Long ago, before graduate school and summarising five books a week by skimming their introductions and conclusions, I read novels. Big, important novels. Novels that made you stay up all night reading them, thrilled to find out what happened next. Now, I read Agatha Christie. I thought I no longer had the ability to read any fiction more challenging than that. (The irony of working in a library is not lost on me, people.) So when I tell you that finally, after Siobhan and others recommended this book to me years and years ago, I read My Year of Meats practically in one sitting, I want you to be duly impressed. I feel like one of those people who was illiterate and can now pick my way through Dick and Jane.

*Great* book, too. I don't know how on earth she managed to combine cross-cultural commentary, a love story, a tale of marital abuse, recipes, and an expose of the American meat industry into one novel. Strange and wonderful.