before going into this book.
Ruth Reichl was the last editor of Gourmet. A fan of Gourmet since she was little, she was brought on at a time when the magazine was failing. That alone was pretty extraordinary, given she had never been an editor before. Ruth was a well-known food critic writing in LA when she was approached by S.I. Newhouse about coming on board as the new editor in chief. The book is largely about her tenure at the magazine and partly about how it affected her personal life.
I went into this book knowing zilch about the magazine publishing world, and you really don’t need to know anything about it to enjoy this book. Personally, I love and enjoy food and cooking very much. The small slice of food and magazine history in this book was so interesting, because Ruth was the editor at a time when the magazine world and the food world were changing.
The story was very interesting and engaging, and I highly recommend it to any foodies out there. Memoirs, as a genre, can err on the side of boring depending on the writer. I really enjoyed Ruth’s writing style. I like to describe it as listening to a story told by a friend. It was a really enjoyable read!
Rebecca has been writing about style, beauty, and lifestyle topics since 2011. Thank you so much for reading this post! Feel free to leave any questions or comments below. I love hearing from you!
