As a strange smog ravages food crops and livestock around the world, a chef secures a position at an exclusive safe haven for the elite set in the Italian mountains in this virtuosic, sensuous meditation on finding pleasure amidst tragedy.
A rapturous novel about a young chef whose discovery of pleasure alters her life and, indirectly, the world.
A smog has spread. Food crops are disappearing. A chef escapes her career in London to take a job at a decadent mountaintop colony seemingly free of the world's troubles. There, her enigmatic employer and his visionary daughter have built a lush new life for the global elite, one that reawakens the chef to the pleasures of taste, touch and her own body.
In this atmosphere of hidden wonders and seductive violence, the chef's boundaries undergo a thrilling erosion. Soon she is pushed to the center of a startling attempt to reshape the world far beyond the plate.
Sensuous and surprising, joyous and bitingly sharp, told in alluring language, Land of Milk and Honey is a striking novel about food, sex and the intricacies of desire and longing.
Publisher: Cornerstone
ISBN: 9781529153668
Number of pages: 240
Weight: 350 g
Dimensions: 223 x 143 x 23 mm
Truly superb - Douglas Stuart
A brilliant, near-future fairytale, LAND OF MILK AND HONEY is the most sensuous novel about food I've ever read - Emma Donoghue
It’s a captivating story that is alien without being too far-fetched. Zhang’s writing is laden with metaphors – particularly around food and sex – and while this could risk being overwritten, it fits the story perfectly. It’s a genius balance of page-turning storytelling and lyrical prose - Independent
Sensual . . . This is a rich novel of ideas, insisting on moral complexity in the end times. It’s also a startling prose hymn to food and sex, love and violence, power and resistance - Guardian
Zhang constructs an unsettling, vertiginous world. Her ornate style reflects the opulence her characters guard so closely, her command of sensory language is impressive, and it’s hard not be mesmerised by prose that is as rich and as startling as the food her protagonist prepares - Observer
It's rare to read anything that feels this unique. A richly imagined, ambitious, and haunting novel - Gabrielle Zevin
Land of Milk and Honey is truly exceptional - Roxane Gay
Zhang writes with the same fierce artistry, vivid detail and microscopic precision that would make even her own Michelin-star characters proud – an exceptionally and uniquely written tale of greed, optimism and the pursuit of perfection in the face of scarcity - Sofia Akel
Land of Milk and Honey is a sharp, sensual piece of art. Zhang writes about the appetites of the body, the uneasy coexistence of scarcity and plenty, and the pleasure and debasement of what is surrendered to survive. This is an incredible exploration of whether it is possible to preserve one's art when answering to a master that is not yourself. When I read I'm always searching for pleasure, for the want, and this book helped me feel something - Raven Leilani
Land of Milk and Honey is as much a parable as a novel about the murky morals of the 0.1 per cent club. Required reading for them and a tasty treat for everyone else - iNews
No one writes like C. Pam Zhang. Ferocious, sensual, and all consuming, Land of Milk and Honey is both a heartsick elegy for a world we are on the verge of losing and vibrant homage to pleasure and appetite. This book swallowed me whole and spit me out changed in the best way: buzzing, astonished, and alive - Rachel Khong
This is an astounding book - Caleb Azumah Nelson
A brilliant, all-too-prescient novel. Extraordinary in its prose, vision, and power, Land of Milk and Honey is a triumph of a book to devour now and to treasure through the ages - R.O. Kwon
A twelve-course feast for the senses and intellect. C Pam Zhang is one of the most talented novelists writing today, and she has given us a novel that is original and painful and sensuous, a honey-and-acid tasting menu exploring pleasure, loss, sex, power, and resurrection - Sarah Thankam Mathews
A dazzling, virtuosic meditation on seeking joy amid tragedy, beauty amid ruin. As hypnotic as it is profound, Land of Milk and Honey showcases C Pam Zhang's singular talent - Kirstin Chen
Gorgeous. What a delicious world Zhang has created-full of so much wonder. I'll be thinking for a long time about what this novel says about desire and morality; what it means to try to stave off extinction of oneself and world; what happens when we are forced to reckon with the lies we've spent years telling ourselves - Kat Chow
C Pam Zhang is an intoxicating and fearless prose stylist who seems to invent a new language with each book. . . the incantatory rhythms of desire that power [the novel] serve us horror and pleasure in each bite - Meng Jin
Intoxicating, timely, and beautifully written. Pam Zhang's exquisite prose and prodigious talents are pushed to their brink in her new, dazzling novel - Jamil Jan Kochai
An extremely atmospheric novel about the interplay of environmental destruction and class. The bittersweet aftertaste will leave you considering what you’d be willing to do — or resist doing — to experience the most essential pleasure - The Washington Post
This was an odd book, and not always in a good way. I enjoyed the beginning and the idea of escaping the smog and the decadence of those living in the land of milk and honey. After that though I found myself... More
Land of Milk and Honey was a delightfully strange read. It opens with a smog has spread across the world decimating crops and livestock and we follow a woman who has been brought in to interview to be the chef at an... More
This is one of the best books I have ever read. From the very first page I was stunned by Zhang's writing; the sensuous, experimental, incisive, delectable and ultimately hopeful way she writes is unlike any... More
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