THE UPSTAIRS DELICATESSEN

The longtime critic for the New York Times follows Garner’s Quotations with a more specialized sequel of the culinary sort, featuring plenty of literary insight.

“Reading and eating like Krazy and Ignatz, Sturm Und Drang, prosciutto and melon, Simon and Schuster, and radishes and butter, have always, for me, simply gone together,” writes Garner. “The book you’re holding is a product of these combined gluttonies.” Whether nestled at home with a magazine and a sandwich or stretched out on the floor of a local bookstore that allowed customers to peruse with a six-pack of beer in tow, the author has plotted a course through life that has included many of these mutual indulgences. An “omnidirectionally hungry human being,” Garner has always paid attention to what has entered and exited the mouths and minds of writers. The narrative passes seamlessly between quotes and stories of literary and cultural greats, and this undeniably enjoyable wander through digestive habit has absurd and hilarious heights. One particular highlight is a brief tangent on Mario Puzo, of Godfather fame, leaving a Swiss “fat farm,” taking a cab 300 miles, and breaking his fast with a Parisian pizza. Chapters proceed through the major and minor meals of the day and can blend at times into a culinary reverie. Garner’s wit and dexterity with a quote will keep any reader with something tasty to eat or drink in hand captivated at least until they run out of snacks. The author offers something to sate any hunger for culinary minutiae. “I read,” he notes, “out of an accelerated sense of what Tina Brown, in her Vanity Fair Diaries, called ‘observation greed.’ I’ve looked to novels and memoirs and biographies and diaries and cookbooks and books of letters for advice about how to live, the way cannibals ate the brains of brilliant captives, seeking to grow brilliant themselves.”

A wonderful mix of culinary memoir, literary reference, how-to in indulgence. Grab some snacks and dig in.