There are many similarities between eating and reading; epicurean tastes varying from person to person, a voracious appetite and a predeliction towards the unusual. This book is a record of those eccentricities.

“The Upstairs Delicatessen: On Eating, Reading, Reading About Eating, and Eating While Reading, by Dwight Garner (NetGalley Shelf App (EPUB), Farrar, Straus and Giroux, ISBN 9780374603427, Publication Date 30 November 2023), earns four strong stars.

Dwight Garner penned a clever piece of work and a charming memoir that reveals how important what we eat (and when) is to who we are (and why). The approach is entrancing, taking us through the day’s meals and activities (even including naps). This entrancing journey not only reveals our makeup, but also why who and what we are is no accident. All of this is complemented by an accompanying theme of writers, writing, and books, all of which figures greatly in the author’s life and profession.

If you’re like me, you will be highlighting passages for later reference and contemplation and laughing aloud at his many musings and conclusions. It is definitely a book to be treasured by anyone who loves life and food…and reading. It’s a very stylish book and deserves a place on anyone’s favorite bookshelf.

Sincere thanks to the author, and Kindle Edition (PDF) and Farrar, Straus and Giroux Publishing, for granting this reviewer the opportunity to read this Advance Reader Copy (ARC), and thanks to NetGalley EPUB for helping to make that possible.

This book caught my eye and my interest for the food aspect as I love food, cooking, exploring and eating. Part of the blurb on this book really captured my imagination and made me want to read it even more.

"Reading and eating, like Krazy and Ignatz, Sturm und Drang, prosciutto and melon, Simon and Schuster, and radishes and butter, have always, for me, gone together. The book you’re holding is a product of these combined gluttonies."

This is a book you can pick up while having a cuppa and a snack, enjoying a story or two and then getting on with life. You then come back for more with a glass of wine and some cheese and crackers and again enjoy another story or two. That is what I love about this style of book. It is fun, enjoyable, entertaining!

Something different and interesting to read and that is also what I enjoyed. A book I would recommend to anyone who loves reading and loves their food. Enjoy!

Thank you NetGalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux for giving me the opportunity to read and review this book.

I love to eat while I read, always have.
This book was stupendous!
Thanks to author, publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book. While I got the book for free it had no bearing on the rating I gave it.

"The Upstairs Delicatessen" by Dwight Garner was an absolute delight from start to finish--I can't recommend this book enough. Organized in themed chapters entitled Breakfast, Lunch, Shopping, Drinking and Dinner, the book is a memoir, of sorts, of two of Garner's most important relationships: with food and with books. (His devotion to his wife, Cree, and his two children also comes through in the narrative.) In a breezy, conversational writing style, Garner takes us through his food memories, from comfort foods as humble as Hydrox cookies and milk after school to the almost ridiculous decadence of a 50-course lunch prepared by cookbook writer Nathan Myhrvold for him and El Bulli chef Ferran Adrià. Peppered liberally throughout are Garner's favorite literary excerpts about meals and eating as well as quotes from some of his favorite authors and personalities about food and drink. You'll love this book if you're either a foodie or a book lover, but if you happen to be both, your reading experience will be blissful. Make sure you have a pen in hand because you're going to want to highlight the entire book, and be forewarned that you will probably be unable to stop yourself from continually regaling anyone who happens to be in the vicinity with Garner's perfectly chosen quotes and witty asides. They will undoubtedly want to read the book, too--it is my new go-to hostess and birthday gift for practically everyone I know.

Thank you to NetGalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux for providing me with an ARC of this title in return for my honest review. I loved every bit!

Sometimes, I have a book that I think I will like, but after a few pages of reading it, I am wrong. I really tried to get into it, but I just could not do it.

Books and food, food and books. 2 of my absolute favorite things! This was a good book that I enjoyed reading. If you like food and books then you need to read this.
I just reviewed The Upstairs Delicatessen by Dwight Garner. #NetGalley
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A really wonderful read a perfect book for a foodie for someone who loves to read and if your a New York City lover this book is for you.The author had me laughing made me hungry and adding to my cookbook collection.Will be recommending this delightful memoir.#netgalley #fsg

A compendium of great quotes and stories about eating , drinking , and napping. What more can you want. Garner must have read every book, poem, memoir that touches on eating and drinking because he quotes great lines, stories and poem about those activities profusely through his book. And they are fabulous. This couple with the telling of his food experiences growing up and as an adult combine to make this book entertaining and informative. Highly recommended.

Synopsis: (from Netgalley, the provider of the book for me to review)
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Garner gathers a literary chorus to capture the joys of reading and eating in this comic, personal classic.
Reading and eating, like Krazy and Ignatz, Sturm und Drang, prosciutto and melon, Simon and Schuster, and radishes and butter, have always, for me, gone together. The book you’re holding is a product of these combined gluttonies.
Dwight Garner, the beloved New York Times critic and the author of Garner’s Quotations, serves up the intertwined pleasures of books and food. The product of a lifetime of obsessively reading, eating, and every combination therein, The Upstairs Delicatessen: On Eating, Reading, Reading About Eating, and Eating While Reading is a charming, emotional memoir, one that only Garner could write. In it, he records the voices of great writers and the stories from his life that fill his mind as he moves through the sections of the day and this book: breakfast, lunch, shopping, the occasional nap, drinking, and dinner.
Through his lifetime obsession with these twin joys, we meet the man behind the pages and the plates, and a portrait of Garner’s life, eager and insatiable, emerges. He writes with tenderness and humour about his mayonnaise-laden childhood in West Virginia and Naples, Florida (including his father’s famous peanut butter and pickle sandwich), his mind-opening marriage to a chef from a foodie family (“Cree grew up taking frog’s legs to school in her lunch box”), and the words and dishes closest to his heart. This book is to be savoured, though it may whet your appetite for more.

Food and books are the perfect match (as is a sweet pickle, cheese and PB Sandwich: his dad left out the cheese). This is a great memoir about eating and reading and growing up and it made me hungry reading it, although I am not sure that frog legs will be on my dinner plate anytime soon. Not a cookbook, but a love letter to food, I will recommend it to readers in our library system.